Let me start off by
saying I am not mad. I am just
disappointed. When I last spoke with you
about gun control (in relation to the shooting at Sandy Hook elementary) I know
I mentioned that something needs to be done.
In hindsight, I should have been clearer on what is needed from all of
you. It should have occurred to me that
giving the general public a blank slate and letting them run wild with it was a
bad idea. Left to their own devices,
people tend to do irrational things; the shake weight comes to mind. There is a lot of uncertainty and fear right
now. People are worried about the safety
of children and themselves in this country and most people feel inadequate
right now. People feel like the world is
out of control right now and some are willing to do anything to feel like they
have control, but, it is just an illusion.
People are reacting differently
to the school shooting in Sandy Hook and most of them have legitimate concerns
and intentions of trying to do some good.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio is not one of them.
Why is that do you ask? Maricopa
County Sheriff’s office has a posse program that is made up of volunteers and
who perform various law enforcement functions.
They do not draw a pay check, but, they are under the counties insurance
plan and provide for their own guns and handcuffs which can add up to two thousand
dollars. Recently, Sheriff Joe has been
using his posse to patrol schools within his jurisdiction and have orders to
only intervene in the event of an active shooter situation. Sheriff Joe has called for more people in the
county to sign up for that purpose specifically and they have been undergoing training
for a school shooting. A group of armed
men (I haven unable to determine if women are members of the school guard
posse) with nothing to do during working hours in schools, what could go
right? To those of you reading this who
think I am being an elitist dick; keep in mind this group of volunteer armed school
guards have been receiving weapons and active shooter training over the course
of a single weekend. It takes ten
thousand acts of repetition for an action to become muscle memory and a weekend
training class is not long enough. Oh
and I almost forgot, they are receiving this training from Steven Seagal.
Yes, Steven Seagal,
with the full support of Sheriff Joe, has been training his school guard posse
on how to take down a shooter in a school.
Seagal is a member of the Maricopa County posse as well as a reserve
member of other Sheriff’s departments in New Mexico and Texas. He resigned his status as a reserve deputy with Jefferson Parish Sheriffs and what a lucky break for Sheriff Joe that he
was available. Naturally, many people
are not pleased with this publicity grab by Sheriff Joe and Seagal but they
have stated that anyone opposed to this program or Seagal being involved is an “embarrassment to the human race”. Embarrassing myself
is a source of pride with me and here are three reasons why this circus act is
a bad idea:
1) Steven
Seagal is an actor, not a Navy SEAL
Whether or not you enjoy his films is subjective and
pointless. “Hey buddy, he has been in
law enforcement for twenty years”! Seagal
has never graduated from any police academy, he has no peace officer
certification, and his position with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office was
ceremonial. When questioned on his
qualifications, Seagal stated he has put in hundreds of thousands if not millions
of hours into his weapons training. Millions
of hours of weapons training sounds convincing, if you are an idiot. One million hours is equivalent to one
hundred-fifteen years. This doesn’t
sound unreasonable coming from Seagal since he has claimed supernatural
abilities before.
2)
What
floats to the top is not always cream
An all volunteer force
rising up from the ashes of a crisis to defend freedom and protect the weakest
among us is an ideal American trait.
This harkens back to our militia days during the Revolution. Unfortunately, the standards for this type of
service have not aged well. Anyone
seeking membership to the Maricopa County posse must be at least eighteen years
old and possess a valid Arizona driver’s license. That seems to be the only criteria because a
CBS investigation discovered that many members of the posse have criminal
charges including assault and battery, domestic abuse, attempted sexual
assault, impersonating law enforcement officers, and drug charges(dealing and
selling drugs such as cocaine). How
could people like this pass a background check and be given law enforcement
authority?
The county regulations
on the posse program states that you cannot have committed a misdemeanor or a
felony within twelve months of applying or record of improper personal
conduct. A background like that would
not allow you to become a sworn police officer and criminal convictions of the
kind I mentioned earlier would prohibit someone from even possessing a firearm. Maybe I am being too judgmental and these are
just acts of youthful indiscretion. We
all make mistakes and no one should be judged their whole life for one or two
felonies. This might be their way of
repaying society for what they did and maybe they are not all that bad. I mean it is not like there are members of
this posse who are child molesters.
Wait, there are? F@#*! It takes a
lot of commitment to guard a school that you are not allowed within five
hundred yards of (I would like to thank Stephen Colbert for that joke).
3)
This should not be a publicity stunt. Real lives are at stake here
If the thought of a
roving band of criminal guards, who were trained by Steven Seagal, patrolling
schools is not scary enough, maybe this will finally convince you. America is a huge country with over one
hundred thousand schools and would require about twice as many guards. The United States has averaged ten deaths attributable
to school shootings over the last ten years.
Hundreds of thousands of poorly trained guards interacting with millions
of students would not take much for incidents to happen that would beat that
average. The chances of incidents such
as guards misinterpreting a student’s actions (i.e. a student being shot for
having a toy gun), a fight where a student grabs a guards gun, an actual school
shooting where kids are killed in the crossfire, and a crazy guard going on a
shooting spree would increase exponentially.
This may sound like worst case scenario, but, lack of background checks
or simply not caring would make this reality.
The cure is deadlier than the disease in this case.
Heading back to Arizona
for a second, what if schools do not want these armed school guards to be
patrolling in their neighborhood?
Sheriff Joe’s official statement is he will let them patrol and he will
do what he wants as long as it falls under his jurisdiction. Reading between the lines, “This is my county
and if you don’t like it then you can lick my sack”.
People feel vulnerable
in light of recent events and they want a serious response to these serious
problems. We are not going to get
serious on this issue if publicity hounds like Sheriff Joe and Steven Seagal
keep extending their fifteen minutes by putting school children in danger. Unfortunately, Sheriff Joe will probably die
in office before he is replaced but we can do something about Seagal. I am calling on everyone to buy copies of his
movies so studios will green light projects for him to star in. With your help, he may go back to being a
legend in his own mind and we can decide what is in the best interest of our
schools and our children.
