Recent School Shootings

What terrible tragedies. I can't even imagine the type of monster that could commit such horrendous crimes. As 90% of my posts are about firearm issues, I'd be remiss not to comment.

There are two solutions being offered to try and prevent these psychotic episodes from occuring in the future. If you think about it, the proposed solutions are not applicable only to school shootings. They generally sum up both sides of the gun debate.

A) More gun control. We need to make it harder for criminals to get guns. The current laws prohibiting criminals from being in the presence of a gun and also to murder someone aren't sufficient. We need more of them.


B) Allow responsible and trained school personnel to be armed. A Wisconsin legislator is proposing just that.

Let's look at some historical evidence before we make our choices...

As for choice (A), more gun control laws have always been proposed and adopted after senseless mass killings. It happened after Columbine. The complete handgun ban in Great Britain was in response to a school shooting, dubbed The Dunblane Massacre. Somehow, criminals keep disregarding all these laws and illegally using guns in "gun free zones". Not only are those zones obviously ignored, a lot of people think they attract these nutjobs because they are assured they'll bring the only gun and can make whatever point it is they're trying to get across.

As for choice (B), Israeli schools used to be a favorite target for terrorists. Isreal then mandated that teachers be armed. After a few terrorists were killed before they could blow up innocent kids, they moved on to easier pickings. I certainly do not think anybody in the U.S. should ever be mandated to carry, but if criminals know that someone may be able to stop them, they may think twice about their intentions. Would this be a magic fix-all? Of course not. But my opinion is that it would have a positive effect.

Let's not forget that there was a 1997 school shooting in Pearl, Mississippi that was stopped by an armed Vice Principal. As you can read in that link, Principal Balentine called 911 and waited helplessly while his students continued to get shot. Vice Principal Myrick ran out the building, made his way to the parking lot, retrieved his personal handgun, ran back to the school, and confronted the shooter... who was then peacefully captured without another shot being needed.

Imagine how many of the victims were injured or killed in the time it took Mr. Myrick to retrieve his handgun (which was illegally locked on school property) from his truck. Imagine how many victims were saved because Mr. Myrick broke the law and defended the defenseless.

By the way, Mr. Myrick was never charged with having his handgun in his truck.