Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
When President Joe Biden used the third anniversary of the shootings in Parkland, Florida to call on Congress to enact his gun control agenda, he made it sound like every person touched by that horrific act is in on board with his gun ban plans.
Over these three years, the Parkland families have taught all of us something profound. Time and again, they have showed us how we can turn our grief into purpose – to march, organize, and build a strong, inclusive, and durable movement for change.
The Parkland students and so many other young people across the country who have experienced gun violence are carrying forward the history of the American journey. It is a history written by young people in each generation who challenged prevailing dogma to demand a simple truth: we can do better. And we will.
What about those Parkland families who aren’t marching or organizing for new restrictions on our civil rights? Ryan Petty, whose daughter Alaina was murdered in the attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, joins Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co. today with a simple message for Biden and the anti-gun activists who are using the families of those murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School to demand a ban on commonly-owned guns and magazines: “Not in my name”.
I guarantee that Petty has spent more time than Joe Biden over the past three years studying what works and what doesn’t when it comes to protecting our schools and our streets. Not only was Petty on the commission established after the Parkland shootings to study and implement policy changes to improve the safety of schools, he’s worked with the U.S. Secret Service over the past couple of years on behavioral threat analysis, which helps to identify individuals who may pose a risk to public safety before they can unleash their plans.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean an arrest,” Petty explains. “What it means is let’s bring resources to help the person that’s making the threat. Let’s identify the grievance that they have, perceived or otherwise. Let’s understand if they have the means to actually carry out an attack. Let’s see if they’ve exhibited any planning behavior; are they actually ideating about how to carry out an attack. Have they planned an attack?”
“Those are things that we can do to actually prevent these attacks,” he continued. “I think taking firearms out of the equation or banning them generally… that’s not going to make us any safer. It’s just going to change the mode of attack.”
Beyond behavioral threat assessments, Petty says the biggest key to stopping active assailant attacks like the one that took place in Parkland three years ago is for governmental agencies to improve their own performance. Petty cited the multiple failures in communication between the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and the Broward County schools as a major contributing factor in the attack that took his daughter’s life.
“You know Cam, what we see time and time again are failures to communicate, failures to share information, and one agency or department or school district makes a decision, and there are deadly consequences.”
Ryan Petty has been a tireless advocate for doing the things that actually work, as opposed to trying to ban our way to safety, and when I asked him if he’s willing to take a more vocal role in opposing Biden’s gun control agenda, he quickly replied, “Absolutely.”
“My daughter.. I’ve told you this before, Cam.. one of our favorite things to do was to go to the gun range together. My daughter Alaina loved to go shooting with Dad. She was a supporter of the Second Amendment just as I am. Yes, I intend to lend my voice and to be the voice my daughter no longer has.”
I strongly encourage you to check out the entire conversation with Ryan Petty in the video window above, and to share his story and message on your own social media pages. Petty’s perspective isn’t necessarily a welcome one in the mainstream media, but it’s one that folks desperately need to hear whether they realize it or not.