Keeping our children safe shouldn’t require arming teachers, staff, or parents.
On the Monday following the horrific murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, someone called in a threat to my kids’ school district. The district locked down all five schools in the district including my daughter’s kindergarten-only school and my son’s elementary school. I heard about this via an email from the district. I was calm until I called my wife with the news. Then, we both cried.
The police eventually deemed the threat to be without credibility. The kids came home free of fear or even anxiety. The teachers had clearly held it together much better than had I. The kids mentioned the locked doors and the lack of recess and gym but seemed unbothered by the events of the day. I cannot thank the administrators and the teachers enough for making such a troubling situation so easy on my kids.
But, here’s the thing: while I’m glad to live in a school district with such wonderful educators, I don’t want my kids to live in a world where preparing for a school shooting is normal.
Clearly, my level of distress was and still is high, due in no small part to the fact that the threat to my kids came so soon after the horrific murders at Sandy Hook. But my intent isn’t to write about my emotions in all of this. We all love our children. My sadness over what occurred is not unique. We all ache. This is something we share.
What we don’t share is our opinions on what should be done now.
I am a supporter of Second Amendment rights. I have plenty of very responsible friends and neighbors and family members who are gun owners. I see no utility in seizing their guns or preventing them from purchasing more.
But the Second Amendment is not a mandate. It permits gun ownership; it does not require it. And yet, I have heard plenty of people argue, after this most recent tragedy and after previous incidents of mass murders involving guns, that what we need is more guns. The argument generally goes as such: if we are all armed, then no one would dare start shooting. People say this as if it is the obvious and only solution. But, personally, I can’t imagine a more cynical and depressing answer to gun violence.
What kind of nihilistic society believes that our safety, let alone the safety of our children, should be governed by who has the best weaponry or is the best marksman? Is our only recourse to arm ourselves and live in a condition of perpetual anxiety, always ready to draw our guns, afraid to go anywhere without first arming ourselves? Perhaps we can convince ourselves that such a society would be a more secure society, but we certainly can’t believe it would be a more peaceful one. There is no peace when the only defense is self-defense.
I prefer to be optimistic. I hope for a society where my family can be safe even if we choose not to arm ourselves, and where the school staff is unarmed. Because I do not want to be a soldier. And I do not want my children’s schools to be fortresses. I want to be a dad, not part of some militia. I want our schools to be places of learning, not armed encampments where children are hidden behind locked doors. I want my kids to be free from the worry that evil might visit their classroom.
Arming ourselves and our schools is an act of surrender. If we do that, we admit that our society is failing and our only hope is to hunker down and just try to survive. But I don’t believe our society is failing. It may be sick. It may riddled with narcissism and sensationalism and political divisiveness that boils into hate, but I refuse to believe we can’t improve. That we can’t find ways to protect ourselves through improvements in our mental health system and through a general cultural shift, where we start recognizing our shared humanity.
I am fine if you want to own a gun. I will stand up for your right to do so. But don’t tell me I have to own one too. Don’t tell me I have to send my kids to a school with armed guards with assault rifles. That is not the America I want for my children.
When my kids came home after the lockdown at their schools, we explained to our third grader what had occurred. His only real question was: Why? Why would someone threaten him? I had theories as to the perpetrator’s mental condition and need for attention, but this kind of speculation wasn’t the answer my son wanted. He meant: What kind of society allows such a thing to happen? To that, I have no answer. But that doesn’t mean there are no solutions. We can’t erase evil and tragedy from the world, but we can do more than add more guns to the equation. I believe we can do better than that.
Read more about Guns on The Good Life.
Image credit: Fort Meade/Flickr
I wonder, as a practical matter, how anyone at a school could possibly distinguish between an armed volunteer who’s there to protect the children and an armed intruder whose there to shoot them. Don’t worry at all that he has a pistol strapped to his hip – it’s okay for an outsider to carry a gun into a school, unless he draws first, and then we shoot him? Suppose there’s a clerical error and two armed NRA volunteers arrive at the same school at the same time, unbeknownst to the other. If only the “good guys with guns” only ever… Read more »
Suppose you come up with a plan to protect children and F the guns for a moment. How does a high-and-mighty think we ought to actually protect the children? Are you FOOL enough to think an NRA membership card would serve as a “document of capability?” Do you think so little of the children that your can be so bloody smarmy? Has anyone here or any other media source/outlet ever suggested NRA membership was a qualifying factor? People have ONLY suggested highly trained people be on campus or in-building if they are there with a gun. Look, we all know… Read more »
wellokaythen.
I suppose you could try to see if anything like this has happened at, say, Appalachian College of Law. Two armed citizens. Took care of things.
Or anyplace else. Got any evidence? Examples?
***”To suggest that, because one person feels safer and abler to handle threats because they choose to carry a gun, it will therefore make ALL people safer and abler if they carry guns,”*** I don’t really give a rat’s poo about how anyone feels if they are charged with protecting children. I know cops who HATE to carry guns off-duty, but do so out of local rules and duty to society. Protecting children is a mighty task; mighty enough for Sandy Hook adults to throw their bodies at 3000 feet/second bullets. At that moment, the adults taked with protecting children,… Read more »
I am in no way wrong about the primary purpose of guns: they are designed to project force over distance in a short time period, the end result of which (assuming the target is hit) injury or death. That is the only reason they act as deterrents, not because they look shiny and big. And deterrence by gun only really works if someone is seeking to avoid pain and death, which would not seem to be the case with people like the shooters in Aurora or Newtown. As to shootings by psychos happening, we are all painfully aware that they… Read more »
Oh…I know….but its been a LONG time since a gun told me to pick it up and do something bad. Have you ever asked yourself why such wrapped things are happening these days, and not in the days when a 12yo could bring his .22 Browning to school for after-school hunting? or why in Hibbing Minn, the High Sckool has a rifle range in the basement (as did hundreds of schools in this nation)? I mean, I have MY opinion on why we have current day slaughter of the lambs…just wondering why YOU think it is. IMO: Snot the guns… Read more »
To suggest that, because one person feels safer and abler to handle threats because they choose to carry a gun, it will therefore make ALL people safer and abler if they carry guns, is to fall prey to the logical fallacy of composition. The basic version of the FOC is this: 1) I will be able to see better if I stand up at a concert; 2) So if everyone else stands up, they will see better, too; 3) Therefore, everyone should stand up. It doesn’t work. If everyone stands up, everyone is right back where they started. Some people… Read more »
Stop trying to inject sense into these matters Kevin, it will just confuse matters.
Best we stay on track with John Lott(ish) rhetoric – the Government is just over yonder and they are packing nukes. Arm up!
*sigh* Elissa, you could be right. If I just abandon sense, I suppose things would go much smoother. 😉
Ref. San Antonio. The armed non-perp was a cop. You’ll note that, until reminded that Clinton thought cops in schools was a good idea, lots of the Right Sort of People thought having cops in schools was a terrible idea. So we’re making progress. Note the spray&pray shooters in NYC in the fall who hit half a dozen bystanders were also cops. So you can’t guarantee good shooting goes with a uniform. Various armed citizens might–this is what the opponents of CCW claim–shoot wildly and kill even more people on Flight 93 than, for example, died on Flight 93. Problem… Read more »
Be aware Richard, I am very in tune with Lott study that is often repeated in gun forums.
My credibility on that front is quite sound. Is yours?
elissa.
Then you can cite something from Lott telling us the government is packing up nukes to use against us.
I see, you’re taking a literal approach – how about you start by reading what Gary Kleck (one of yours) wrote in his book with regards to John Lott’s “More guns less crime” and what it purports to show…
And in my defense – you can’t mischaracterize nonsense.
On a side note and more related to my hyperbole: do you deny that one of the main pillars of the pro gun lobby is to protect against government tyranny?
Elissa, You can’t ignore the supporting history surrounding the second amendment. Why was it put there? If you examine the entire Bill Of Rights, you’ll see that ALL of the elements do the same bloody thing: Protect us from a govt that attempts to over-step its authority. Read them all. Tis a hoot. They ALL speak to empowering the civilians and giving the basis for why we will fight, how & why we will not tollerate power-grabs beyond the scope of the Constitution and that we have these specific rights to base our actions upon. If we are convicted of… Read more »
I don’t care that Clinton thought having cops in schools was a good idea. I don’t agree with the simplified version of that proposal. If anyone is imagining how things might go, its the pro-non-regulated gun side. I am well aware that someone carrying a gun and is well-trained to use it in surprise situations has the potential to stop terrible people from doing what they plan to do. That’s why I referenced the San Antonio shooting. However, that doesn’t mean that multiple guns equates with increased safety. As to needing facts, that’s true of your position, too. Here’s a… Read more »
Quote “But that doesn’t mean there are no solutions. We can’t erase evil and tragedy from the world, but we can do more than add more guns to the equation. I believe we can do better than that.”
So what exactly are these solutions? Please be more specific, Mr Carl.
Gee. Just posted this link in another gun thread before I saw this one.
I don’t want my movie-going experience to take place in a fortress.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/sanantonio.asp
Another theater shooting. Note lack of coverage.
Yeah. What this guy wants is…going to come true because if it doesn’t…he’ll be mad or something.
Very cute concept. Warm Teddy Bears and such.
But I will never accept direct and arrogant willingness to leave children vulnerable to evil just because you think guns are icky.
Q: How many children had died in school fires in the past 50 years?
A: Zero
Why?: An infiltrated infrastructure set to prevent it, PREVENTED it !!!
I suggest people get real and start learning how to protect children, rather than sacrifice them to perpetuate an agenda.
“The argument generally goes as such: if we are all armed, then no one would dare start shooting.”
You don’t have to be ‘optimistic’ to see why that argument is nonsense. Indeed, cynicism helps us recognize that such an argument assumes that everyone who starts shooting is acting rationally and made a careful, objective cost/benefit analysis beforehand. Obviously this is untrue.
“I prefer to be optimistic. I hope for a society where my family can be safe even if we choose not to arm ourselves, and where the school staff is unarmed. Because I do not want to be a soldier. And I do not want my children’s schools to be fortresses. I want to be a dad, not part of some militia. I want our schools to be places of learning, not armed encampments where children are hidden behind locked doors. I want my kids to be free from the worry that evil might visit their classroom.” Wow, that’s a… Read more »