PART II
Now,
for some possible solutions. First, I
direct you to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s address to the California Peace Officers
Association. He is considered the
world’s foremost expert on human aggression and violence. He compares the attention fire prevention
people have given to stop children from getting killed by fires in
schools. When was the last time you
heard of any child in this country being killed in a school fire? He believes it has been 50 years. Why not apply the same diligence to stop
children from being killed by gunfire at school? Before
any school is built, the local fire department has to sign off on the building
plan. In most states, the state fire
marshal also has to okay it. As a result,
our children are safe from fires. I
propose the local police departments get involved in the same manner, making
sure buildings are designed to offer maximum protection against evil
killers. Why can’t police departments
require they approve plans for new schools, as fire departments do? Why shouldn’t so-called security guards on
campuses be armed? Why don’t schools
take active shooter drills as seriously as they do fire drills? Read the article: http://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/2058168-Lt-Col-Dave-Grossman-to-cops-The-enemy-is-denial/
.
In
a separate article, I was surprised to find out that some very well respected
police experts believe at least some teachers/administrators at every school
should be armed and trained. Again, the
fire emergency comparison. Schools
cannot have a firefighter at every campus, so equipment to fight fires is
strategically placed on every campus, and some personnel are trained to use
it. What if every floor or hallway in
every school had a teacher armed and trained to deal with active shooters? Would our children be more protected? I believe so.
They certainly wouldn’t be less protected. Make their armed status known only to the
administration and police officials. However,
let it be known to all that every school might have armed personnel in any
given classroom or hallway. Let the bad
guys wonder if the person they are going to face is armed or not. That is one way we protect airplanes. Armed air marshals may or may not be on a
given plane. The bad guys can’t plan
well that way. What if the security
officers already employed to keep an eye on things at some school campuses were
armed? This could have the same effect
that arming citizens in some states has had; a lower firearm crimes rate.
I
have heard and understand the arguments against arming civilians on campuses,
the main point being that untrained people don’t have the training police officers
receive and, therefore, could be a liability in a confusing and fluid active
shooter situation. So, train them. I am not suggesting we simply had a gun to
people who don’t want them or are incapable of learning how to use them. I am suggesting we allow those who want to be
trained to be trained. There may also be
a little protectionism rearing its head.
Police officers generally want to believe they alone are able to handle
those situations. Those who are so
afflicted will have to get over it, just as firefighters and paramedics have to
accept the fact that many civilians know who to perform basic firefighting and
first aid duties while waiting for the arrival of professionals. I suspect there is another resistant attitude
having to do with many teachers’ general opposition to guns of any kind,
anywhere, any time. They have to get
over it. Gun ownership is here and
protected from extinction. Accept it as
you have accepted so many educational changes with which you have
disagreed. Once you have accepted it,
you can move on to solving the problem of protecting our children.
The
reason I strongly believe the good guys on campus should be armed is
two-fold. First, the present situation
is not working. In education, materials
and methods are constantly evaluated. When
a particular curriculum or learning method is determined to be ineffective, new
ideas are tested and implemented. The
modern classroom is not much like it was in Beaver Cleaver’s day. Blackboards are gone. Sitting in the corner with a dunce hat is
unacceptable. Lecturing has been
replaced with active learning, inclusive learning, critical thinking,
cooperative learning, and differentiated instruction. Every 5 to 7 years the textbooks are updated
to reflect the latest educational ideas about what and how students should
learn. So, why are teachers so resistant
to a new idea to protect the lives of the children they teach? We all need to accept the fact that schools
are no longer 1950 style safe havens.
What we are doing right now isn’t working. Burying our heads in the sand and denying
that evil people may very well want to desecrate our campuses and kill our
children will not change the fact that our children are at risk. We need new methods of protecting them from
people who will disobey any gun laws we may have or put in place. The same educators who are so intent on
protecting students from bullying, either physical or verbal, should be jumping
at the opportunity to protect those same students from being shot.
And
where will those evil lawbreakers take the guns they acquire through illicit
means? A 1982 survey of male felons in
eleven state prisons gives us some insight into the way these people
think. About 34% of them had been “scared
off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim.” About 40% had decided not to commit a crime
because they "knew or believed” the intended victim was carrying a gun. About 69% of those surveyed said they knew
other criminals who had been similarly scared off. This is not news. You’ve seen the television commercials
depicting a couple of thieves deciding not to break into a particular house
because it had a sign indicating it was protected by an alarm company. Why choose a protected house when one down
the street is unprotected? When some
schools are known to be protected by armed employees, why choose them when
another a few blocks away is not protected?
Since
I wrote the above words, vice-president of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, made some
headlines, and pretty much stole my thunder.
I agree with everything he said.
How ridiculous to advertise to evil people intent on mayhem where they
can shoot people without fear of anyone shooting back! We protect everything we deem valuable with
the presence of guns, everything that is, except our children. His indictment of the video game and film
industry is perfectly correct. The same
liberal voices of our society who decry gun ownership and believe the idea of
protecting our children by the presence of guns on campuses are actively
involved in producing visual and audio violent stimuli that desensitize
children and make it easier for them to act out latent aggressive
tendencies. The media makes evil heroes
out of successful mass murderers, propagate lies about weapons and gun control,
and preys on the raw emotions of their audience.
In
closing, to quote LaPierre, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is
a good guy with a gun.” That has proven
to be true in case after case; the recent Clackamas Mall shooter (2012), the
church shooter in Colorado Springs (2007), New York Mills, NY (2010), Parker
Middle School dance, PA, 1998. While we
await better procedures for identifying and treating mentally ill individuals
who are prone to committing mass murders of school children, and while we wait
for our current laws to be more aggressively enforced, and while we do what we
can to change the culture of violence perpetrated by Hollywood producers and
actors, and by money-hungry gamers, and while we wait for parents to accept the
notion that they need to be responsible for their children’s behavior and be
more active in controlling what they see, hear and do, we need to protect our
children at the schoolhouse door.
Sources
(for both Part I and Part II)
Florida State
University criminologist, Gary
Kleck, analyzed data from the Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization
Survey (1992-1998). Describing his findings on defensive gun use, in Armed:
New Perspectives on Gun Control, New York:Prometheus Books (2001)
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