The State Has No Obligation to Protect You or Your Children
A hard pill to swallow, but life isn't a Blue Bloods episode. Not only does the state have no such obligation, it CAN'T protect everyone, everywhere at any time.
Children should be exposed to controlled risk so they can learn to manage it, they should never face existential risk; it is the job of adults to protect them from it. Learning to recognize and manage risk is important because when children become adults, they have a duty to teach the next generation about it as they assume the roles of protectors.
You might ask why the statist left never seems to be angered or concerned about waves of individual murders ongoing in major cities, even when the total number of dead over a typical Chicago weekend rival any mass murder event.
That would be a good question.
In my opinion, the reason the left pushes back so hard against real solutions for school mass murder, and solutions for mass murders in general, is that they are very prominent examples that government's promise to protect everybody in every situation is a myth that statists have sold forever.
That is also the reason government keeps no statistics on how many times individuals protect themselves, their families or property without state help or involvement.
The challenge of maintaining a civil society has always been how to deal with those who will not comply with the rules that preserve civility within that society. It is just human nature that any time more two or more people aggregate together, there is always the potential, almost a certainty, that there will be disagreement over those rules.
Most disagreements are resolvable through mutual consent. That is what consent of the governed is all about – even when there are situations with which some do not agree, for the good of the society, some people must bury their opposition and acquiesce to the will of the majority for the sake of a peaceful existence and social cohesion.
It becomes difficult when deviations from established rules, committed by a minority, are so heinous, they shock the conscience of that society. Even more so, the stress imparted on a cohesive, peaceful society increases almost to a breaking point when the deviations implicate an implicit right belonging to every member of that society (whether every member values those rights or not).
Mass murders, especially mass murders of children, are such deviations.
Also, we must be aware of the ongoing war of linguistics.
I try not to use the phrases “school shootings” or “mass shootings” because they are being used to describe mass murder, and they are being used for specific political purposes rather than descriptive purposes.
For example, we don't term the Holocaust as "mass Zyklon-B exposure" because the method of execution of Jews is immaterial. The Holocaust is recognized as mass murder organized and conducted by specific murderers.
In the Nuremberg trials, those responsible were held so, and received just punishment. Those who escaped were hunted the world over until they received what was coming to them.
My point is that the world didn't focus on the method of murder, but the people behind it.
The world also did not ban poison gasses because poison gasses still have societal value. Zyklon gas was hydrogen cyanide (HCN), a gas that is in use today as a commercial fumigant in food production facilities, silos, and ships to kill insect pests.
And yet "mass shootings" and the even more provocative "school shootings" are both phrases used to implicate the method used - even though both are examples of mass murder.
These terms are defined in different ways, depending on the impact desired, but there is one commonality, the use of the word "shooting", a specific word that ties these murders to the method - firearms.
But despite the attempts of leftist, anti-firearms Democrats to severely restrict firearms or ban them outright, firearms have a definite, definable, salient societal value. In an interesting twist, these “ban all the things that scare me” people prove that premise to be true through their own actions.
Never noted for intellectual consistency, progressives are now simultaneously arguing:
You don't need a firearm for personal protection because we have the police, but
Police should be defunded because they can't be trusted and are dangerous to public safety.
Most people in America also believe the "To Protect and Serve" motto cops have painted on their patrol cars and the image of police as portrayed in popular television depictions like Chicago P.D and Blue Bloods.
But most people are wrong to believe either of those.
You may be disgusted by the delays of police to act at Parkland or Uvalde, but the reality is this:
The police have no duty to protect you.
The Supreme Court says so.
Resting upon the cases DeShaney v. Winnebago and Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court has established that police agencies are not obligated to provide protection of citizens and are well within their rights to pick and choose when to intervene to protect the lives and property of others — even when a threat is apparent.
On top of that, perpetrators who have been injured in the commission of a crime have been allowed to sue their victims, most suits are dismissed, but there are cases of the criminal winning – regardless, it costs time and money to defend against even a frivolous suit, an undeserved punishment for any victim.
Then there is the scourge of leftist, Soros backed, DA’s in major US cities, who believe crime is caused by laws designed to oppress blacks and the poor, and are practicing revolving door "justice" by releasing criminals back to the streets.
But according to the formulation of the Law of Salutary Contradiction I noted a while back, you never need a firearm – until you do.
I want as close to truth, that I can get!
When seconds count, the police will stand around “evaluating” for 40 minutes or more.