My column for the Washington County Daily News is online. Here you go:
Once again we find ourselves searching for solutions in the wake of a mass killing at a school. It is the natural human reaction to want to do something about it and we all want the killing to end. The powerful impulse to “do something” is often the genesis of bad laws, or worse, tyranny, but that must not deter us from doing whatever is legal, ethical, and constitutional to decrease the likelihood of another massacre.
Mass killings are still the statistical outlier in America. The odds of being killed in such a mass shooting is dwarfed by the likelihood of being killed by a criminal or angry family member. According to FBI data, our nation has averaged about 23 deaths per year from mass shootings since 1982. While each mass shooting is shocking and tragic, you are more than twice as likely to be killed by bees or wasps as in a mass shooting. Still, while rare, mass killings appear to be on the rise and we must take reasonable measures to prevent them when possible, and mitigate the damage when they occur.
The root causes of the rise of mass killings are complex. Our culture is steeped in violent movies and video games; devoid of moral absolutism; hostile to God and blessings of salvation; detached from the real world of human interaction; where kids grow up isolated and angry in a sea of digital and artificial surrogates for love, friendship, and emotional connections. It is a toxic brew that — especially when mixed with mental illness and lax law enforcement — fertilizes evil. But fixing the culture is hard. In the meantime, we must look to preserve the footings of individual liberty while providing for our security.
What can be done about reducing mass killings in our schools and elsewhere? Provide better mental health services? Install better security in our schools? Hire armed security officers to patrol our schools? See it and say it? Ensure that background checks for the purchase of weapons are thorough? Deal severely with people who are violent and unstable? Yes. All of the above.
Another measure we need to take is to allow schools to decide if and how they would allow teachers, parents, and staff to arm themselves.
There are some realities that we face as a nation when it comes to firearms. First, firearms are prevalent in our society and they are not going away. That is as it should be. We decided at the founding of this nation that an armed citizenry was necessary for the preservation of liberty and it is an ethic that is ingrained into the American heart. If anything, in the face of tragedy, Americans have shown that they prefer to lift restrictions on owning and carrying firearms for law-abiding folks instead of enacting further restrictions. Even if we repeal the 2nd Amendment tomorrow, 300 million guns aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Second, while we can and must take action to address the root causes of violence, we will never completely dig out those roots. They are at the very core of humanity. We are marked by a shadow of evil that cannot be completely eliminated absent the eradication of our species. As such, we must do as we have always done: hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Allowing school employees to arm themselves provides for that last desperate line of defense in the face of unthinkable violence. When faced by a lunatic with a gun, there are very few ways to escape the situation alive. Meeting force with force is sometimes the only, and best, option.
Implementing such a policy is complex. High schools are different from elementary schools. Rural schools are different from urban schools. Big schools are different from smaller schools. That is why the decisions about how a policy allowing teachers and staff to arm themselves must be left to local school districts and private school leaders.
But this is not untraveled ground. In Texas, for example, 172 school districts already allow staff and/or school board members to carry firearms on school grounds. And according to the Giffords Law Center, nine states already allow concealed carry holders to carry on school grounds in some or all situations. Those are not the schools where mass shootings are on the rise.
Not every, or even most, school employees would want to accept the responsibility of providing an armed defense, but some would. They deserve to have that choice. They deserve to have a safer workplace. Even the best police forces are minutes away when seconds count.
At the very least, the fact that some school employees might be armed serves as a deterrent to wouldbe killers. There is a reason why mass murderers tend to target gunfree zones. They may be evil, but they aren’t stupid. The threat of an immediate armed response denies them the time to inflict maximum carnage.
We will never be able to completely eliminate the threat of violence in our schools. That is precisely why we must provide our school teachers and staff with all of the tools available to protect themselves and our children. As we have learned after almost every school shooting in the past thirty years, the violence only stops when it is met with equal force. The quicker that happens, the fewer people get shot. It is just that simple.
Keep going. You want an evidence-based approach?
Will adding weapons to schools increase safety overall? Will it increase the number of accidents? Will it increase the number of teachers “feeling threatened” and shooting an unruly student? Will it increase the number of times that an unruly student grabs a newly and relatively easily obtained weapon, either when it’s left unattended (not supposed to happen, but it will) or when it’s still attached to the teacher? Can they shoot a student if they reach for their weapon?
Take it deeper. Why not arm all the students? If they can own and operate outside of school, why not in school, too?
Most students are under the age of 21 and would not be able to get a concealed carry permit in Wisconsin.
jjf,
Just like in the debate over concealed carry, we do not have to fantasize over theoretical fears. There are already hundreds of districts that allow this in a variety of ways. The fears you express are theoretical, but they are not legitimate in the face of real examples.
It’s not like I’m talking about dancing leprechauns. These examples already happen with cops. You’re happy with more “accidents” and “felt threatened”?
Not at all. It’s just not been proven to be a significant problem. Even in the case of the general public where thousands of people (like me) are carrying every day, it rarely happens. Yes, it does happen. Just very rarely.
But I’m also not happy with killers being allowed to wander a school at will for many, many minutes before being met with force. History shows that they quicker an opposing force is brought to bear against one of these killers, the quicker they stop killing people. They are forced into a defensive posture instead of an offensive one.
Also, the rare accident in public seems to involve excessive alcohol or some other drug 90% of the time. So even that is an addiction problem, not a gun problem.
k:
I know this is asking a lot, but do you have anything to back up that 90% claim?
Nord,
So you care about science and data now?
Aside from the alcohol fueled carjacker shot dead in Milwaukee a few days ago….
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ac.pdf
Yup, always have been, and have always asked you to prove you claims.
But try to stay current, this stuff is 20+ years old.
Evolution faith is way older and has less evidence proving it, in fact, there is ton of evidence proving the evolution faith is false, but yet you still cling to that.
This, despite being 20 years old, still applies.
Do you have proof this 20 year old analysis of the stupidity of alcohol/drug abuse is a large factor in firearms accidents no longer applies?
Which means they will be worried about surviving. Even if their bullets travel 3X speed of light, or something.
“Alcohol is a factor in 40% of all violent crimes today, and according to the Department of Justice, 37% of almost 2 million convicted offenders currently in jail, report that they were drinking at the time of their arrest.”
NCADD, 2015
Nord,
Not all violent crimes involve guns.
Correct. So you still haven’t proven your 90% claim.
Baseball “legend”
Three 500-year floods in a year
Don’t forget the time he lied about Republicans having control of both Legislative houses for the last 12 years.
And I owned up to those mistakes. You guys just keep piling them up.
Can either of you prove k’s claim?? Thought not.
Another lie.
It seems straightforward to me. Just math, not politics. Adding more guns to schools will increase the number of incidents, accidents, breakdowns, etc. where a weapon is discharged in a fashion that could injure one or more.
If there’s roughly 3.5 million teachers in the USA (public and private), what fraction of them will think it’s a good idea to carry, and what fraction of those will have an accident? Do you sincerely think the number of accidents will be non-zero?
Let’s be generous and say 5% will carry in the years ahead, or 175,000. So if accidents are a 1-in-10,000 rarity… look at that, seventeen accidents.
>Let’s be generous and say 5% will carry in the years ahead, or 175,000. So if accidents are a 1-in-10,000 rarity… look at that, seventeen accidents.
How about speculating the other way with mass school shootings in the past 365 days. Lets be generous and say that only 50% of them would have ended sooner if someone already inside the school had a weapon and used it to stop the killer. How many children, dear sweet, innocent children would be alive today? I bet you won’t, because you can’t see past your own nose on my rights.
Sure, let’s fantasize. Where would you like to start? Tell me how often the 5% of teachers will be in range of the shooter. Is this shooter very inept and has done no scouting of the school? What sort of weapon will the shooter be carrying?
How about speculating the other way with mass school shootings in the past 365 days. Lets be generous and say that only 50% of them would have ended sooner if someone already inside the school had a weapon and used it to stop the killer. How many children, dear sweet, innocent children would be alive today? I bet you won’t, because you can’t see past your own nose on my rights.
Again, show me the math. Are crazed mass shooters rare or common? At what frequency do you think you’ll have gun accidents?
As I say, it’s a numbers game. The more teachers carrying, the more incidents we’ll have. Are you content with that outweighing the fantasy that one of them will be in the right place at the right time with the right response?
Exactly which of your rights are being trampled on?
Sure. Just like more cops carrying = more incidents, eh?
I’m not all fired up about teacher-carry. If one wants to, and gets the necessary tactical training with annual refreshers, fine. Pay him/her an extra $1K/year plus ammo for training….Otherwise, hire armed security with same training requirements.
Cops are trained and yet they still have accidents and incidents. Giving a teacher a few hours of training won’t turn them into a cop.
Yes, if you doubled the number of cops carrying, I bet you’ll have double the number of accidents. You’re smart, Dad29. You understand what I’m saying.
How did you derive your $1,000 figure? How many additional hours are you asking them to spend on this training? If they’re doing it as part of their job, are there new concerns of liability on the part of the school districts?
jjf:
How about speculating the other way with mass school shootings in the past 365 days. Lets be generous and say that only 50% of them would have ended sooner if someone already inside the school had a weapon and used it to stop the killer. How many children, dear sweet, innocent children would be alive today? I bet you won’t, because you can’t see past your own nose on my rights.
Jason, I encourage you or anyone else to daydream about how the next one might happen and how the next one might be averted. That’s the point of all this. All I ask is that we be realistic. Fact-based as best we can.
So if you want to claim half the shootings will stopped, tell me how that might happen. Use a past example, use an imagined future example. Tell me what percent of teachers will be carrying and how their handgun stops the AR. Tell me what the experts say about your plan. There’s a few well-informed people right here on this blog – ask them to be brave and step up and tell us what they really think.
But let’s be fair, too… you can’t tell me that adding, oh, 175,000 handguns to our schools won’t also bring a few new types of accidents and incidents, probably beyond the simple “discharge while in the bathroom” accidents. There will be new deaths and injuries that we don’t have now. We’ll have teachers getting hot-headed and shooting students or other teachers. We’ll have students grabbing or finding unsecured weapons or ammo.
And again, exactly which of your rights are being trampled now?