AFTERMATH – AT 11:33 A.M. ET:  We are now experiencing the aftermath of the horrible shootings in Florida.  The usual suspects are coming out of the woodwork to advocate policies to which they have never given a moment's thought.  It's all about them and their pseudo-grief.

But there is also some good reporting going on.  What is being learned is stunning.  Florida and federal authorities had been repeatedly warned about the alleged killer.  Even students had openly speculated that he would do something drastic.  From Fox: 

Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old accused of killing 17 people at his former Florida high school, had scores of run-ins with law enforcement dating back to 2010 -- with one report saying sheriff’s deputies responded to his home more than 35 times in just six years.

Broward County Sheriff’s deputies received at least 36 emergency 911 calls from 80th Terrace St., in Parkland – the suburban address where the teenager lived with his younger brother, Zachary, and their adoptive mother, Lynda, BuzzFeed reported.

The calls – dating as far back as 2010 and continuing until November 2016 – shed a light on two erratic and violent boys who repeatedly “threw items,” were “out of control” and fought with their mother and each other on an apparently regular basis.

Despite the repeated calls to authorities, Cruz was never arrested – and was basically cleared as being “no threat to anyone or himself,” as one therapist said in a police report from Sept. 28, 2016.

In that particular call, the sheriff’s office said Nikolas and his mother were fighting over paperwork needed for him to get an ID card

In their report, deputies detailed how the teen had been harming himself and had talked about buying a gun.

“He had been cutting his arms, his mother said, to get attention, as he learned it from an ex-girlfriend,” deputies said. “He has mentioned in the past that he would like to purchase a firearm.”

The therapist on scene, Jared Bienenfeld with Henderson Mental Health, and the deputies concluded there were “no signs of mental illness or criminal activity.”

And much like the calls before – which were placed due to reasons ranging from the brothers beating each other to Cruz, at the age of 12, threating his mother and calling her a “useless b****” – law enforcement left without taking any further action.

On the FBI, from Daily Caller: 

Revelations that the FBI had been warned about Florida high school shooter Nikolaus Cruz fit an all-too-familiar pattern, in which apparent law enforcement errors have preceded mass murders.

The FBI was warned about Cruz after he posted on YouTube saying he was going to become a “professional school shooter.” The agency said they couldn’t identify the user who made the threat, despite Cruz posting under his own name. Five months later, Cruz pulled the fire alarm at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and began shooting his former classmates with his AR-15.

COMMENT:  The media would like the emphasis to be on gun control, although it is hard to see how any gun-control plan could have prevented a deranged, determined man from getting a firearm.  But the immediate emphasis should be on how the shooter slipped through so many loops.  An equal emphasis should be on how security systems in place at the target school failed.  Hardening schools, making them less vulnerable to active shooters, has been a strategy embraced, according to reports, by about half the nation's school districts.  But the hardening has to work at the critical moment. 

February 16,  2018