When only bad guys have guns...
The most depressing thing I've seen coming out of the tragedy in Connecticut is my friend Heather saying that an armed Good Guy would have made it MORE likely that more children would have been killed. The belief that Guns Are Evil and Only The State Can Save Us is so strong and so closely held that the concept of individual agency using a tool they're trained on is just not conceivable.
This is pretty much the attitude of the entire area in which I live. Some sort of magical thinking - if ONLY there were no guns, then bad people would never go insane and hurt others. You know, like bomb a school instead of shoot it up. But perhaps the solution THERE is to ban all things that could be made into bombs. Or maybe just chop off all opposible thumbs prophylatively because bad people can think of really awful things to do with the use of their hands. ("Idle hands are the devils tools" predates handguns as a saying.)
Bad guys exist, but so do good guys. In fact, MOST people are good. The vast majority of people are good! The truly evil people are rare. Allowing them to be the only armed people just strikes me as a terrible, terrible idea.
It makes sense to me that people should be trained in the use of fire extinguishers in case of fire, sand and salt in case of an ice storm, and handguns in case of an attack by a madman. Not everyone needs to know how to use every specialized tools - I can't plow the driveway - but it doesn't take a ton of training to learn basic firearms skills. I know a dozen people in real life who have done active shooter training, including my own husband.
I think trained, vetted people should be allowed to carry firearms on campus. The time has come to stop putting signs on lawns saying "only passive sheep here." My husband works in security on a women's college campus. Campus Police are not allowed to carry weapons in their "gun-free zone". The security theater creates a tragedy waiting to happen.
This is pretty much the attitude of the entire area in which I live. Some sort of magical thinking - if ONLY there were no guns, then bad people would never go insane and hurt others. You know, like bomb a school instead of shoot it up. But perhaps the solution THERE is to ban all things that could be made into bombs. Or maybe just chop off all opposible thumbs prophylatively because bad people can think of really awful things to do with the use of their hands. ("Idle hands are the devils tools" predates handguns as a saying.)
Bad guys exist, but so do good guys. In fact, MOST people are good. The vast majority of people are good! The truly evil people are rare. Allowing them to be the only armed people just strikes me as a terrible, terrible idea.
It makes sense to me that people should be trained in the use of fire extinguishers in case of fire, sand and salt in case of an ice storm, and handguns in case of an attack by a madman. Not everyone needs to know how to use every specialized tools - I can't plow the driveway - but it doesn't take a ton of training to learn basic firearms skills. I know a dozen people in real life who have done active shooter training, including my own husband.
I think trained, vetted people should be allowed to carry firearms on campus. The time has come to stop putting signs on lawns saying "only passive sheep here." My husband works in security on a women's college campus. Campus Police are not allowed to carry weapons in their "gun-free zone". The security theater creates a tragedy waiting to happen.