After gunman Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a Muslim immigrant from Kuwait, allegedly shot and killed four Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, former NYPD detective Harry Houck said the military’s “gun-free zone” mindset has to change.
Speaking to CNN Newsroom, Houck said, “I’m a Marine. And this really is hitting me a little harder here than normal that [these Marines] weren’t able to protect themselves at the time this occurred.”
“We need people that are armed,” he added. He also said that even if that means getting armed guards, then so be it; something has to change.
[…]Ironically, one of the earliest post-attack photos of the recruiting center shows shattered glass and bullet holes by the very sign that designated the office a gun free zone.
You can see the photo above, with the gun-free zone sticker.
So, let me make two points about this.
First, the shooter was not some poor person who just needed to be given a job, as the State Department spokeswomen, e.g. Marie Harf, are always trying to tell us.
Authorities identified the gunman as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez of Hixson, Tenn., though the spelling of his first name was in dispute, with federal officials and records giving at least four variations.
[…]The shooting suspect’s family lived there about 15 years and did not bring attention to themselves, according to neighbor Dean McDaniel.
[…]It was unclear whether Abdulazeez was a U.S. or Kuwaiti citizen.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga officials confirmed that Abdulazeez graduated in 2012 with a degree in electrical engineering. He also interned at the Tennessee Valley Authority, the agency confirmed.
Second, this was not an episode of “senseless violence” or “workplace violence”, as politically correct leftists might like to say. This guy was a Muslim and he was “very religious”.
Ryan Smith told the Times Free Press that he wrestled with Abdulazeez at Red Bank High School.
Smith said that Abdulazeez was very religious and that he would argue “back and forth” with the boys’ high school wrestling coach during fasting rituals.
This was not a random attack.
Recall the Fort Hood attack, another gun-free zone. That time, it was Major Nidal Hasan, a devout Muslim, and Obama called that attack “workplace violence”. Not terrorism! It’s “workplace violence”.
The problem with not taking domestic terrorism seriously is that instead of fixing the gun-free zones that enable these attacks, we keep going as before, and invite more attacks. Obama learned nothing from Fort Hood, and now four more U.S. Marines are dead because of his difficulty at accepting reality.
If we were really serious about stopping crime, then we should go after the root cause of crime. So what is that root cause? The answer might surprise you.
Census data and the Fragile Families survey show that marriage can be extremely effective in reducing child poverty. But the positive effects of married fathers are not limited to income alone. Children raised by married parents have substantially better life outcomes compared to similar children raised in single-parent homes.
When compared to children in intact married homes, children raised by single parents are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; be expelled from school; and drop out of high school.[19] Many of these negative outcomes are associated with the higher poverty rates of single mothers. In many cases, however, the improvements in child well-being that are associated with marriage persist even after adjusting for differences in family income. This indicates that the father brings more to his home than just a paycheck.
The effect of married fathers on child outcomes can be quite pronounced. For example, examination of families with the same race and same parental education shows that, when compared to intact married families, children from single-parent homes are:
More than twice as likely to be arrested for a juvenile crime;[20]
Twice as likely to be treated for emotional and behavioral problems;[21]
Roughly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled from school;[22] and
A third more likely to drop out before completing high school.[23]
The effects of being raised in a single-parent home continue into adulthood. Comparing families of the same race and similar incomes, children from broken and single-parent homes are three times more likely to end up in jail by the time they reach age 30 than are children raised in intact married families. [24] Compared to girls raised in similar married families, girls from single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to have a child without being married, thereby repeating the negative cycle for another generation.[25]
Finally, the decline of marriage generates poverty in future generations. Children living in single-parent homes are 50 percent more likely to experience poverty as adults when compared to children from intact married homes. This intergenerational poverty effect persists even after adjusting for the original differences in family income and poverty during childhood.[26]
People on the left claim that poverty causes crime, but they don’t look for the root cause of poverty. The root cause of poverty is the decline of marriage, which produces fatherless children. Unfortunately, some people promote the decline of marriage because they do not like the “unequal gender roles” inherent in marriage. So what is the main tool that the anti-marriage people use to increase the number of fatherless children?
Dr. Michael Tanner of the libertarian Cato Institute explains one of the causes of fatherlessness in his testimony to Congress:
Welfare contributes to crime in several ways. First, children from single-parent families are more likely to become involved in criminal activity. According to one study, children raised in single-parent families are one-third more likely to exhibit anti-social behavior.(3) Moreover, O’Neill found that, holding other variables constant, black children from single- parent households are twice as likely to commit crimes as black children from a family where the father is present. Nearly 70 percent of juveniles in state reform institutions come from fatherless homes, as do 43 percent of prison inmates.(4) Research indicates a direct correlation between crime rates and the number of single-parent families in a neighborhood.(5)
As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead noted in her seminal article for The Atlantic Monthly:
The relationship [between single-parent families and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime. This conclusion shows up time and again in the literature. The nation’s mayors, as well as police officers, social workers, probation officers, and court officials, consistently point to family break up as the most important source of rising rates of crime.(6)
At the same time, the evidence of a link between the availability of welfare and out-of-wedlock births is overwhelming. There have been 13 major studies of the relationship between the availability of welfare benefits and out-of-wedlock birth. Of these, 11 found a statistically significant correlation. Among the best of these studies is the work done by June O’Neill for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Holding constant a wide range of variables, including income, education, and urban vs. suburban setting, the study found that a 50 percent increase in the value of AFDC and foodstamp payments led to a 43 percent increase in the number of out-of-wedlock births.(7) Likewise, research by Shelley Lundberg and Robert Plotnick of the University of Washington showed that an increase in welfare benefits of $200 per month per family increased the rate of out-of-wedlock births among teenagers by 150 percent.(8)
The same results can be seen from welfare systems in other countries. For example, a recent study of the impact of Canada’s social-welfare system on family structure concluded that “providing additional benefits to single parents encourages births of children to unwed women.”(9)
The poverty that everyone complains about is not the root cause of crime. The poverty is caused by fatherlessness. The fatherlessness is caused by welfare. Fatherlessness is also caused by laws and policies that make it easier for people to divorce, e.g. – no-fault divorce laws. Again, it’s people on the left who push for no-fault divorce laws. So the left is pushing two policies, welfare and no-fault divorce, which cause crime.
I’ve bolded the interesting parts of the story, which is from USA Today.
Excerpt:
A psychiatric outpatient opened fire Thursday inside a psychiatrist’s office at a hospital near Philadelphia, killing his caseworker and slightly wounding the doctor, who shot the gunman with his personal firearm, authorities said.
The suspect, Richard Plotts, of Upper Darby, Pa., was reported in critical condition after the shooting at 2:20 p.m. in an office at the Mercy Wellness Center of Mercy Fitzgerald Hospital in Darby, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Whelan said at an evening news conference.
The unidentified 52-year-old doctor shot Plotts three times and suffered a graze wound when the suspect returned fire, Whelan said at an evening news conference. Two guns were recovered.
[…]Whelan said Plotts, who has a history of unspecified psychiatric problems, and his caseworker arrived at the doctor’s third-floor office about 2 p.m., Whalen said. Soon after, another staffer heard a loud argument and opened the door to find the suspect pointing a gun at the doctor. The worker then closed the door and call 911.
Minutes later, gunfire erupted.
[…]Plotts, described as being in his mid-30s, was in surgery at the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. He was shot twice in the torso and once in an arm.
[…]A sign tells visitors to the wellness center to check weapons at the front, a medical technician told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Hospital policy allows only on-duty law enforcement officers to carry weapons on campus, a Mercy Health System spokeswoman told the Associated Press.
So there was a “gun-free zone” sign. That didn’t stop the crazy person from coming in with a gun. And thankfully, it didn’t stop the DOCTOR from having a licensed concealed-carry firearm. But what if the doctor didn’t have a firearm? Well, then he’d be dead. The police would NEVER have got there in time to save him. And who knows how many more people the crazy person would have shot? I think this story shows the reason why law-abiding people need to own and carry firearms. When seconds count, the police are just minutes away.
WINTERY KNIGHT 