The terrible tragedy in Uvalde, Texas on Wednesday has once again sparked discussion about why these shootings happen and what can be done to stop them.
I discussed yesterday what I think is wrong with our culture that hate-filled young men have the desire to slaughter children, and today I want to focus on one thing that can be done to stop at least some of these atrocities.
Among the steps that have been proposed by commenters, are these:
- 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 pass "red flag" laws which allow authorities to confiscate weapons from troubled individuals.
- We can put armed guards in all schools.
Number one, eliminating guns, would solve the problem, 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 smuggled in and made available to those who wanted them, who 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.
Red flag laws, if properly conceived, should indeed be enacted in every state, but some of the awful massacres that have occurred over the last few decades have been perpetrated by people like the Uvalde murderer who, until just before their rampage, had given scant indication that they could potentially commit a crime.
Others who might have been known to authorities sometimes obtained weapons illegally in "straw" purchases or stealing them from parents.
Putting armed guards in all our elementary and secondary schools would be helpful but also expensive, especially since the vast majority of schools will probably never need the services of an armed guard. Moreover, unless there are several guards it could take precious minutes for a single guard to traverse a building to get to where a shooting is occurring.
(It should be noted that there was an armed guard at the elementary school in Uvalde who was shot and wounded by the gunman.)
There's another option, however, which, though it may not be ideal, is in my mind the most practical. We could loosen gun regulations so that school officials and some select staff can have access to firearms in the building.
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 irresistible 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.
If at least some appropriate school personnel were thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, particularly in a school environment, and permitted to keep weapons under lock but easily accessible, the chances that someone would attempt, or succeed in an attempt, to perpetrate mass murder in the halls 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 certain 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.
As it is, in almost every school shooting the shooter was confronted by heroic unarmed teachers or administrators who died trying to protect their students. Had these courageous men and women 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 naively 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.
There'd be risks, of course, with doing this, but what's the alternative? Not only would armed faculty be more likely to stop the carnage sooner 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 ten 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, for reasons, some of which I outlined yesterday, that's where we are.
If someone had been able to confront the shooter in Uvalde with a weapon on Wednesday it may have saved many young lives and limited the immense grief the families of the dead children are experiencing today.
That, it seems to me, is the direction in which we should move until the day comes, if it ever does, when we need no longer fear to send our children to school.