In wake of the deadly elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed, Newell Normand, the former Jefferson Parish Sheriff, joined Tommy Tucker to talk about an increase in recent gun violence in our society and what lawmakers are doing to solve the issue.
Just how bad is gun violence getting lately?
Newell: This last year was a bad year, as to the number. In fact, the FBI just released a report on this on Monday and the bureau had identified 61 active shooter attacks in 2021 that killed 103 people and injured 130 others. That was the highest annual total since 2017 when 143 people were killed. And obviously those numbers were inflated by the sniper attack in Las Vegas, if you remember, in October of 2017. So the total in 2021 represented a 52% increase from the tally of shootings in 2020 and a 97% increase from 2017.
One trend that law enforcement is noticing with recent shootings is that more than one crime scene is often involved, as was the case in Texas.
Newell: A lot of people are not talking about this, but this is actually a two scene incident. He kills his grandmother, gets in a truck, leaves his grandmother's car, drives to a school, kills 19 students and two students. So, what we're seeing and a patter that has developed, and the FBI talks about this as well, are these multiple scene -- they refer to them as roving shooters. So we're beginning to see, and there is a trend developing relative to roving shooters, where they're moving from one place to another in search of victims.
There's no simple answer, but what's the first step to tackling the problem?
Newell: This country has to take, I think, a more serious attitude about hardening soft assets... We don't just go to an airport and walk on a plane, right? That's what occurred in the aftermath of 9-11. So they took the remediation, in order to minimize risk. Are you going to eliminate all risk? No, not ever. Are we going to eliminate all school shootings? No, not ever... What do we know about this school? He walked in the front door. Single point of entry, in hardening a soft asset, may be the most successful remediation tool that you can utilize. One thing that I caught watching the scene, the fencing around the air conditioning system was far superior to this fencing around the school. Now go figure that out.
In society today, we would all like our schools to look like a park. Open access, greenery all over the place, anybody could come, kind of like the old Mayberry. That's not going to work anymore because of the breadth and depth of the mental health problems we have, the number of people that have evil in their heart. If there's a will, there's a way; they will do it. So, we need to harden that soft asset.
Politicians are the first to speak up after events like this, but do their emotional speeches have any affect?
Newell: I always get a little mad about the rhetoric in and around these issues where we're immediately going to go to the gun and we're hearing all of the senators and representatives in Washington go to the mic, give their soundbite and talk about when are we going to do something. The real question is not when are you going to do something. What are you going to do that is actually meaningful?
We always jump to the gun and this is the problem I have with that. Do you know how many millions upon millions upon millions of guns there are in this country? Do we really believe that if we were to convene on Thursday, pass a bill through the House, through the Senate, president signs it, that in the next 10 years, this is going to make an appreciable difference as to what's happening on the streets of our city?
When the president says "Why are we willing to live with this carnage?" Well, this carnage is going on in the streets of our cities each and every day. People are saying "I don't understand the violence in this country and I'm surprised by a shooting such as a school shooting like this." Well, we ought not be because we're seeing it and living it every day in this country. It presents and reveals itself in different ways but the underbelly of this country is revealed every day.
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