Psychiatrists look at suicidal kids and instantly ask, "Was he signaling rage and desperation?  For how long has this kid been screaming, and nobody did anything effective?"

Almost all female suicide attempts fail because they are mainly desperation signals.  Teenage boys are more likely to pull the trigger and kill themselves, and one way to destroy yourself is to kill others.

We know that Nikolas Cruz wasn't hiding a thing about his killing rage in the months and even years before the Florida school massacre.

According to the best British newspaper in America, the Daily Mail, Nikolas Cruz abused his ex and sold knives out of a lunchbox.  He was disciplined by the school 25 times and finally expelled.

Celebrities and politicians are hotly trying to jump on the wave of publicity, truly despicable "Me too!" characters, feasting off blood and death.

Good Morning America could not pass up an interview with survivor Ariana Lopez.  In her circle, everybody knew that Cruz was dangerous.  He didn't bother to hide it.  According to Ms. Lopez, Cruz was signaling his rage and murderous feelings like mad.

Lopez made it clear during her interview that Cruz's problematic behavior and mental health issues were on clear display at school.

'He used to sell knives out of his lunch box, which I thought was insane.  You can't have knives, this is a school', said Lopez of Cruz.  'He would be like, "hey guys, want some knives?"'

One of the incidents that led to his being disciplined was a fight in September 2016.  Footage of the brawl emerged over the weekend.

Cruz was suspended for two days as a result of the fight, which was over a former girlfriend.

This changes the picture completely: what the hell were the school counselors and police authorities doing while Cruz was signaling murderous intentions?  There is an air of looming tragedy over the Florida school killings, and secretly, many people knew or suspected what was to come.

Teachers, administrators, counselors, and cops knew, but apparently the cops kicked it upstairs to the FBI.

The local cops, school administrators, the whole education system failed in the face of the most obvious threat, walking free and bringing knives to school in his lunchbox. 

The FBI does not have the resources to follow up on every enraged and threatening kid in the country.  Now they are blaming the usual suspects in what has become a regular media ritual that does nothing productive, though it does sell newspapers.

Any competent teacher, administrator, school cop, or counselor should have seen the signs and should have diverted Cruz into a protected environment where he could be educated and monitored.  If his friend Ariana knew he was selling knives, so did dozens of other kids, teachers, administrators, and all the rest.  No person in authority acted responsibly.  They just kicked the can down the road.

This has little to do with the gun issue, except that buying seven rifles is just another alarm bell going off in the night.  Ordinary, sane adult responsibility was lost or passed to somebody else, among the many, many adults and students who knew all about Cruz.

Our heroic corporate media are running the usual blame script and doing nothing useful.  But published scientific studies show that school shooters are triggered by "media contagion."  Kids who are full of rage at girlfriends, teachers, school counselors, and cops don't have the self-control to keep their feelings secret.  They signal like mad, often secretly hoping to be stopped.  Media contagion is hogging the headlines even today.  Right now, you can see the next school shooter getting ready to kill for just a few days of glory and a lifetime of jail.  If you're desperate enough, it all seems worth it.

The psychiatric literature is filled with studies on kids who are both suicidal and homicidal, kids who believe that becoming a celebrity murderer is the goal, to take revenge for rejection starting in childhood and repeated over and over in middle school and high school.

There is no mystery about the Nikolas Cruzes of the world.  They have been around forever.  It's just that they were spotted and taken care of with discipline and, yes, with love and acceptance, whether they deserved it or not.  If they acted out, they were punished appropriately, and if they looked dangerous, they were diverted to activities where they could do no harm.

That's what fathering is all about, and that is what the ancient phrase "in loco parentis" means.  Cruz should have been effectively disciplined from childhood onward, but he was allowed to grow into a raging menace, recognized by other students and by numerous adults.

Our culture is still "stuck on stupid," as LTG Russell Honore said in New Orleans long ago.  The only beneficiaries are the worldwide media, celebrity culture, the education lobby, politicians, and maybe even the cops.