Larry King's Murderer Sentenced

Brandon McInerney murdered Larry King, and there's no excuse for that. There's nothing Larry King could have done, short of posing and immediate threat to the life of McInerney or someone else, that could justify McInerney's actions. Don't tell me it wasn't premeditated or calculated – if it wasn't why had McInerney broken the laws and rules by bringing a gun to school? Still, McInerney was allowed to plead to a lesser charge than first-degree murder, along with other charges. Unlike some on the jury, I would have had no problem convicting him of first-degree murder.

Unfortunately, murders in schools are not rare. But this murder received more attention than so many others because King was identifying as homosexual and/or showing gender confusion by dressing inappropriately for his sex. That King had these problems does not make him any more or less important than any other murder victim. He was a human being with inherent worth and a right to life. Nobody should have so much as bullied him.

Under California law and with the ferocious backing of homosexuality and gender confusion advocates, King did have a "right" to express himself and dress inappropriately. He did not have a right to sexually harass anyone (and I'll say it again – even if he was sexually harassing McInerney, McInerney was not justified in so much as hitting him, let alone shooting him). I do have to wonder, though, if King had been behaving the same way towards girls at the school who didn't want the flirting from him, if he would have been disciplined by the school? Was he allowed to do things others wouldn't because of his claimed identity and the target of his attention being male rather than female? Furthemore, while he had the "right" to dress and act certain ways, I also have the right to leave my car running with the the door open in a rough part of the town. Is it my fault if someone steals that car? No, but if people really cared about me, they would advise against me being so unreserved in my actions.

School officials couldn't do much, I don’t think, given the laws, courtrooms, and activist groups that have pushed California through the looking glass. Perhaps if school officials could have done more, King would still be alive today. This isn't to say we should cater to the emotional triggers of murderers. But maybe we should go back to treating schools as places of imparting academic skills and knowledge to our students rather than forums for sexual expression, and recognizing that those students are volatile youth in need of more structure and guidance.

I can't imagine what King's parents have gone through and will continue to endure. I have known people who have lost a child, even an adult child, and the pain never goes away. To have their child taken away by a murderer makes it that much more painful. Brandon McInerney will have health care, nutritional meals, housing, and security at the expense of California taxpayers, visits from his family, and will probably emerge from pison in his late thirties, still havlng a long life ahead of him. He can live a full, well-rounded life after he's out of prison. King’s family didn't even get to see him graduate from high school.

We have to take life more seriously than this. We must press for the fullest semblance of justice when someone is murdered, whether that person was heterosexual or homosexual, dark-skinned or light-skinned, male or female.

From Catherine Saillant's report in the Los Angeles Times (the newspaper that encouraged a gender-confused staffer along his suicidal way)…

The father, though, reserved his harshest words for the Hueneme Elementary School District, which operates the junior high school where his 15-year-old son was shot twice in the back of the head on Feb. 12, 2008, by McInerney in front of stunned classmates.

Educators knew that his son had a history of acting provocatively for attention, yet they did nothing to stop King after he started going to E.O. Green Junior High School in women's high-heeled boots and makeup and began aggressively flirting with boys, the father said. The middle school student had been removed from his home for unspecified reasons and was in foster care.

Instead of protecting him from his "poor impulse control," King's father said, "they enabled and encouraged him to become more and more provocative," putting him in an unsafe position.

Though he holds McInerney responsible for shooting his son, King said the school's response since the shooting has been despicable.

District leaders have made no changes in policy or procedures, saying they are unnecessary because the school's staff followed the law in allowing Larry to augment his school uniform with women's accessories.

I'm not sure what the school could have done without running afoul of federal and California law and court precedents. The homosexuality advocates and gender confusion crowd foam at the mouth when anyone so much as suggests that minors, in school, should hold back from dressing like drag queen at a Cher concert or talking about how much they want to engage in homosexual sodomy.

The Greg Risling's Associated Press report...

Greg King blamed the school district for not heeding requests by his wife to help tone down their son's flamboyant behavior, despite having a plan that called for preventing the boy from drawing attention to himself.

"The school could have and should have prevented Larry from engaging in the provocative behavior he was involved in," he said.

I already addressed that.

Outside court, Dawn Boldrin, a teacher who gave King her daughter's homecoming dress, had kind words for both of the teens.

"I probably would just hug him," Boldrin said when asked what she would do if she could meet McInerney. "I know he's a good kid."

This woman does not appear to have enough decision-making sense to have any level of responsibility for other human beings. Giving King the dress was bad enough. Calling a murderer a "good kid" should infuriate any reasonable person. Good kids do not commit premeditated murder, especially against someone who was obviously having a tough adolescence.

There were people I felt like killing when I was that age (not for gender confusion or sexual orientation issues... I didn't care about that). But I recognized my hatred was a problem with me, not something on which to act. Good kids don't murder.