It’s so simple I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first.
Now I know why the National Rifle Association waited a week to say something after 20 first graders and six adults were gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School: they were coming up with a brilliant solution to the problem!
At a press conference, Wayne LaPierre, NRA CEO and executive vice president unveiled the “National Model School Shield Program,” which proposes putting more armed guards into schools, including retired police officers and volunteers.
Volunteers with guns in schools. What could possibly go wrong?
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” said LaPierre.
Anticipating wimpy knee jerk liberal responses like that of Charles Wilson, principal of the Fred T. Korematsu Discovery Academy in Oakland – Oakland – who called the NRA’s proposal “insane” and “chilling,” LaPierre told reporters,
“Now I can imagine the headlines – the shocking headlines you’ll print tomorrow. More guns, you’ll claim, is the NRA’s answer to everything. Your implication will be that guns are evil and have no place in society, much less in our schools. But since when has ‘gun’ automatically become a bad word?”
I would date it from about the time Charles Whitman climbed atop a tower at the University of Texas in Austin and took out 13 people in 1966, but I’m no scholar of school massacres, so I may be missing some earlier sprees.
But think about it – crazy gunman shows up to a school, a volunteer with a gun takes him down. Tragedy averted, right?
Did I mention there were two armed law enforcement officers on the campus of Columbine on that awful day in 1999? The result of having armed cops in the school? 15 dead.
Yes, Mr. LaPierre, your assumption that most people believe guns have no place in society and school is correct, and you definitely do not sound like an angry gun nut with his back against the wall.
Much of your article makes sense, but to clarify a detail:
Columbine was the event which brought an “Active Shooter” scenario to light. Before this, Officers were trained to focus on violent criminals who would attempt escape after their crime. The Officers at Columbine operated under a protocol at the time that focused on more on containment over going into the fight(Set a perimeter, wait for backup)). At the time, this was the correct protocol.
Afterwards, agencies across the country trained to forcefully go into the fight and neutralize the threat when lives are being actively taken.
With current tactics and training influenced directly by an active shooter, to say that 2 Officers on a school ground today is the same as 2 Columbine-era Officers is very much apples and oranges.
I hope school killings could be prevented fast. Lots of innocent children and teenagers have died because of it.