Unarmed and dangerous

Unarmed and Dangerous

It has been suggested that we should mourn the children killed in schools by armed assailants instead of making a celebrity of the murderers who commit these crimes. I cannot argue with that choice but what we should really be doing is providing an effective solution to the problem.

In order to find the cure we need to understand the disease. We need to dig down to the root of the problem, the cause and effect.

First, lets look at what cannot work. When considering how to avoid massacres like what occurred at Sandy Hook elementary school in the future I was shocked by the suggestion we are hearing. They have already prohibited people from legally carrying guns at schools and campuses and some are also creating Gun Free Zones at malls and theaters.

How is that working out for you?

Well it is not working out because that is where these mass murders seem to want to go. They never go to gun shows or the shooting range. They go to where people do not have guns. Was the prohibition of alcohol or the war on drugs effective or did they create an underworld of violent crime?

Disarming citizens will not stop violence anymore than prohibition stops drinking. One individual stated that "The solution is to train people how to defend without firearms, using only themselves and whatever objects might be at hand."

Charging an armed individual may be done as a heroic effort to save lives, but it will also likely be your last act before you are dead. It certainly is not a solution I would recommend. If we are going to find a real solution we need to approach this problem with some modicum of common sense. That is very rare these days and there is a reason for that which is part of the problem.

Samuel L Jackson recently said concerning these shooting: “I don’t think it’s about more gun control. I grew up in the South with guns everywhere and we never shot anyone. This [shooting] is about people who aren’t taught the value of life.” I have to agree with him on that but I am including the people who have taken common sense out of the equation of safety in society.

We are endowed by our creator with the right to defend ourselves. Having guns is about being safe and keeping our neighbors safe. Ownership of guns is not about hunting, it is about safety. We need to realize that every assault rifle is also an anti-assault rifle in the hands of honorable people.

Schools used to teach the use of firearms on campus and in schools. When I was a boy they had gun clubs at schools. No one came into the school shooting children. What has changed? And can we change it back? Taking guns away from the average person is a medieval solution that empowered kings and rulers to oppress the people and make them subjects. It has always ended in disaster throughout the course of history.1

People need and want real solutions, not debates over failed policies.

Of course they were still using the Bible as a school book back then. Probably more important on this topic is that they had not invented psychotropic drugs2 prescribed for children yet. These drugs are not dealing with the problem but are covering the symptoms and bringing their own listed evil side effects which we are seeing in these shooters. But trying to outlaw these drugs would not be a solution to the problem. We need something immediate that has proven itself effective in the face of violence.

Israel allows teachers and even some of the students to arm themselves in schools and it has both reduced violence and stopped it when people have tried to massacre the innocent.

In Texas the Harrold Independent School District allows teachers to bring concealed weapons to school. Texas and a half dozen other states3 have allowed teachers and faculty to bring guns to school with permission.

This practice is both an antidote and prevention. While it would not be an absolute cure the presence of firearms in the hands of competent and courageous people has proven itself effective on both an individual and national bases.

Just the other day:

A little girl thwarted two armed intruders with her mother's pink 22 single action rifle without firing a shot.
An individual in Clackamas, Oregon was trying to murder people in a local mall. After killing two people and looking for more victims Nick Meli pulled out his own legally carried gun and pointed at the shooter. He did not pull the trigger because someone was running right behind the shooter. As soon as the shooter spotted the armed man which he was evidently not expecting in this Gun Free Zone, he fled down a hallway and shot himself.
Joel Myrick, an assistant principal stopped a school shooter in Mississippi [who had also killed his mother and several others] by retrieving a .45 from his car and confronting the armed boy. Joel is also a US Army Reserve commander.

The list goes on4 but it should be clear that just the presence of firearms in the school in the hands of responsible adults could have ended the matter and likely prevented it before it started. But instead the killer was able to walk with impunity in broad daylight murdering at will.

There is a pretentious prejudice and perverted paranoia connected with the question of armed or not armed. Guns are tools and all tools can be weapons for assault and for defense including hammers and baseball bats, or a car or a law that excludes your right to defend yourself.

There are extremely armed societies and sections of society that are having no problem with mass murder. There are and have been far deeper and pervasive contributing factors to the problem and they will not go away with trying more of the same nonsense we have seen with Zero Tolerance policies. We will and do address those deeper issues but people need to take action now that will lead them to a long term and real solution.

The truth is these policies have allowed people to take away the faculty's and administrator's means by which they could effectively protect the children attending those public schools.

How many more have to die before you realize that you have a moral obligation to keep those children safe, which includes the right to keep and bear arms. How can people pretend to teach American history about Lexington and Concord's stand against tyranny and the attempt by government to disarm the people while they have rolled over in the passive submission to disarming themselves?

We seem to be dealing with a mental wall that is exposing a people divided. I believe in understanding the root of that division we will expose the problem and the solution.

One commentator said “... I just cannot visualize teachers and principals having to be armed or worry about more weapons in schools.”

Why not?

What is wrong with this picture?

Did or did you not just entrust your children to be taught by these teachers and administrators? But now you are telling me they cannot be trusted to handle a firearm? They should worry about the fact that they are defenseless and advertised as defenseless to the whole world.

We are not talking about “more weapons in schools” we are talking about a practical means of self defense in the hands of responsible and honorable people so they do not have to die unnecessarily in the presence of menacing forces. This is what the right to bear arms is all about. Yet, some people cannot see it.

Gun Free Zones are a death trap for your children. As long as the foolish, irrational, unthinking people are going to continue to promote this failed policy of zero tolerance there will be more killings. There are lots of reasons to take your children out of public school.5 This insanity alone should convince you to get your children out of public school. If you need help home schooling gather with others in a living network that cares about you and your rights as much as their own.6

Would you let your children go out on the ocean in shark infested waters in a leaky boat with no life-preserver and an incompetent crew?

The gun control advocates who took the guns from the school's staff are are both foolish and complicit in these tragedies. The blood of these mass murders is equally upon their hands because they took away the means to stop the carnage and encouraged it by an imposed vacuum of self-defense.

The pursuit happiness

If people have the right to pursue happiness no one has the right to take the means of self defense away from responsible people while they do.7 But some think they do and intend to do just that. The Gun Free Zones at school have provided a stage for this violence.

There are two sides to the issue and the reason for that division is the foundation of a deeper problem. It is the wall that divides us. To disarm Americans in a most dangerous game.