Threats of mass shootings by "radicals" and "lunatics" "continue to increase" and are "pretty much" the new normal in our society today, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik tells
Newsmax TV.
"We've been talking about this for the last year and a half, two years. These threats, whether it's social media driven or whether it's chatter coming from abroad, these threats continue to increase," Kerik told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth Monday.
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When asked by Hayworth if the latest mass shooting, at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, OR last week, represented a "new norm" in America, Kerik responded bluntly, "pretty much."
"Things like what just happened in Oregon, in other places, they're instigators for radicals, for lunatics, people that would want to harm others or create havoc or domestic or international terror attacks," Kerik said.
"This is what we have to be prepared for and just on that note I want to again commend the men and women out in Oregon that responded to this school, to this college. Their response was immediate, it was appropriate, it was well prepared it seems and they should be commended for what they've done. "
Kerik doesn't see abridged coverage of such attacks in order to lessen publicity for the perpetrator as an answer.
"My problem with not focusing in covering the events is that the American people seem to be — they need constant reminders of what the threats really are," he said.
"And this goes back to Sept. 11, 2001. The further we get away from it, the less vigilant we become it appears. We get complacent. We're not doing things we should have done or should be doing."
He did point to prison reform as one way to better keep truly dangerous individuals under check.
"The reality is our prisons are overpopulated, we're putting people in prison that don't need prison to pay for their mistakes, we're locking people up for ethical and regulatory violations that could be punished with alternatives to incarceration and the Congress sees that and they're addressing it," Kerik said.
"Hopefully we can get a bill through the House, through the Senate, get it on the president's desk for a signature and keep going down this road."
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