George Rebane
That is the only slim thread of agreement that the Republicans and Democrats have for new legislation pursuant to the mass killing of students and teachers in Uvalde, Texas this week. Yet the Dems’ solution continues to be to enact senseless gun legislation to stop senseless mass shootings. Their entire initiative is based on appealing to the hoped for raw emotional response of their constituents to ‘do something’, or anything that can be used to advance the final objective of removing firearms from the country’s law-abiding civilian population.
The Dems’ entire argument is that since ‘guns kill people’, the “gun lobby” (aka NRA) wants more people killed through the unhindered sale of more guns. For the Left there are no other considerations for the private ownership of guns, least of all the antiquated and misconstrued Second Amendment to defend against rogue government. Every successive gun control measure is understood to be nothing more or less than a ratchet toward socialist autocracy’s final objective of an unarmed, compliant citizenry.
In a country with over 340 million variously un/registered firearms, there is no guarantee that a quietly deranged person with no previous criminal record or recorded history of mental instability will be stopped from a serendipitously inspired and spontaneously launched mass murder. LE officials have told us for decades that no level of gun restrictions will bring an end to what happened in Uvalde.
What journalists and clear-thinking politicians don’t ask, during the inevitable gun control hysteria that follows every mass shooting, is ‘what is the evidence that this legislation would have stopped the previous mass murderers, or will stop them in the future?’ Posing this question will quickly reveal the real purpose for the newly proposed gun control measures.
The real solution – possibly unattainable – is what may be called a ‘cultural reset’. The American culture of, say, fifty years ago prevented such mass murders occurring in a population equally populated with firearms – both semi-auto pistols and long guns. Today, wholesale human life is cheapened and cheap. With widespread and instant salacious news coverage, we continually hear of hundreds of people gunned down weekly without giving it much if any thought. Unless the life belongs to family or close friends, the deaths don’t matter much irrespectively how they are snuffed out.
And our polarized society no longer supports community-wide solutions. Remaining solutions have become very personalized – you pull up stakes and move to a safer place if you can, or you stay put, become insular, and hunker down while the killing continues around you. That will continue in perpetuity as long as the state makes it so that only criminals have guns to use with impunity on an unarmed citizenry. To various extents this has proven to be true both under so-called liberal democracies and police-state tyrannies.
A cultural reset, even if attempted, will take at least a generation to gain traction in our society. In the meantime, IMHO we should recognize the ground truth that active killers with guns are stopped only by defenders with guns. So, if we really have an interest to do something to protect the children, then we must always remember that when seconds count, LE is minutes (or more) away. Actually, an hour away in Uvalde and similarly at previous shooting sites. As far as the killer is concerned, LE has not arrived until he is assaulted with arms. It doesn’t matter how quickly LE arrives on the scene, the clock starts when the killer perceives that his further intentions will now be curtailed. For example, LE getting to the Uvalde school and dicking around for an hour before a Border Patrol agent confronted and shot the killer, means that LE effectively arrived an hour late. So consider –
Policies that don’t work – place one security officer per school. These have proven to be career-limited, marginally trained, timid people who either have no idea that killing is taking place in another part of the school, or who will not confront the killer until summoned LE people (‘back-up’) arrive to take control of the incident.
Policies that have a chance of working – Every teacher and certain staffers are trained and required to be concealed-carry armed when on duty. This policy is then made public. Israel has demonstrated the efficacy of such policy. (more here)
[Addendum] In ongoing discussions about solutions to such wanton and unpredictable massacres, it was brought out that there may be a significant share of teachers who will refuse to be trained and armed. The point makes sense since so many teachers are liberals/progressives whose logic doesn’t always concur with reality – e.g. similar to those leftwingers who believe that declaring a building or facility a ‘gun-free zone’ will hinder instead of attract the manic mass murderer. No matter, for whatever reasons, not all teachers can qualify or be relied upon to be armed and confront their students’ would-be killer.
The alternative to concealed-carry teachers in the classroom is a cadre of volunteer CCW holders who would also receive the required additional training. These would come from the students’ parents, grandparents, and (retired) friends or community volunteers. I’d bet the farm that there would be more than enough volunteers to sit in the back of classrooms while instruction is going on. Each school could have a ‘security coordinator’ volunteer to coordinate with the school’s administration, maintain the active roster, and manage the ‘duty calendar’ for the classroom security volunteers. The marginal cost to the school district and community would be nil.
Given today’s mobile devices (laptops, pads, smart phones, …), the security volunteers can easily be productive on their own projects as they carry out their assigned watches. I know from our family’s circle of friends and contacts, that almost everyone would volunteer who could pass the training requirements. As an example, for years I was a member of the Banner Mountain firewatch team and pulled many a 4-6 hour morning and afternoon stints on the tower (until the tower was decommissioned). It was a rewarding experience, as I’m sure it would also be to serve as a classroom security volunteer.
(For the record, America’s CCW holders are the most reliable and law-abiding cohort of citizens when it comes to psychological stability, gun safety and proficiency, and criminality/gun violence. Statistically, you are six times more likely to be assaulted by a rogue LE officer than a CCW permit holder.)
[28may22 update] A commenter raised a valid question about the availability of sufficient volunteers to implement the above described classroom security approach. I’ve taken a more detailed look at the numbers, and it appears to be doable. These back-of-envelope calculations are available here – Download Classroom Security Volunteers. Readers thoughts are always welcome, especially as they point out any errors or weaknesses (not already covered in the comment stream below).
[4jun22 update] Certify retired military personnel to serve as armed school security guards – so proposes Sen Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Above I have made case for such a solution that can be implemented more rapidly than any ineffective anti-gun legislation. (more here)
The Left, of course, is dead-set against such a practical solution, and surprisingly they are joined by some folks from the other side who also think it’s the dumbest thing they ever heard of. Nevertheless, that kind of solution, using trained and certified volunteer security guards, is staring us in the face with no reasonable opposition save ‘schools should remain a gun-free zone’, or more simply, ‘it’s a stupid idea that will never work’.
[9jun22 update] Well, things may be looking up with getting more defensive guns into schools and classrooms. Reports are coming in that in certain red states teachers are volunteering to carry guns (here). And we now hear that even in progressive New Jersey militant parents are convincing school districts to hire off-duty and retired LE officers to serve as added security in schools (here). These people will be paid. So that brings us a few steps closer to the volunteer security concept outlined here as the affordable solution to protect our children.
BTW, does everyone notice that the ‘do something’ new gun regs coming out of the House have nothing to do with protecting the children? (They’re just a desperate Dem election issue since everything else they propose is a demonstrable disaster for the country.) And no Republican has the balls to resist the new ‘do something’ hysteria by asking why existing gun regs – from past ‘do something’ hysterias – aren’t being enforced and/or have proven to be totally ineffective in reducing ‘gun violence’.
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