PA Bill Number: SB945
Title: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals.
Description: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (199-0)
Last Action Date: Apr 17, 2024
Sacrificing Public Safety to Please Special Interests - Their Death has Already Been Paid For :: 04/19/2018
Nothing happens by accident in politics. I talked about the appealing superstition of gun control. Now let’s look why bad ideas get so much political traction from elected officials. Politician say they want to do the right thing. Unfortunately, what is right for them isn’t necessarily right for us. Politicians frequently say one thing in front of a camera and then do another. Politicians vote for their best interest rather than for ours.
Look at the issue of murders in school. Experts told us what to do to protect our children, yet progress is painfully slow. We want our children protected while the politician needs to get credit and kickbacks for the solution. That leaves ours children at risk. We see that time after time.
Mental Health vs state employee unions- Many mass murderers have a history of mental illness. Now that we’ve closed our mental hospitals, your local sheriff is often the largest provider of mental health services in your county. That is one of the larger expenses on the sheriff’s budget. Mental health evaluation and treatment consume lots of time from law enforcement officers, corrections officers, nurses, doctors and lawyers. Notice the varied backgrounds of the providers. Some of them might be contract providers rather than state employees. In general, they are not as well connected, as politically organized, as unionized teachers and prison guards. In fact, every dollar a politician spends keeping the mentally ill out of jail is a dollar that could go towards the bloated pensions of state employees. That is why politicos would rather give money to state employees and statewide unions rather than to local providers. Is it more politically profitable to put someone in prison than to treat the mentally ill before they commit a crime? It often is. Could that explain why we see, what we see in our deteriorating mental health system?
Incarceration vs state employee unions- It seems that law enforcement is reluctant to take repeat offenders off the street. For example, California recently went so far as to release large numbers of prisoners. The legislature and the parole board redefined the term “violent criminal” so that repeat offenders are sent to county jails or released rather than housed in state prisons.
Is it more politically profitable to release someone from prison than to keep them there? Could it be? Could that explain why we see, what we see in our prisons and jails?
Deregulation of schools versus state employee unions- The professionals who study mass murders said we need armed defenders in schools. I’ve reviewed their research and I have to agree. Cops are expensive and conspicuous. Teachers and other school staff volunteered to protect our kids. These school staff who work in the school every day were willing to take on extra obligations for free so that “their kids” would be protected from armed murderers. Unfortunately, teachers’ unions don’t want teachers providing unpaid services..even if those teachers would save their ow means saving their own life.
Police unions versus teachers’ unions- Those volunteer teachers can also jeopardize the jobs of unionized school resource officers. No wonder the union representatives want our schools disarmed and vulnerable.
Is it more politically profitable to hold out for extra pay for the school personnel who carry concealed, than to provide protection for children against a rampaging mass murderer? Could it be? Could that explain why we see, what we see?
Marriage vs Planned Parenthood- Almost all our mass murders grew up without a father. Many political interests conspire against lifelong married love and against a child growing up knowing his married parents. At its simplest, the state penalizes marriage for the poorest people, through programs, such as TANF, WIC, SNAP, Medicaid, and the Earned Income Credit. The state also promotes abortion and cheap sex. Those state funded programs undermine fathers. In divorce cases, the government sides with whichever partner wants the marriage the least.
Law enforcement and political correctness- The “Ferguson effect”, the perceived requirement that officers have explicitly quantifiable cause before they engage a minority citizen, is only the tip of the iceberg. In this age of political correctness, we ignore minority members who commit crimes since we don’t want minorities overrepresented in crime statistics. That policy put the murderer at the Parkwood, Florida high school off limits for law enforcement. The murderer wasn’t removed from school even though he’d been expelled six times and the police had been called to his house 39 times in the last seven years. We paid for those politically approved statistics with the blood of our children.
We’re going to have to upset the political status quo if we want our children protected in schools. Some states and counties might be willing to change because of the structure of law enforcement unions in that state. Other states with strongly unionized and politicized special interests will oppose any change that threatens their established political interests. They will simply use the next murder as a cause to demand more of the state and county budget.
Don’t expect the politicians to defend us or our children. That is our job, not theirs.
