ISRA Informational Alert - February 25, 2018
Published: Sun, 02/25/18
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ISRA Informational Alert - February 25, 2018
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Informational Alert
“And he dug up her grave and built a cage with her bones… Excitable boy, they all said… Well, he's just an excitable boy…” The old time Rock’n’Rollers among you will recognize those lyrics as coming from the late Warren Zevon’s immortal 1978 song, “Excitable Boy.” In that song, Zevon tells the tale of a disturbed young man whose antics elicit little reaction from the town folk until, one night, he rapes and murders the high school prom queen. Zevon’s lilting ditty about this “excitable boy” has proven eerily predictive of events occurring in the 4 decades since it hit the charts. Laurie Dann was the “weird chick down the street” who was the butt of many a joke around Skokie. But Laurie Dann wasn’t so funny that day in May of 1988 when she stormed into Hubbard Woods Elementary School and killed little Nick Corwin with a revolver before shooting two other children and then herself. As Dunblane’s resident “funny uncle,” scoutmaster Thomas Hamilton was the object of countless snickers and sneers and his rumored collection of photographs of naked young boys was all the buzz about town. Oddball Hamilton wasn’t such a funny uncle when, on March 13, 1996, he blasted his way into the Dunblane Elementary School and snuffed out the lives of 16 children and 1 teacher. Neighbors found Martin Bryant’s very public, and very romantic interludes with his pet pig to be quite amusing. However, residents of Port Arthur, Australia weren’t so amused in late April of 1996 when Bryant drove around town shooting 35 people to death and wounding scores of others. All the kids in Jefferson County, Colorado considered Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to be a couple of weirdos, dorks. Outcasts Klebold and Harris reached the pinnacle of dorkiness when, on April 20, 1999, the pair used guns and bombs to mercilessly mow down almost 3-dozen students and faculty at Columbine High School. Thirteen of those souls perished. Seung-Hui Cho was a poster child for severe mental illness. Cho’s psychotic behavior was near-legendary around the Virginia Tech campus. If ever there was a guy who should have been locked up in an institution, it was Cho. Unfortunately, officials could muster up little more than suggestions to Cho that he go to counseling sessions. Cho’s dark side suggested that he go a step further. On April 16, 2007, Cho listened to his psychotic impulses and shot 49 fellow students – killing 32 of them. Coloradoan James Holmes often told his shrink about his fantasies in which he murdered multiple persons. The shrink found Holmes merely to be an interesting subject. Holmes later became even more interesting when, on July 20, 2012, he gunned down over 70 theater patrons – 12 of whom were mortally wounded. From the time he was 3 years old, it was evident that Adam Lanza was a mental and emotional defect. Defects identified by specialists included: communication and sensory difficulties; socialization delays; repetitive behaviors; sensory-integration disorder, sensory processing disorder; autism; anxiety; Asperger’s Syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia, and schizophrenia. Consequently, it was determined that Lanza was too deficient to attend school. On November 30, 2012, Adam Lanza returned to Sandy Hook Elementary School one last time so he could murder over 20 students and teachers before putting a pistol to his own head and taking the coward’s way out. At the end of the Zevon song, the community shows that it has learned nothing and, after 10 years of internment, the “excitable boy” is released back to the community where he picks up right where he left off. Likewise, Americans have apparently learned nothing from decades of mass murder by crazed sociopaths. Witness the case of Nikolas Cruz. By all accounts, Nikolas Cruz was every bit as mentally defective as was Adam Lanza. However, whereas Lanza was relatively passive, Cruz was impulsive, sadistic, and violent. Cruz was well known for cruelty to small animals, violent outbursts against those who were kind to him, acts of self-mutilation, felonious threats, and a host of other bizarre behaviors. The fact that the police made over 3-dozen visits to his home over the past 2 years is more than noteworthy. Yet, despite all the warning signs, Cruz was able to enter the Douglas school in Parkland, Florida on Valentine’s Day with rifle in hand. Unmolested, Cruz tripped the fire alarm and then systematically executed 17 people while wounding a dozen or so more. Dann, Hamilton, Bryant, Klebold, Harris, Cho, Holmes, Lanza, Cruz – just a bunch of excitable boys and girls. America, and much of the world for that matter, has spent the last half-century operating under the misguided notion that we have to learn to live with sociopaths rather than sociopaths having to learn to live by society’s rules. As a matter of principle, every ounce of compassion possible should be extended to our mentally ill citizens. However, the line must be drawn when the safety of the rest of us is at stake. In keeping with what is now a disappointing tradition, Americans have responded to the Parkland crimes by circling the wagons and pointing all the guns inward. Fingers of blame are being pointed at the NRA, at President Trump, and at every other right-leaning institution. Indeed, fingers of blame are being pointed every which way – except at ourselves for our failure to learn the terrifying lessons that come with trying to integrate people with serious mental illness into civil society. And, in the aftermath of Parkland, it is chillingly evident that we are unable or unwilling to broach the subject of reining in psychopaths. Instead, the politics of the day are focused on individuals who pose zero threat to social order. Thanks to our friends at CNN, we were provided with a glimpse into the politics of blaming the blameless. On 21 February, CNN hosted a “town hall” on so-called “gun violence” attended by Parkland parents and students. On the stage in the center of the arena was a panel of politicians, law-enforcement personnel, and issues advocates. Those of us who watched the televised event – which quickly became a CNN circus of the absurd - gained some important lessons-learned and reminders of things we knew already. First and foremost, the CNN town hall reminded us why Marco Rubio will never be elected President. In short order, Rubio allowed himself to be bullied on-stage into agreement with a host of gun control measures including a limitation on magazine capacity. We were also reminded that a political hack…is a political hack…is a political hack. It was both maddening and somewhat amusing to watch Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel blame the NRA, the Constitution, and everybody else under the sun for his department’s inability to get Nikolas Cruz taken off the street. And now we learn that no less than 3 of Broward County’s finest were on the scene at the time of the massacre but preferred to cower in a courtyard rather than to engage Cruz and protect those children. If Sheriff Scott Israel had any sense of duty at all, he would have uttered only 4 words on the CNN stage, “I’m sorry…I resign.” There was a refreshing display of courage at the CNN event provided by the NRA’s Dana Loesch. Dana did a commendable job defending liberty against bleating NEA shills and snowflakes with bad barbers. One can only wonder what Ted Nugent would have done had he been on that stage. As it stands, America is playing a dangerous game by focusing ire on the sane elements of society while coddling all the “excitable boys” out there. Americans would do well to keep in mind that the social engineers have unleashed a legion of guys like Nikolas Cruz to infest our schools, our theaters, our churches, our trains, our planes, our buses… ------------------- Help the ISRA protect your rights: Recruit one member. Check out ISRA's webite at www.isra.org! Tell us what you think! |