COMMON SENSE ANSWERS – AT 2:31 P.M. ET:   TV News tells us there's a new student movement devoted to gun control.  And of course, the usual suspects in the press are drooling all over these kids.  We should admire their wish to participate, to help solve a problem, to save lives.  Commendable.  Very much so.  But we must never base public policy on their conclusions or recommendations.  It is common for young people to ask the right questions and come up with answers that are wrong or even catastrophic.  And our responsibility is to potential victims, who we must protect from harm.

One common-sense answer to gun violence is to harden schools, making them as invulnerable as possible to an active shooter.  Many on the left don't like that because it doesn't fit their world view.  But mature adults realize it's a critical first step toward the saving of actual lives.  From Breitbart: 

Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard K. Jones offered free concealed carry training for 50 teachers and 250 teachers responded within 24 hours.

Breitbart News reported that Jones began advertising the free training on Sunday and the immediate response was 50 emails within 20 minutes:

On February 20 Fox 91 reported the response had jumped to 250 teachers who wanted training. Jones reveled in the opportunity to instruct them, saying, “We have 250 and growing fast. We will start training fast, next week.”

He stressed that he wants teachers to understand what they can do with a gun if an armed attacker enters the classroom. And while he cannot delegate the authority for teachers to carry on a given campus–that is a school board decision–Jones said he wants the teachers to be ready if their school board so chooses.

He said, “If the school boards want to give the authority to teachers to be armed…[they] can do that, they have the authority to do it, but I’m going to do my part, and I assume I’m probably the only one in the state of Ohio that’s doing that – but something has to happen.”

COMMENT:  Good!  We can do so much so quickly to harden schools, including the call-up of MP companies in the Guard and Reserves.  We can hire veterans and retired police officers.  We can ask for parent and grandparent volunteers to sit at a desk at the front door of a school several hours a week, and alert the school to any danger.

It's improvisation.  It isn't perfection.  But there are many patchwork things we can do immediately to help protect kids.

Or will the ideologists take over and resist any practical measures, pushing instead for "gun control" to satisfy their constituencies?

February 21, 2018