Mass murder in Illinois—and how future school attacks can be prevented
(Note: Be sure to see Laura W.’s idea below on how schools and universities can prevent any future murderous rampages such as at Columbine High, Virginia Tech, and now NIU. It’s an idea that you realize is obvious as soon as you hear it, except that no one has ever thought of it before.)
An article in the Chicago Tribune describes clearly the monstrous crime that was committed yesterday at Northern Illinois University. Think of sitting in a class in a university lecture hall, and suddenly a man enters with a shotgun and begins shooting everyone. How horrible.
Apart from the horror of this crime, my first thought is that the only security people can have today is carrying firearms. If just one person in that large lecture hall had had a weapon, he could have shot the killer and saved all those people.
Short of America’s becoming a virtuous and morally and culturally cohesive society again, a society not populated with a significant number of alienated loners and resentful minorities who feel justified in mass murdering strangers, which is not about to happen, I can’t see any other way for us to protect ourselves. Modern America is a dangerous place. The only security is in the possession—and the carrying—of firearms for self-defense.
- end of initial entry -
Laura W. writes:
Every high school, middle school and elementary school in the country should choose three teachers (more in the case of very large schools) who are trained in the use of firearms and have a firearm in a locked box with a combination only the teachers know. The designated teachers, chosen for their overall trustworthiness, should work in different areas of the building. The program would be called “Three teachers, three guns” and a clear sticker would be placed on school windows letting intruders know the schools participate. In the event of a shooting, the teachers would have permission to act.
In the case of colleges and universities, students and staff members should be chosen and trained in the use of firearms. No amount of counseling, drugs or mental health detection programs are going to prevent these killers from continuing to terrorize the innocent. Schools must take action.
These killers want one thing: to go out in a blaze of glory that involves suicide and homicide. If they knew they faced the likely humiliation of being shot by someone else, these crimes would lose their appeal. Accidents would happen but it would be worth it, both for the peace of mind it would give to students and teachers, who now live in terror, and for the inevitable saving of many lives.
LA writes:
Laura’s ideas are great and highly practical. Why has no one thought of this obvious solution before?
Of course, we know the answer: to adopt this solution, the schools and universities, which are the core of the liberal culture, would have to embrace the idea of armed self-defense. It would be the ideological equivalent of admitting that Islam is incompatible with the West or that men and women are different.
Laura replies:
I have thought about this a lot, and have talked to people about it to get their general reaction. Many people say, “Well, that will never happen because we can’t arm teachers.” This is an irresponsible denial of the situation.
The only convincing argument against this proposal is that these shootings are not happening enough to justify such radical measures. The problem is that these shootings are already happening enough that schools have taken measures. But, they are doing exactly the wrong thing.
Let me explain. Where I live, schools are now regularly performing “intruder drills.” These are drills in which the schools are put into lockdown. Each individual classroom is locked; the students and teachers cower in a corner of the room, out of shooting range of the windows that are in the doors of each classroom. Let me just say these drills are terrifying for kids. My oldest son experienced one in fifth grade and was very shaken. My younger son started at a new school this year and experienced a drill, but did not know it was a drill. He thought it was the real thing and came home in tears.
Not only do these drills terrify kids and teach them that the only recourse when faced with violence is absolute submission, they directly feed into the psychology of these killers. These are desperate narcissists. The more they think people are afraid of them, the more they will be drawn to act.
LA replies:
This is amazing. As you’ve shown, the schools already take the threat of murderous rampage so seriously that they have let the schools be taken over by these “intruder drills” which teach fear and submission. If EVERYONE in a school must be involved in these demoralizing and debasing drills teaching people to shrink in fear from an attack, wouldn’t it make more sense to have THREE people in a school trained in the use of firearms to fend off an attack and kill the intruder?
Since the schools acknowledge that the threat exists, the only thing preventing them from adopting your proposals is pure liberalism: it’s better to let innocent people be victims of evil than to use force to defend innocent people from evil.
But it’s more basic than that. Guns are so alien to today’s liberal culture that the idea of assigning three teachers in each school to learn how to use firearms would simply freak everyone out. But if more school attacks continue, eventually they will have no choice.
And of course, as you point out, if schools had these self-defense programs in place and publicized their existence, would-be attackers would be discouraged. The surest way to avoid deadly force, is to be prepared to use it.
Laura replies:
Thank you! I am so glad you like this idea. I have laid awake at night thinking about it, turning over in my mind possible objections. These killings are going to continue unless something is done.
LA writes:
Here’s another point. I would assume that even under the self-defense regime that you propose, something like the “intruder drills” that are going on now would still be needed. But the whole meaning of it would be different. Young people would be learning how to protect and conceal themselves during an attack, even as they were being told that there were armed adults in their school who will shoot any intruder. The main lesson they would be imbibing would not be fear and submission, but the efficacy of armed self-defense.
Laura replies:
That’s exactly right. Young people would not be demoralized. Drills would involve clearing the path so that teachers could shoot at the intruder and so that students are out of harm’s way.
LA replies:
Also, my comments have focused mostly on your “three teachers, three guns” proposal for grammar schools and high schools. Your proposal for universities is somewhat different. At a large university, say with a student body of 25,000, as at Northern Illinois University, a significant number of students and staff would be trained and armed. The university community, and the surrounding community, would know that this was the case.
Imagine if this program were adopted across the country! Instead of schools and communities cowering in fear (and teaching children and young people to live in fear) at the prospect of the next unpredictable mass homicide, they would have the confidence of being able to meet any attack.
But I repeat, for schools and universities to adopt this approach would mean giving up a major piece of the modern liberal consciousness.
Laura G. writes:
Laura W. does indeed have an excellent suggestion. However, her suggested implementation is very flawed. If the guns are in a locked and secured site, they are not with the teachers when they are needed, and quick action is the only antidote to large casualties. Having the guns in a secured location also means that the teacher would probably be noticeable for running off to retrieve a gun, making the teacher a prime target.
To be effective, the teachers would have to do what all other citizens who are serious about self-defense do, which is to conceal and carry arms on their persons at all times. This is complete anathema to liberals, of course, but if there is to be seriousness of purpose, it would have to be accepted. I think that, after several more of these “events”, the general public may begin to emerge from their PC- and multiculti-driven fantasies and face the real world that has been created while they slept. At least I certainly do hope so.
For myself, I go to the range, am developing skills with a .38, and plan to sell my life for a dear price if there is any question about who does or does not emerge from a confrontation. I am convinced that, the more a thug believes that the victim is helpless, the more aggressive he feels entitled to be. Insert your favorite thug: Hitler, Stalin, rapist, domestic-violence perp, and so on and so forth. They are all the same. Personal courage is not a biggie of the character, but opportunism is. So, if it is known that members of the school staff are armed, that school is very likely to be given a wide berth. Same for me personally; I don’t plan to be a willing victim, and suspect that that will make it less likely that I will be bothered.
Robert C. from St. Louis writes:
“Look son, being a good shot, being quick with a pistol, that don’t do no harm, but it don’t mean much next to being cool-headed. A man who will keep his head and not get rattled under fire, like as not, he’ll kill ya. It ain’t so easy to shoot a man anyhow, especially if the son-of-a-bitch is shootin’ back at you.”
—Clint Eastwood’s “Unforgiven” (1992)
I’m afraid this sentiment is more correct than not. The idea of a teacher suddenly thrust into a shooting match coming out on top may be an attractive one, but isn’t very realistic. For one thing, the teacher will most likely be trying to take out a lone target, while the attacker can spray bullets willy-nilly. Secondly, even if the teacher can maneuver into a position of clear space between himself and the attacker, landing shots can still be a difficult task at anything other than point-blank range. Even experienced law enforcement personnel often exhibit a low strike rate in firing situations.
LA replies:
There’s no reason to think the attacker will be cool-headed. The attacker is a demented person bent on suicide as well as homicide.
The presence of armed teachers means, at a minimum (1) Deterrence: attacks that otherwise would have occurred, don’t occur; and (2) if an attack does occur, someone shoots back at the intruder instead of everyone running and hiding.
So, whatever flaws there are in the idea, it seems infinitely better than what we have now.
What would you suggest be done?
LA continues:
Robert C.’s dismissive view of ineffectual teachers with guns reminds me of James Stewart’s ineffectual lawyer facing Lee Marvin in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. The bumbling city slicker Stewart wasn’t up to the job, and was saved by John Wayne. The equivalent of John Wayne would be to have several armed guards permanently assigned to every school in America. I don’t think that’s practicable. Laura’s idea of self-defense makes more sense.
Also, Robert C. misses the point that these teachers or staff persons would be trained. They wouldn’t just be beginners picking up a gun.
Laura W. replies:
I understand the objections from Laura G. and Robert C. But they’re reaching for the impossible. Remember, we are not seeking perfection here. We are seeking a goal that might reasonably be accepted by the general public, with its aversion to any self-defense, and we’re seeking to convey to killers that each building is armed.
It’s also important to note that this solution is relatively cheap.
On another point, I cannot stress enough the significance of two factors in these killings: the specific psychology of the killers, and the copycat dimension of these crimes. In any sane world, the press would limit their coverage of these events. It’s been well-established these are spread by example. But, that’s not going to happen anytime soon.
Also, by taking action, we would reduce the occurrence of these crimes to the point that eventually we would be able to do away with drills altogether.
LA replies:
“It’s also important to note that this solution is relatively cheap.”
Which several permanent armed guards would not be. And, given the generally unimpressive quality of private security personnel today, why should we think that they would be better in an emergency than a teacher who is trained?
Thucydides writes:
Why is the idea of armed self defense so repugnant to liberals? It crosses their core assumptions in several ways.
First, the need for it suggests that human evil is a normal, expectable state of affairs, not something aberrant that is produced by some imperfection in collective social arrangements. The core liberal assumption is the sentimental faith that humans are essentially good and reasonable; violence is explained away as the regrettable result of anger proceeding from some form of injustice, real or imagined. The problem then is not the violence, and not human nature, but some social condition. (Small comfort to the victims!)
Second, it threatens their vision of a collective rational management of society in which human strife and the other tragic realities of human existence can be eliminated. (This is the Enlightenment project characteristic of all the ideologies spawned from it, including Marxism, Fascism, and the last survivor, liberalism). If human evil is a constant threat that cannot be planned away, and the imperfections of human nature not evanescent, then all grand projects of universal reform are futile.
Third, it calls for individual moral judgment that someone represents a threat, resulting in action to avert it. This implies that there are at least some minimal objective absolute moral standards binding on all, in the present case, “Thou shalt not kill.” This clashes with the liberal goal of protecting unlimited personal autonomy from social consequence. Once you allow for private community action to ward off an imminent threat, where does it stop?
For liberals, it is better that innocent people die, than that liberals have to sacrifice their presuppositions in finding a solution to the problem of mass killings.
Dan K. writes:
“…these teachers or staff persons would be trained ( to use a gun ).”
The training is the key and there actually is defensive pistol training available all over the USA. One trains by joining a sport and competing in defensive shooting. This is not TARGET SHOOTING. This is a type of action shooting that instills confidence and hones muscle memory for defensive shooting so that one’s responses become second nature.
The organization is The International Defensive Pistol Association (IDPA). It is a shooting sport that actually trains a member in defensive shooting at targets that resemble a human form under multitudes of scenarios. Check out the IDPA web page. Here are some quotes from the site:
What is IDPA?
IDPA as a sport is quite simply the use of practical equipment including full charge service ammunition to solve simulated “real world” self-defense scenarios. Shooters competing in IDPA events are required to use practical handguns and holsters that are truly suitable for self-defense use. No “competition only” equipment is permitted in IDPA matches since the main goal is to test the skill and ability of an individual, not his equipment or gamesmanship.
Why do we need another shooting sport?
Prior to the formation of IDPA, there was no place to compete and hone one’s skill with equipment designed for and suitable for self-defense. Other shooting sports are just that, sports that have no relevance to self-defense. IDPA offers an exciting forum for practical shooters in which truly practical equipment, techniques and courses of fire are mandated. Prior to IDPA, there was no place at all to compete with common service pistols such as the Beretta, Glock or Sig. Nor was there a shooting sport where your concealed carry holster could also be your match holster without handicap. When you come to an IDPA match, you can not only use your duty/CCW equipment, you can be completely competitive with it! Other shooting sports have become equipment “races”; IDPA will not. If you’re interested in using truly practical pistols to solve challenging and exciting defensive shooting problems, then IDPA is the sport for you.
LA replies:
This is fascinating. Sounds like fun.
Paul Henri writes:
There is no perfect solution to school shootings. The more people we arm, the more shootings will occur. Barrooms would seem to be a prime example of the locus of many shootings should we arm more people, correct? I believe in the principle of people being armed, as the Constitution allows. Yet we don’t hear of barroom massacres. Surely there are shootings amongst the blacks in barrooms, but these involve personal grievances among well-defined combatants.
LA replies:
It was the same in the Old West. Most everyone owned and carried weapons. But generally the only people who were killed were young unmarried men who got into fights with each other.
Jeanne A. writes:
This link is from a 2006 article regarding a Fort Worth school district that was implementing a program to teach children to fight back against an attacker. Instead of hiding and running, the children and teachers were being taught to throw books, scissors, anything at an attacker and try and take him down. Common sense it seems to me. Why be a fish in a barrel. Then, I read the comments of those against the program, like this woman:
Hilda Quiroz of the National School Safety Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in California, said she knows of no other school system in the country that is offering fight-back training, and found the strategy at Burleson troubling. “If kids are saved, then this is the most wonderful thing in the world. If kids are killed, people are going to wonder who’s to blame,” she said. “How much common sense will a student have in a time of panic?”
Are you kidding me? “If kids are killed” she says? Kids are going to be killed with an armed gunmen INTENT on shooting them! How much common sense will they have she asks? Well, I guess enough common sense to not lay under a desk and wait for a gunmen to shoot you! This woman is unbelievable.
Then, the police spokesman chimed in:
“Terry Grisham, spokesman for the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Department, said he, too, had concerns, though he had not seen details of the program. “You’re telling kids to do what a tactical officer is trained to do, and they have a lot of guns and ballistic shields,” he said. “If my school was teaching that, I’d be upset, frankly.”
Mr. Policespokeman would be upset if a school district told his child to try and fight back against an attacker! Yeah, I guess, again, it is better just to cower and wait to be shot. HIS ATTITUDE, is what I find troubling and frankly pathetic. Don’t fight back, don’t protect yourself. It is mind boggling to me that the prevalent attitude is one of “don’t fight back”. That is a definite symptom of an valueless and enervated society.
I thought about this during the Virginia Tech massacre. I shoot guns myself, so I am aware of the abilities, and liabilities, of a 9mm. The shooter, Cho, had a 9mm and .22. While obviously lethal, they certainly aren’t assault weapons and not particularly accurate, especially when firing at a moving target. I wondered why, at that time, didn’t a room full of young MEN, rush the killer and knock him to the ground? He might hit one or two of those rushing him, but they would have taken him down and most likely saved some lives. Instead, in one classroom, young men jumped out of windows while an old professor, in his 70’s, tried to hold the door shut while the killer was trying to get in, allowing them to escape. He was subsequently shot. Did not one of those young men think to go assist the professor in barricading the door? Did not one think to get behind the door and jump the shooter from behind? I know this is all hindsight and in a situation like this, with the panic and adrenaline, people wouldn’t be thinking clearly. And yet, does the idea of trying to defend oneself not exist anymore? Perhaps I am over analyzing these situations, but it is true that these killers, from past events, expect no resistance. And the fault for that lies with our society, who says, “Don’t fight back. Hide, cower, and wait for the police, even though in almost every instance they don’t show up until after the fact”.
Yes, teachers should be armed. Universities should allow those with concealed carry permits to carry their weapons on campus. These gun free zones do nothing more than protect only the killers, since they are the only ones who have a gun. And they certainly know it.
Ed writes:
From what I have read all of the students involved in school shootings have been on attention deficit drugs since early childhood. These drugs are highly dangerous and for example when Prozac was first introduced the newspapers reported almost daily of suicides of people on the drugs. Attention deficit drugs are given mostly to boys who refuse to be submissive to the teacher and the school rules. It is part of the feminization of America. The school system is there to teach boys how to be good little girls, and if they resist they are drugged.
Stewart W. writes:
I certainly like the direction in which Laura W. is headed, although I also question the wisdom of having the guns locked up. However, this discussion is not merely academic. In the 1970s, armed Islamic terrorists would routinely attack Israeli schools, until Israel began arming teachers and parent volunteers with semi-automatic weapons. After several foiled attacks, the number of school shootings in Israel dropped to near zero; in fact, the only shooting to occur recently in Israel came about because, in a field trip to Jordan’s “Island of Peace,” the Jordanian authorities asked the Israeli teachers to comply with the “No Guns” rule, whereupon a Jordanian soldier killed seven Israeli girls.
If we want to see how to prevent this sort of tragedy, the path has already been laid for us.
Gintas writes:
Here’s a video from Texas, where they still carry guns, and use ‘em. The woman newsreader is NOT wearing a low-cut blouse (how unusual that is), and they show pictures of the two assailants (guess why!). The guy ran out of bullets, what a shame.
LA to Laura W.:
Great discussion you started, Laura. Magnifico.
Laura W. replies:
In the meantime, my prayers go our to all those families who have lost young people and to all those students who feel their classrooms are unsafe. As you’ve said before, these are not “senseless” or “tragic” killings. They are calculated expressions of sheer hatred.
N. writes:
I commend you for giving space to Laura W.’s idea. The Israeli government did this many years ago after a terrorist attack on a school. In addition to armed teachers, the Israeli school system has at least one armed adult on every school bus.
This idea is gaining traction very slowly out here in fly-over country, where concealed handgun permits are now issued by virtually every State. Arizona recently saw a proposal to allow people to carry arms on public university property, for example.
Paul Henri’s objection is a common one that is not proven in daily life in such states as Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Maine, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, Pennsylvania and the others that issue permits. Some states allow drivers to have loaded, concealed guns in cars, yet there are no shootouts over fender benders.
I can think of two cases, one at Appalachian State, and one at a high school in Mississippi, where armed citizens stopped a would-be school shooter. In neither case were shots fired; the goblin gave up in the face of an armed and determined man. I just recalled another case in the Pacific Northwest where a high school student took a rifle away from a shooter, although he was wounded in the action. Resistance can be done, it has been done.
As an aside, virtually every school shooter that I have read about was on one or more psychotropic drugs. The mental health system is due for an overhaul, and one thing we are going to have to face is the fact that some mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, cannot always be treated with drugs. In some cases people are going to have to be cared for in a controlled environment, because left to their own devices they quit taking their medication and become very, very ill. Often they take their own life, but sometimes they take others with them.
There is no logical reason why armed teachers cannot defend a school against one or even multiple such shooters. The training and mindset can be acquired to make this work, and the instructors already are out there in the world.
Gintas writes:
Kennesaw, a suburb of Atlanta, has a gun law: you must own a gun. I wanted to live there when I was in school in Atlanta, just to be part of a gun town full of swaggerin’ gun-totin’ law-obeyers.
In the Wikipedia article, scroll down a little (passing the section where Family Circle selected Kennesaw as one of the 10 best towns for families; I guess the family that shoots together stays together), and you get to the section on their gun law.
Bill Carpenter writes:
I like Laura’s idea too, but it shouldn’t be set or advertised that there are only three guns on site. The sign should read, less numerologically but I hope no less impressively, “Armed Response.”
The liberal response of those who torment our children with intruder drills is of a piece with the liberal response of those who think only of how to guard Hirsi Ali and Geert Wilders, instead of how to eliminate the threat.
Kristor writes:
In a related item, a friend of a friend of a friend was a student at the University of Texas in Austin in 1966 when Charles Whitman climbed up to the top of the tower armed to the teeth and started shooting. The student took shelter with a friend in the English Department, and, hearing gunfire from upstairs, decided to investigate. They found an English professor in his office, returning fire with his hunting rifle. An English professor! A different era.
LA writes:
More readers’ comments have come in, but they are on the general subject of guns and gun conrol, rather than the particular issue we’ve been discussing of how to protect schools, and I think this thread is already long enough.
Robert C. replies to LA’s earlier reply:
I am not saying that a few armed teachers would never make a difference, just that it might be too optimistic to brand the idea “highly practical.”
While at a shooting range once, an employee told me that, against a moving target, the accuracy of even professionals goes down markedly outside of 20 feet or so. On a separate occasion a police officer who was a Marine in Somalia during the Black Hawk Down incident stated that, in a surprise situation with the attendant sudden burst of adrenaline, even he stood a good chance of missing someone at any proximity outside of an average sized room in a house. He was making the case for shotguns as the best defense against home invasion.
I disagree that there’s “no reason to think the attacker will be cool-headed.” By your own description the attacker is “a demented person bent on suicide as well as homicide.” Who is likely to be the calmer in such a situation, someone who has already accepted their imminent death, or a teacher suddenly facing the business end of a gun? None of the accounts I’ve read of the Illinois mass murder describe the shooter as being in a jumpy or agitated state. Most say something to the effect that, “he just came in and started shooting.” And are demented people known for rationally calculating their odds? Is a demented person really going to be deterred by a sticker on a window stating there are a few armed teachers somewhere in a school? An attacker who has already made his plan is going to get the drop on everyone else, and most of the damage usually occurs within the first minute.
So, yes, armed teachers might have curtailed the extended bloodbath at Virginia Tech, but likely wouldn’t have made a difference at Northern Illinois. The most realistic defense would have been concealed carriers amongst the students. But even then the death toll would probably not have been appreciably diminished, given the suddenness with which the class found itself under a hail of gunfire.
LA replies:
Robert C. says that armed teachers would make a difference, though not in all situations; I agree. He says that students carrying pistols would make a difference, though not in all situations; I agree. He doesn’t think that the announcement that a school was armed would deter a killer; there I have to disagree. Also his discussion of how highly trained police and special forces personnel would miss in a life-threatening situation does not seem relevant: if even Army Rangers would miss a school intruder, is Robert threrefore saying that having Army Rangers defend a school would not be an adequate defense and shouoldn’t be done?
So it’s still not entirely clear to me what Robert’s bottom line is. I think he’s saying that while Laura W.’s ideas are good, we should not see them as an all-purpose solution to the problem. But he does seem to support the basic idea.
Laura W. replies:
I think Robert C. has reasonable objections. After all, this is a wild idea. The possibility of arming teachers is truly bizarre and weird.
But we are in a strange world. What society has faced so many young men and boys going among their peers bent on killing many others and themselves? In the last year, there have been three incidents in my immediate area of armed young men planning school attacks. One simply went into his high school and shot himself with a rifle. Perhaps this trend will simply play itself out and the novelty will wear off. I’m not optimistic given that so many teenagers lead lost lives and given the astonishingly violent video games and movies they watch. (Did you know torture flicks are the latest rage among high school students?) However, teachers and parents have already gotten much better at detecting problems.
We could never have enough paid and trained security guards to really protect schools. That’s why this weird idea of arming teachers. If a self-defense program were put into action, in most schools a shot would never be fired. The arming of teachers would act as a deterrent. Civic participation and civic sacrifice is key. That’s the way real communities overcome attackers.
But, Robert C.’s practical objections make sense given the prevailing attitudes toward self-defense.
[The following exchange with Bob J. began Saturday Feb. 16 and was posted late at night on Feb. 17).
Bob J. writes:
You can’t serious about Laura W.’s school defense idea!
“Every high school, middle school and elementary school in the country should choose three teachers “
Who does the choosing, professional education bureaucrats?
“chosen for their overall trustworthiness”
But not trustworthy enough to carry a gun at all times?
“who are trained in the use of firearms and have a firearm in a locked box with a combination only the teachers know.”
Trained in the use of firearms. What about trained to remember the combination in a highly stressful situation. Of course that is after getting to the locked box. When seconds count these “trusted teachers” are only minutes away from getting to the locked box and remembering the combination.
“In the event of a shooting, the teachers would have permission to act “
You have permission to defend yourself. Thank you so much.
There are thousands of teachers (sorry no facts, just a guess) already trained and licensed to use firearms in States that have “shall issue” concealed carry laws.
Which would be eaiser?
Getting State legislatures to pass special laws allowing schools to “certify” some teachers in firearms usage?
Getting State legislatures to amend concealed carry laws to allow existing licensed citizens to carry on school grounds?
To the people who say “it will never happen”, look at the map linked above to SEE what has already happened since 1986. There are 90,000 concealed carry permits issued in Kentucky alone. How many more are there nationwide? And we haven’t had a bloodbath in the streets that the liberals claimed would happen. They are losing their credibility on gun issues.
Let’s not try to promote a new solution when we already have a good solution that just needs a little push. Kentucky is right now considering such legislation. The linked site says:
“HB114 requires that universities, colleges, and postsecondary institutions comply with current law allowing law-abiding citizens to keep firearms in their locked vehicles on university property.”
Lawrence, please forgive the sarcasm, but I was just floored that you were so taken with Laura W’s idea.
LA replies:
Forget about being floored that I liked her idea, and forget about the sarcasm. I don’t want that. Leave out the “You can’t be serious” and all that. And also a huge discussion on this went on two days ago. For you to come along now and call the whole discussion silly is offensive.
Make your comment a constructive addition to the discussion, then I’ll post it.
Bob J. replies:
I don’t remember calling “the whole discussion silly”, and I am sorry you were offended by taking my comments that way.
Defense of the Second Amendment is something I care deeply about.
I didn’t send my comments to you to get them posted on your blog. In fact I would prefer that you not post them. I read your blog for what YOU write not for what other people say. Anyway, I don’t care that some of the things I wrote have already been discussed. These were things I wanted to say and I did. Does the fact that I couldn’t read your blog for a few days disqualify from commenting?
Again, sorry you were offended.
LA replies:
First, you said:
“I don’t remember calling ‘the whole discussion silly’, and I am sorry you were offended by taking my comments that way.”
But you had said:
“You can’t serious about Laura W.’s school defense idea!”
Since the whole discussion was about Laura’s idea, you were dismissing the whole discussion as something that could not be taken seriously. If you have better ideas, give them. What I don’t like in any discussion is when a commenter comes along and acts as if everything that has been said up to this point is wrong, and only the commenter has the right angle on things. The point is, establish your common ground with the discussion, then show where you think people are mistaken and present your own ideas.
As for the rest of your original e-mail, I’ll reply later.
LA continues:
Your basic point seems to be that conceal and carry laws are already common in the U.S., and therefore all that needs to be done is to extend that law to school grounds. The proposed Kentucky law you link says:
“HB114 requires that universities, colleges, and postsecondary institutions comply with current law allowing law-abiding citizens to keep firearms in their locked vehicles on university property.”
That’s fine, but it still leave it up to individuals. In other words, it leaves it up to chance whether a particular institution will be protected. Laura’s idea does not contradict that idea, but complements it by saying that each school or university, as a school or university, shall have designated individuals who are assigned, trained, and prepared to use deadly force against armed intruders. And that the school announce the existence of this program up front. So your idea is fine. But Laura is suggesting something new and different that adds to your idea. And, frankly, Bob, you were so full of your idea that you didn’t see that she was proposing something new and different.
Laura W. writes (Feb. 18, 11:30 a.m.)
I notice the Kentucky law Bob discusses and links states specifically that a concealed weapon may not be carried in “any elementary or secondary school facility without the consent of the school authorities.” Therefore, we still have the problem of dealing with the school bureaucracy.
Concealed weapons laws may eventually solve the problem at large universities, where there are enough adults of age who might be motivated by these events to carry weapons. I don’t believe they will solve the problem in public schools. If they do, that seems many years away. Bob’s right: that would be the best and easiest solution.
But where I live, in suburban Pennsylvania and in many parts of the country, people need to be motivated to think in terms of self-defense and to consider the notion of civic duty in relation to school attacks. Would we leave it up to individuals to defend our communities in the event of attacks by foreign aggressors? Why should we leave it up to the chance motivation of inspired individuals in a gun-adverse culture to protect our children? Inspired individuals, by the way, would seem to be much more vulnerable to litigation in the event of accidents than would participants in a civil defense program. Might this alone be a factor in discouraging them from acting?
Remember, it is not the death toll alone that is disturbing in these events. It is their cumulative psychological impact on a generation of Americans. Even those who attend schools that have never witnessed an attack are demoralized and confused. America’s children and adolescents need adults to stand up and say, “We are here to protect you and are willing to risk our own safety to do so.” Perhaps this is a wildly utopian idea in a world that has largely abnegated its moral responsibilities to the young. If that is so, I think it is safe to say that this very lack of protection and authority by adults is in itself an additional underlying factor in these attacks. It is as if young people are coming forth, in seemingly random acts of aggression, to say, “Where are you?” In an organized and overt way, we need to show them what all adults in any healthy society present to the young: authority, concern and self-sacrifice.
Would it make more sense for teachers to carry the guns on their persons instead of keeping them in a locked box? Absolutely! A locked box simply would reassure parents that a gun would not end up in the hands of a child. Teachers could be frequently drilled and trained, the way all civil defense volunteers are trained. If you practice opening a locked box located in your classroom once a week, is it so hard to do in an emergency?
I am not wedded to all the details of the idea I mentioned. I am wedded to the idea of a clear and easily understandable program for defending schools with weapons in the hands of employees other than a trained security staff. Whatever program it would be, it must forthrightly assure attackers that there are multiple people in any school building with guns. Additional weapons that would simply disarm or disable someone with automatic weapons would also make sense. Civil defense does not just happen. It is an organized response to violence.
Joe H. writes:
I know I am late to the discussion, but I think it is worth pointing out that when Utah created its concealed carry law several years ago, it allowed possessors to carry guns into public schools. So there are teachers and other individuals who are currently authorized to carry concealed weapons in schools in at least one state. There have been no school shootings in Utah since the law went into effect, something we should all point out when involved in discussions like this. Someday there may be such a shooting in which the shooter is quickly taken down by an armed teacher or administrator. Then we can all point to that as an example of the law working.
If any liberal is foolish enough to point out the reason for the lack of school shootings in Utah is due to its highly religious population or it low percentage of minorities, well…
Also, here in Arizona, legislators are trying to pass a similar law. I hope it passes soon. During one of the hide and duck drill’s at my son’s junior high school, his teacher who retired from the Marine Corps said he would do everything in his power to protect his students in the event of a real shooting, but without a gun his options were limited. I want to get a gun in his hands, or the hands of other teachers like him who are former military or police personnel, a soon as possible.
Laura W. writes (Feb. 18, 12:30 p.m.):
I hope I’m not belaboring the issue, but reading over the discussion, I realize I’ve omitted to explain what I meant by a “locked box.” I meant a small and portable locked box, similar to the steel boxes used to protect documents from fire. There would be one for each armed teacher and it would mainly stay in the classroom, but could be carried around the school building. The purpose is to make the idea more marketable. Again, I agree carried weapons would be preferable.
Also, I did not explain exactly why three teachers and not simply a general armed response program as mentioned by Bill Carpenter. My concern was that if schools do not commit themselves to a minimum of three teachers, the number of armed adults may drop below that and thus be inadequate and actually dangerous. It would be wrong to expect one or two individuals to defend an entire building.
Bill Carpenter writes:
Thanks again to Laura W. for this discussion. I don’t think Laura G’s proposed modification of her plan is impossible. Some teachers could carry on their persons, concealed or openly. That would be less impractical, not more, than the lock-box scheme. The size and layout of the school would determine how many adults need to be armed for the plan to be effective.
I don’t have much to add to Thucydides’ excellent comments on the philosophical objections liberals make to any provision for personal self-defense. Liberals do not want to admit that the state cannot satisfy all needs generally, and specifically that it cannot protect citizens from the physical harm that threatens them. They do not want to admit they would rather trade a few innocent lives to attain a government monopoly on the use of force (with the exception of armed criminals, who are tolerated as government clients to the extent required by anarcho-tyranny), than share the responsibility for armed response with private citizens. They do not want to admit that the right of self-defense or other rights actually exist (because they deny natural law) and are inalienable; i.e., the fact that we delegate government agents to protect us does not mean that we give up the right to self-defense.
I think we will have metal detectors and armed guards wherever liberals are in control. That will cost more, and may or may not achieve the desired result. Those are both liberal solutions, maintaining the monopoly of force in government and the preserving the profile of prey animals for our citizens.
Daniel P. writes:
How many schools have veterans teaching in them? My high school had one on each hallway generally around the center of the hall. I never really thought about it before, but maintaining order was their primary function. Why else would all the subjects be grouped to gather but the history teachers spread out all over campus, and they were almost all history teachers. It was the history teachers and coaches who stopped fights before they grew into riots, and I imagine would be the schools armed guards if we allow some teachers to be armed. The armed teachers would not necessarily be inexperienced in combat.
Also on your comment about the quality of private security guards, the police officer assigned to us was occasionally asleep in his car.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 15, 2008 01:12 PM | Send