now we also heard from the white house donald trump expressed his condolences via twitter and white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said that trump has offered financial assistance to florida needed but according to every town for gun safety a gun control advocacy group the u.s. has seen eighteen school shootings in the first forty five days of twenty eighteen so these horrific sophistic skid absolutely reflect a greater societal issue around our troops american force they're seeing across the story thanks for that now as you mentioned there police have determined detained of the suspected gunman and identified him as nicholas cruz he is a one thousand year old former student of the school who was expelled for disciplinary reasons now this is the latest video that we have of the suspect nicholas crusoe he was wearing a hospital gown. and he was being taken out of a police car you can see the images there by officers and then taken in to the

police station presumably for questioning. there was a high school freshman at the school tweeting out the incident as it was unfolding tekla. for more on this let's discuss the issue with damage kovalchuk human and labor

rights lawyer dan thanks for being with us here on r.t. international. so situations like this are tragic and it's always. difficult to figure out exactly what happened in these early stages as it's still unfolding and activate verification at the school active scene if you will. what might trigger a student to target his classmates like this well you know could be many things my guess is first of all he probably has some underlying mental health issue that may be organic maybe maybe the result of some abuse at home maybe some bullying at school. so that precipitate him wanting to do this but of course you know. the question is whether someone has the means to do it and then we get to the question of guns why does someone who's eighteen years old have access to the sorts

of high powered weapons. i think that is tried the bigger issue you know he turned something from a minor possibly scrape into a major massacre is that what this is. let's talk about that for a second v. access to guns i mean weapons in the united states are protected by the second amendment and there's a huge lobby with the n.r.a. . but for someone who is of high school age how can an attacker have been tamed a weapon like this i mean semiautomatic rifle as is being reported. i'm going to guess you probably got it from a parent from a relative or a game guns are very plentiful in this country i think the idea of the second amendment protects someone's right to have a gun like that is overstated but we have a country that. has grown to worship weapons to worship war to worship lines. and sadly we shouldn't be surprised when this sort of thing happens.

very interesting your thoughts from a human labor and a labor rights standpoint. in terms of what can be done to prevent this in the future as you know we've already discussed far from the first school shooting that we've seen in the u.s. even this year there have been eighteen incidents involving guns at schools. and there's the big debate about. the security versus is. you know the need to you know need to keep people safe versus freedom so is it possible for schools to impose extra measures to ensure security and how can they do that and give students the freedom that they need to have a positive educational environment. well i think you know you cannot lock down schools anymore than they are in the most schools now metal detectors have security

guards have security cameras i mean i don't think you get you more in in terms of the i think the issue is you got to spend more money and then all hell it got to have better gun control laws and given the wheel. almost none at this point and you know frankly you have to deal with underlying issues and this is siding where people you know we have the wealthiest country in the world but it's one of the most unequal societies in the world we you know we're three people literally three individuals control fifty percent of this country's wealth that's that's kind of incredible and there's a lot of hostility there's a lot of resentment i mean we have to get a grip on this this is sidey in the social fabric of this is. you know we spent trillions literally trillions of dollars on wars overseas that are allegedly to fight terrorism i have some doubt about that but even if except in

that were true you know spending money at home on drug prevention programs mental health programs i mean that's what we should be doing we should really charity begins in on the we need to start dealing with these societal issues you brought up to mention. the idea of mental health and to doing better as a society to prevent situations like this do you think it's possible to track down students who could potentially carry out these attacks in order to prevent them from carrying out their plans is there a way that we can catch them through a mental health net if you will or i don't want to be controversial but possibly social profiling even. well look i wouldn't call it social profiling but i think i would bet you that is this story unfolds we're going to find out that this young man was known to have issues he was known by his school there of issues he was known by his parents deb issues. and had someone intervened in

a timely fashion maybe this could have been prevented in obviously that you know not every situation like that can be prevented at that level but again i think we need to ask ourselves why does our society. and. you know i don't think there's any other society in the world that i know that is this type of mash tunings day after day week after week and we need to start asking ourselves very profound questions about what our society is about and what we can do to make it a more peaceful society and part of it again begins i think on the more basic level you know where we value peace so you know if you watch the super bowl it's all about or it's about you know the military it's about the air force you know the show that the jets flying over the stadium why aren't there peacemakers in this society that are applauded that are given medals i think those are the questions

that we need is what about the big debate i mean inevitably this is going to get political. traditionally when situations like this happen on the right you hear it's too soon to politicize an event like this then the argument from the left is with so many and sit ins happening with such frequency that there would never be a time where it's not too soon if you will if i makes any sense also you have on the right the second amendment and are a gun lobby strongly advocating against any type of gun reform and then you have the left staying you know we need to have common sense gun control gun laws in the states. what's going to happen in washington when this starts to fan out like what can we expect to see happen. i mean sadly given you know that history you know is a predictor of the future i mean my guess is that certainly in the short to medium

term we will see nothing and you know these types as shootings happen all the time people wring their hands and then congress does nothing but obviously they need to start dealing with this in a realistic fashion i don't think there's a real debate over this issue i think anyone is honestly speaking needs to say look the kid like this should not have access to guns like that. why does anyone need guns on that and again i think it's a societal issue that we need to talk about we need to deal with i don't think it's politicizing the issue i think we need to look for root causes why this happens. sadly my guess is that congress will do what they usually do when that's not moving from the political side of it you said we need to have that conversation how do we start that conversation how do we bring attention to it so that the public. takes

it seriously i'm. not suggesting that the public doesn't take it seriously but makes it more effective i guess is what i'm shooting for well i mean that's a tough question but i think you know one again i think the press in the media need to patrol look again that it's not like a point counterpoint issue it's there's not much argument here that this has to be dealt with i think families need to deal with it realistically we need to talk about the fact that you know our kids spend hours and hours of time and video games were the main objective is to shoot people and kill people and we watch movies where that is also the main objective in the movie i mean those things matter i think we have a cultural issue that we need to start. question. yeah well you bring up you know these video games of these shooter games. is there

a decent said ten zation i mean we know that we see this on the media we're watching it unfold right now as you and i are talking we see images a split screen of all of the emergency vehicles that have arrived at the school and then also an area aerial view showing swat officials reacting to the scene. we see images on you tube we see images on twitter we have these video games. are these students traumatized by this or is there a disconnect. i mean i think look when this happens to victims who are there the witnesses who are there certainly they're traumatized. but i think is a nation people observing it or become less and less traumatized because they see this every night on the nightly news and probably their main instinct is to turn away obviously i'm tempted to do that i mean it's very hard to digest this every

single day why is this happening and. so. yes we're becoming desensitized to it. necessarily again i mean how does one even get the day. if they fully. comprehend the. momentous nature of these killings but we have to we have to face it we have to do something about it what type of. psychological help are these students going to get and do we need to get psychological services in place for students around the country when they do see things like this on the news and so that they can have an outlet to process this what can we expect from this school community in the future and can we expect anything. to be put in place on a larger scale. i think you know to answer your last question first

unfortunately i don't see this happening very soon on one of your scale we tend to as a country not think systemically we react to every emergency. as it happens and you know so there will be some counseling given these kids but no i don't think that will happen on a large scale in the country will wait for the next shooting to happen and then we'll deal that one there's no planning in this country you know it's the same thing with natural disasters you know there will be more hurricanes it will be more disasters but we'll deal with it when it comes and frankly that's not a real practical effect of way of dealing with things. for those of you who are just joining us this is our international continuing coverage of a tragic school shooting in southern florida which is claimed the lives of at least seventeen people many more have been injured. discussing this issue with dan

who is a human and labor rights lawyer. for those of our viewers who are international who might not have a grasp of how the judicial system works in the united states. what can we expect for the shooter we know that the victims and they're going to be needing counseling they're going to be medical help and many instances. but what rights do we have for the shooter who is now in custody we saw images of him being taken in presumably for questioning. what is next for him. well he will most likely. first to be arraigned he will be held my guess is he will not be let out on bail he will stay in jail he will get a lawyer assigned him and most likely it will be probably want to to go. well because it's pretty easy to prove he did what he did and you know they'll probably plea bargain you know probably end up in jail my guess for

the rest of his life. and be forgotten about. i don't think that's you know i think we need to not forget about these types of situations but. you know sadly he'll be put away. and forgotten all right very interesting to hear dan kovalchuk a human labor and labor rights lawyer in the united states unfortunately we have to speak out of these tragic circumstances but it's certainly interesting to hear your thoughts thank you very much i will be back with more on this developing story after a short break we're watching arch international.