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Our Culture Is Seriously Ill

I was not shocked by the murders at Santa Fe High School. Whenever there has been a mass murder, I just wonder how many and where the next mass murders will be. A society that trades the Second Amendment for a toddler killed every four days by firearms is practicing blood sacrifice and is seriously ill.  We also kill 75 pre-schoolers a year with firearms. Our politicians are worshipping at the altars of Big Gun. We don’t even blink at the fact that we have over 300 million unregistered, unaccountable firearms all over this Big Gun country.

A lot of people who should have known better were shocked that 17 year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis murdered ten and wounded 13. The governor said: “There were not those types of warning signs.” Santa Few school administrators, teachers, and students must have all been living in some kind of fantasy land not to pick up all the signs—all the so-called “RED FLAGS!”  His parents, an executive and a nurse, said they were shocked their son would do such a thing. If their eyes were wide open they saw nothing. Sure, the kid had a clean crime record. Yes, occasionally he made the honor roll in middle and high school. OK, he danced Greek dances in his Greek Orthodox Church. And he was on the junior varsity football team. A kind of All-American kid to some. His father said he was a “solid boy.”

But Here Are The Red Flags—The Signs This Kid Was A Real School Shooter

Well, here’s his real solid boy:

1.  He wore a black trench coat to school and other places, even in the hottest weather. He wore it so much football coaches and students said he “stunk.” A fellow player said he “smelled like crap.” One does perspire in Houston weather. Remember Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold of Columbine High School fame? They also wore black trench coats and “stunk.” They became famous by killing 12 students and one teacher in their high school—while spreading bombs around the school. Evidently Dimitrios wanted to be famous like that sociopathic pair.

2.  Before the shooting he posted a picture of a black T-shirt on his Facebook account with the adage “BORN TO KILL” in graphic white.

3. On a jacket he wore he pinned several buttons. One button symbolized the Hammer and Sickle of the Communist Party which represented rebellion. He also pinned on Germany’s Iron Cross, a medal given for bravery in combat. He had a pin of Japan’s Rising Sun flag which represented the tactics of suicidal kamikaze pilots. How many high school kids know the history of the Knights Templar’s Baphomet, a deity with the shape of a Sabbatic goat, which represented evil? Dimitrios had a pin representing it. Evidently he is also a follower of science fiction. He had a large pin representing Cthullu for power. I wonder what his IQ is.

4. When students joked to him that he looked just like the Columbine killers, he ‘laughed’ it off.  Why didn’t they report him to somebody if they knew about Columbine? They are not laughing now.

5.  When he wore his long black trench coat he also parked his car on the other side of the parking lot, the furthest spot from the school. This is weird, I don’t know what it means---but to him it meant something.

6. He likes very heavy metal music as many neo-Nazis do—and like some of our neighbors do. His friends said he liked to study about World War II a lot, and had a particular interest in well-designed German weapons. He said they were “cool looking.”

7.  On his Facebook page he has detailed instructions on how to pronounce his name (“di-MI-tree-oas pag-OR-cheez”). (So it would be pronounced correctly in history???)

8.  Although he was a dancer in his Greek church, on Facebook he described himself as an atheist and that he hated politics.

9.   After the shooting, authorities discovered journals written on his computer about the plans to shoot up his school—and to commit suicide after the shooting.

10. Neighbors, students, and teachers described him often as being a very quiet kid who often kept to himself.
Except when he brought a shotgun armed with buckshot rounds and a .38 revolver to school to kill kids he didn’t like.

What Are We Going To Do To Protect Kids In Schools?

There have been 22 school shootings in 2018, and with three weeks of school left, no doubt there will be another mass killing somewhere. We average one school shooting a week.  One might think Santa Fe, Texas with 13,000 people and more than a dozen churches with all those thoughts and prayers would not be a killing site. That’s not the way it works. With six percent of the population mentally bonkers at any one time, there’s a group of 18 million out there ready to kill people someplace. Nobody knows where. The Fargo metro area could be next. Instead of talking about a society absolutely awash with guns ranging from little .22 derringers to military assault rifles to .50 caliber sniper rifles, we are talking about steel armored doors, bullet-proof windows, clear backpacks, bullet-proof shields that students can hold, lockdown drills, hiding under desks, more cops and guns in schools, armed teachers, metal detectors, armored vests, and other ideas too ridiculous to contemplate. Such as turning schools into prisons.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick recommended that all schools have just one entrance where every student would have to pass through. Hey! Maybe that would work! We have prisons with thousands of dangerous criminals who have to pass through one door! That is hardly thinking outside the box. That’s being stupid inside a steel box. A reporter wrote Santa Fe High School, a school designed for 1,400 students, has 86 outside doors. Oh, well. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said: “The problem is not guns, it’s hearts without God.” He suggested we have more guns available to protect society from gun violence. Evidently he has never read Plato or Aristotle about the science of logic. Evidence has always shown the more guns the more deaths by firearms. Texas Senator Ted Cruz added this pith to the Texas slime: “None of us knows why there’s evil in the world…..”

The Big Gun crowd, that is the National Rifle Association and its associated firearms manufacturers, is now trying to import a new Russian sniper rifle called the ORSIS  T-5000 for sale to American consumers. This rifle fires a .338 Papua Magnum round that can penetrate every known body armor at a range of 2,000 yards. That round is twice as powerful as the 7.62 military round. Boy, that will keep that school shooter away from that single school entrance!

It’s The Number Of Guns, Stupid!

We have a death by firearms every 15 minutes. We average 33,000 deaths and 100,000 wounded by firearms each year. Maybe sometime in the next few decades Americans will get smart enough to figure out why Japan has only ten deaths a year from firearms. Maintaining stupidity has become an art form in the United States. The NRA and its plenty-money-down politicians has opposed and voted down any official firearms research. Congress spends a lot of time approving grants to study major health problems. 

In the last forty years when we have had health problems causing death Congress has been quite liberal in approving grants. For a rabies problem that killed 65 people over a period of years Congress approved 89 grants. For a cholera epidemic which killed 400 it approved 212 grants. For a polio epidemic that killed 266 it approved 129 grants. For a diphtheria epidemic that killed 1,337 it approved 56 grants. For the constant pandemic of 4,000,000 deaths caused by firearms over the last forty years Congress has approved---three grants. Perhaps at the request of the incoming NRA president Marine Colonel Oliver North Congress should approve grants to study the effect of Ritalin on firearm deaths. North said after the Santa Fe murders: “Young boys who have been on Ritalin since they were in kindergarten turn into school shooters.”

Statistically, Schools Are Much Safer Than The Communities That Surround Them!

School time takes up only one-sixth of a student’s total hours, so student firearm deaths on school sites are only 3% of student gun homicides. The other 97% occur on the streets or at home. More students are killed at home, most by adults in the household. It’s not crazy to think that American students are much safer in schools! Every day 42 Americans are murdered daily. Just in the three months between Parkland and Santa Fe school shootings, over 4,000 Americans were murdered by firearms. In that same period over 7,000 committed suicide with a firearm. By the way, how do we keep track of the 200,000 firearms stolen each year? We don’t. We have no system.

Over the last 12 months a gun was fired in 63 American schools, including 24 that included deaths. We should point out that we have 130,000 public and private elementary and secondary schools attended by 52 million students taught by five million teachers. One of the NRA’s leading arguments about school safety is that teachers should be armed. Emperor Donald says 20% of teachers should be armed. Did he realize that would put 800,000 more guns in classrooms? Of course Big Gun would love to sell 800,000 more Glocks and AR-15s to school districts, particularly when gun sales have been declining since the age of Obama. The NRA and Big Gun always said he was going to take all the guns away! Vista Outdoor, the manufacturer of assault-style rifles, is complaining its sales are way down because of adverse publicity since Parkland.

Let’s remember one statistic: American kids of high school age are 82 times more likely to die from a firearm than 15-19-year-olds in the rest of the developed world. I repeat; “It’s The Number Of Guns, Stupid!” Germany has not had a school shooting since 2009. Great Britain has had none since 1996. Canada had one over two years ago. In the meantime our armed forces have been involved in wars around the world. We have had more firearm deaths in schools than in all military combat operations! Wake up, America! We are seriously ill from the gun culture poisons and need many antidotes.

Some school districts are really trying to come up with plans to ensure student safety. A superintendent in Pennsylvania has come up with an ingenious plan. He wants to equip each classroom in his district with a five-gallon bucket filled with river stones. If someone with an AR-15 enters the classroom he wants the students to bombard the guy with rocks! When asked if the kids would use slingshots, he said: “No, our kids have really good arms.” He wants to arm each teacher with pepper spray because he claims students can throw better than teachers. He doesn’t want kids to hide under desks. He wants them to start throwing immediately. The school supposedly has already collected a dump truck full of stones from a nearby river. Maybe Congress will give him a big grant.