After college, I was saddled with a mental illness so severe that it became time to call in the cavalry. My family, friends, physicians and professors supported my Ph.D. training, which ultimately put me back in the saddle. Now, I harness my horse sense and intellectual horsepower to outmaneuver all the wannabe school shooters out there. I warn you, kids, don’t even try — don’t even think about it. Because my thinking alone will horse-collar tackle you, hands down. The assailants at recent mass shootings in Santa Fe, Texas; Oxford Township, Michigan and Barrow County, Georgia, were minors when they committed their crimes. Identifying similarities in their accounts, across different times and places, is crucial to understanding their behavior. After careful deliberation, I came up with the following “Five C’s,” a strategic framework designed to thwart future school shooters.
Catch
Law enforcement first identifies school threats. Social media, student peers, school teachers, nearby neighbors and family members are all sources of “leakage.” The Texas shooter had Facebook pages of alarming images. The Michigan subject repeatedly expressed dangerous tendencies at school, and the Georgia assailant was paid a visit by the FBI for posting threats on the message board service Discord. Law enforcement has become adept at identifying credible threats and is the first line of defense against them.
Commit
A Crisis Intervention Team could then detain potential aggressors for psychiatric evaluation. Civil commitment laws exist across the nation, although the specifics differ from state to state. In another vein, the arrest last month of an 11-year-old in Florida for making terrorist threats was likely overkill. That boy needs treatment, not jail. If they are apprehended before they commit a crime, society should give these minors a chance to reform themselves.
Confiscate
These shooters got their guns from Mom and Dad, not a gun shop. Red flag laws let police, family or acquaintances petition a judge for a court order to seize a person’s firearms temporarily. Red flag laws exist in 21 states. Every state needs a red flag law, or a federal red flag law, to prevent unfettered access to guns these young people once enjoyed.
Criminalize
The parents of these shooters were or are being tried for ignoring warning signs of their sons’ declining mental health, illegally buying a firearms for their underage sons or failing to secure the guns away from their son. Any of these charges should be grounds for imprisonment. The specter of incarceration corrects for a dangerous tendency in society: that in modern families, moral culpability is a separate, not shared, burden.
Continue, convert
If these troubled youths’ distress is addressed adequately, the red flag restriction (if one exists) expires and prosecutors decide they have no case, then the youngsters return home, the guns are given back and the parents dodge a bullet. But otherwise, the children should be remanded to child protective services, red flag terms should be extended and the parents should be formally arraigned. These Five C’s are a strategic framework custom-tailored to the tactical demands of Republicans (Commit), Democrats (Confiscate) and independents (Criminalize): a horses for courses approach. It may be a hard sell, but unless all parties are onboard, we are beating a dead horse. Of course, every horse thinks its own pack is the heaviest — but if meaningful legislation were passed, we would all be redeemed. Remember, this is done in memory of the honored dead, so that school shootings may hopefully go the way of the horse and buggy.
Jason W. Park, a mental health advocate based in Los Angeles, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of the memoir, “Bliss + Blues = Bipolar: A Memoir of My Ups and Downs Living with Bipolar Disorder.”
