Among the steps that have been proposed by commenters, three focus on guns:
- We can make it illegal to manufacture, sell or own guns, and try to eliminate guns from society.
- We can pass more laws restricting gun ownership.
- We can loosen gun regulations so that school officials and some staff can have access to firearms.
Number one would be the ideal, of course, but it's virtually impossible. If gun manufacture was banned in the U.S. manufacturers would simply move off-shore, and guns, like drugs, would still be available to those who wanted them, which would be primarily thugs and other criminals.
Number two is pointless as long as criminals still have guns. Although I would certainly support laws that make it illegal for anyone under 21 to purchase a large magazine semi-automatic rifle, it's foolish to prevent responsible adult gun owners from protecting themselves as long as criminals still have the means to terrorize the innocent. People have a right to defend themselves and their families, and any government that takes that right away and leaves people defenseless against armed criminals makes itself ipso facto an illegitimate government.
Number three may not be ideal, but in my mind it's certainly the most practical of the three options. I once noted on Viewpoint that:
[Researchers have found] that greater efforts to restrict guns leads, counter, perhaps, to conventional opinion, to more gun crime. [These researchers] make a good case that the "gun-free zones" set up around schools are a farce. Such feel-good nostrums accomplish nothing more than to assure the psychopaths who roam the halls of every large public school in the nation that if they decide to go on a killing rampage there'll be no one able to hinder them.
The allure of exerting total, unstoppable power over others is irresistable to certain twisted minds, and "gun-free zones" don't do anything to keep them from bringing weapons into schools to carry out their horrific fantasies. They only prevent school staff from being in a position to stop them once the carnage begins.
Anyone who smuggles a gun into a school can massacre students for a long time before police arrive, and despite all the precautions that schools take to prevent such tragedies there's really no practical way an unarmed staff can prevent a student who wishes to murder his fellow students from actually doing it.
As a parent of a high school student I know I would feel better if I knew that at least some appropriate school personnel had been thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, particularly in a school environment, and were allowed to keep weapons, under lock but easily accessible, in the building. If they were, the chances that someone would attempt, or succeed in an attempt, to perpetrate mass murder in the halls and lobbies of a school would be greatly diminished.
Some people will understandably blanche at the idea of having guns in school, but the fact is they're already there. Some schools have armed guards roaming their hallways and some have armed kids roaming the hallways. A lot of schools probably have both. The question is not whether we will have guns in our schools - we already do. The question is who in the school do we want to have access to them.
Public school administrators, provided they are trained and licensed, should be allowed to keep firearms under lock and key in their office and properly trained classroom teachers should be allowed to do likewise. Had anyone in any of the schools that have been targeted by the deranged nihilists among us been armed many young lives could have been saved. In almost every school shooting the shooter was confronted by unarmed teachers or administrators who died trying to protect their students. Had they been trained and armed the outcome may have been much different.
Guns are probably here to stay in our culture, and as long as they are criminals and psychopaths will be able to get them. The answer is not to declare schools off-limits to guns, but to let those who would commit mayhem in a school know that they would probably not get far before they were challenged by someone who could shoot back.
Not only would armed faculty be more likely to stop the carnage once it starts, the knowledge that faculty, or at least some of them, are armed would have a substantial deterrent effect on at least some who may be inclined to carry out their odious crimes. It's only because most school killers know that they'll be able to have their way for at least fifteen minutes before the police arrive to stop them that they even try it. If they knew that they'd have only a minute or two they might not think those few seconds worth the cost.
It's very sad that we've sunk as a society to the point where we need armed and trained adults in our schools (and churches) but that's where we are. If someone had been allowed to confront Nikolas Cruz with a weapon in the halls of that Florida school building on Wednesday it may have saved many young lives and prevented untold grief. That, it seems to me, is the direction in which we should move until the day comes when we need no longer fear to send our children to school.
