After a string of well-publicized school shootings, the question has been raised of how to prevent further instances of violence or, failing that, how to react when a shooting occurs.
Gun control is often discussed, to strengthen gun laws or emulate Korea or England with a flat-out ban all guns. At face value, this is patently ludicrous. The only thing laws do is change how law-abiding citizens act. People who shoot up schools are by definition not law-abiding and as such, are not affected by gun control laws.
Much in the same way that making drugs illegal has done nothing to stop people from using them, making guns illegal will only stop peaceful, harmless, well meaning citizens from owning guns.
Look at how many shootings have occurred in gun free zones. If gun free zones worked, then there would be no shootings, active shooters would walk up to a campus, see a sign, and dejectedly walk away, being prevented from bringing their weapon into the zone. Obviously this is not how things work. Something more needs to be done.
Focusing on gun control is pretty absurd in the first place. It’s always boggled my mind that there are individuals out there who get to the point that they wish to commit suicide and take as many people as they can with them, and nobody seems to care.
The fact that people end up believing that violence is the only legitimate remaining course of action in their lives is barely considered. There is essentially zero conversation about how to prevent people from getting to that point in the first place, the only thing being considered is the tool used.
Are people under the impression that by making guns hard to get, murderous rage, hopelessness, feelings of alienation and hate will simply evaporate? For people who claim to be fighting for lives, little thought is given to the life of the potential shooter.
As long as people decide to ignore the causal factors at work and pay no attention to preventing someone from getting to the point of wanting to go on a murderous rampage, nothing will change. The question then becomes – how do we mitigate the effects of an active shooter? How is a shooter to be dealt with in such a way that minimizes the loss of life?
Some proposed solutions stretch the bounds of credibility, one popular theme is to rush an active shooter, distracting them with thrown books. One school in Alabama even proposed the idea of giving children cans of food to keep with them that they can all throw at an active shooter en masse.
Now call me crazy, but throwing a can of soup at someone with a gun doesn’t really seem like an entirely effective way of neutralizing a threat. Maybe this logic should be applied elsewhere – carry a can of Spam when walking the streets at night in the case of a mugging.
There is only one way to reliably, effectively stop an active shooter, and it’s employed by law enforcement daily: guns, fighting fire with fire. It’s the entire reason the police are called when there is an active shooter – they have guns.
Notice how there are essentially no spree shootings that occur in gun stores, gun ranges, gun shows or shooting classes? There’s a good reason for this. Everybody has guns. Across the board, whenever someone wants to perpetrate violence, it’s easier for them when their intended victim doesn’t fight back. The better a victim can fight back, the less the attacker can hurt.
There are a handful of schools across the nation that allow students with permits to carry concealed weapons on campus, and BC should become one of those schools.
Using the anti-gun lobby’s own logic, if guns are such an effective tool to injure, kill and maim, then if someone is a clear and present danger it makes sense to use the most effective tool at hand to stop them.
Compared to a can of food or a textbook, a gun is in another league entirely. At least a can of food is more effective than other methods. Maybe we should take a page out of those who campaign to end sexual violence on campus and simply teach people not to shoot up schools. I’m sure that will be effective.
We’re humans. Let’s use tools to solve our problems.