CrimeElectionsPolitics

Is Broward Sheriff’s gun control call a distraction from inaction?

 

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel called for ousting politicians who oppose more gun control. (Screen capture, YouTube, MSNBC)

A stunning revelation by Fox News about the alleged school shooter in Wednesday’s mass killing at a Florida high school may raise questions about whether Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel’s Thursday night remarks about gun control was an off target distraction from his agency’s inaction.

Fox and the New York Post are reporting that over the past several years, police were called to the home of accused mass killer Nikolas Cruz 39 times. The Post notes in its report that “details about the calls to the Broward County Sheriff’s Office…were not immediately available and it was impossible to determine if all involved Cruz.” The police records were reportedly obtained by CNN, the newspaper said.

Still, the revelation puts an embarrassing context on the subject line of an email blast Friday morning from the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a gun control lobbying group. Their subject: “Inaction is not an option.” That message may best have been sent to Broward County authorities.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

According to published reports from the two news agencies, records show that police were called to the Cruz home as far back as 2010 when the suspect and his brother apparently were “out of control” and throwing things. As Fox reported Friday morning, “Despite the repeated calls to authorities, Cruz was never arrested – and was basically cleared as being “no threat to anyone or himself,” as one therapist said in a police report from Sept. 28, 2016.”

So when a Pacific Northwest gun prohibition organization declares that “those lives lost demand action from our elected officials,” perhaps the official at whom their righteous indignation should be addressed is Broward Sheriff Israel.

In their diatribe, the Alliance also trotted out a claim that the Washington Post has declared to be “flat wrong” in a Friday headline. The Alliance, like other anti-Second Amendment groups, claims that the Parkland tragedy was “the 18th school shooting of 2018.” But in a detailed analysis, two WaPo reporters have put the lie to that assertion. Here’s what the story said, in part:

“The figure originated with Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit group, co-founded by Michael Bloomberg, that works to prevent gun violence and is most famous for its running tally of school shootings. ‘This,’ the organization tweeted at 4:22 p.m. Wednesday, ‘is the 18th school shooting in the U.S. in 2018.’”

A few lines later, the WaPo analysis said this:

“It is a horrifying statistic. And it is wrong. Everytown has long inflated its total by including incidents of gunfire that are not really school shootings.”

In a separate email blast, Everytown is also calling for “action” to throw out lawmakers who do not embrace the gun prohibition agenda. Among their recommendations: “Follow the NRA money.”

It is widely known that the National Rifle Association donates to political campaigns. Not as widely reported, however, are the contributions to political campaigns by Everytown and its sugar daddy, anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City. For him, the $50 million he initially spent to set up the Everytown group was chump change.

Considering what the WaPo said about Everytown’s inflated data, presumably the public are the chumps.

According to BallotPediawhen Nevada anti-gunners put a proposition on the ballot to require so-called “universal background checks” on all gun transactions, Everytown provided $14,531,456.04 in cash and “in kind” contributions to the campaign. Bloomberg added another $3.5 million. By contrast, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action spent $6,510,000 in cash while the NRA added “in kind” contributions totaling $107,142.41. Do the math. Everytown and Bloomberg outspent the NRA by more than double. 

Meanwhile, as news agencies sort through the newly revealed police records about calls to the Cruz home, it is becoming increasingly evident that President Donald Trump was right when he observed Thursday that there were “many signs” of trouble with the suspect. Fox News quoted one of the president’s tweets, in which he stated, “So many signs that the Florida shooter was mentally disturbed, even expelled from school for bad and erratic behavior. Neighbors and classmates knew he was a big problem. Must always report such instances to authorities, again and again!”

But what if nothing comes from those calls?

Fox News is also quoting Gordon Weekes, chief assistant for the Broward County Public Defender’s office, who told reporters yesterday that the suspect is “a deeply troubled young man; a child that has endured significant loss…He fell between the cracks and we have to try to save him now.”

What about the families of his victims? Have they not “endured a significant loss” as well? And the 17 victims; they lost the most significant thing they ever had, their lives.

And the Broward County Sheriff wants to penalize millions of gun owners by somehow holding them responsible for a crime they didn’t commit.

RELATED:

Video of the Day: YouTuber says FBI came to visit him over comment by shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz

Related Articles

Our Privacy Policy has been updated to support the latest regulations.Click to learn more.×