How many school shootings will it take ...

New York City NY

Description

...for Americans to want to change their gun laws? Let me get this out of the way: I am pro-gun. I also taught a Crime and Delinquency course for 29 years, served on our local city council as a member and as President, and have served on our local Police and Fire Commission for nearly a decade. Here’s the problem with school shootings, from my perspective. We take incredibly valuable human beings—our children!—and put them in an environment where they effectively act as bait for anyone who would like to do them harm. I am fully on board with arming teachers (those that wish, and with training). You see, there is no deterrence in schools that would cause second thoughts by someone who would do those children harm. None. We gather them together and almost taunt the bad guys with the lack of protection we provide them. And then many are shocked—SHOCKED—that they take the bait. Ask yourself this: when is the last time you heard of an NRA convention being attacked by a gunman? Or a gun show? Why aren’t those venues being attacked? It is obvious, I think—those there can return fire! And if you think guns are the problem, then why aren’t those guns attacking others at these conventions and shows? It’s not the guns! Shooters look for soft targets; the name of the game here is to avoid making schools those soft targets. Not every teacher has to be armed—just some. If you don’t know who’s armed, then all teachers are potentially going to fight back. And they would. To me, attempting to ban guns—which attempts would only be honored by law-abiding citizens who, it should be obvious, are not the problem—is analogous to attempting to ban spoons to fight obesity. It’s not the spoon that’s the problem! Deterrence, coupled with the ability to defend, works. If you could guarantee, somehow, that no criminals would have guns and a complete ban would entirely eliminate them, you might have an argument of sorts. Exception below. But you can’t. We can’t stop drugs from coming into this country illegally; how on earth does anyone think (if they’ve actually thought this far ahead) that smuggling guns would be any different? And that aside, the ability to carry a gun for self-defense proves itself tens of thousands of times per year. Here’s an interesting meme for you: You might argue the same could be done w/ mace or pepper spray, but not everybody is susceptible to that. Same with a taser-type device. No, what we need is credible threats to deter attack, and trying to make schools more secure doesn’t really accomplish that. My local university has a “no guns in campus buildings” policy, but so what? They also have some rudimentary safety devices installed which can, with just a little forethought, be easily defeated. No, that university cannot stop a mass shooting. I could do it, and what they’ve implemented is not enough. And no, I’m not going to say how it could be done. Neither can the local schools. The only hope is for there to be credible defense, and right now, we almost never have that. So…which of these do you think is more likely to protect our children, and which is less likely to do so? This? Or this one? If you were a shooter bent on doing harm to students, where would you go? Exactly.