School Shootings and The President's Solution
By John Longenecker (10/10/06)
This week, President Bush is convening a council to discuss the school shootings completed around the nation. The President has directed our Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and our Education Secretary Margaret Spellings to hold meetings with educators and law enforcement.
But this is the wrong way to go about it. As in disaster management, I’m afraid the President (and the educators and law enforcement) will be paying lip service to the problem while committing one of the most vexing of all citizen complaints with government: they include themselves, and freeze the people – especially parents – out of the meetings. Or they listen courteously, but ignore our wishes anyway. How’s it been in the past?
Lip service: we have to do something about school shootings.
Action: Ignore the wishes of the people and listen only to so-called eckthpertz.
How Liberty Enthusiasts See It: we have to do something about school shootings to pro-actively protect our children…
Liberty / Parental / Pro-Family Answer: lift all anti-family and anti-household laws against carrying weapons wherever a parent or citizen has a right to be.
It’s alright, the kids won’t be hurt by their parents. Where did you get that idea? What expert told you that?
You see, the Principals, so-called Educators and other policy nuts get sick at the sight of killing children as we all do, but they also get sick at the thought of the remedy, and not all of us do. As I’ve said, officials never seem to have the guts the individual has to have in facing grave danger alone, but they sure do have the guts to disarm the victim. Real brave.
The so-called Educators always want someone else to do the dirty work of what must be done, and even then, only within a narrow list of their choices, which specifically exclude the will of the people. In the end, it all adds up only to another mop-up and further restrictions on…parents. These laws which emerge from this type of ‘meeting’ never touch the criminal. Haven’t you noticed? Things didn’t get bad until the Gun Control Act of 1968, so it’s the dinner bell for killers.
The real solutions in the past had been met, according to most reports, purely by armed confrontation, either by police or private citizens (and private citizens more than you might think!). Otherwise, the outcome was disastrous as the killers committed suicide before anyone could get to them, much less stop them.
Think.
Educators: stop reaching for the antacid or the policy book and think. Parents have no problem doing what must be done for their children (real guts) and that comes from a wider, more open-minded list of solutions, and it comes from the people and not from colleagues among fellow ‘Educators’ and law enforcement. You’ve got to stop conferring amongst yourselves and hear the parents. And do what the parents and other citizens want, not what you want..whether you like it or not.
The proper solution is lifting anti-family, anti-liberty laws against parents and other citizens carrying weapons wherever they have a right to be. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. It works rather well in other venues, or is this the truth you’re trying to avoid?
It is these lawmakers and the drones who work with them who hold the door open for the murderers who kill children. It is the parents who wish to stand in the doorway and stop them at the door, so to speak, and all you can think of is to disarm them.
A proposal for Principals to carry weapons is on the table, but this is imperfect; disarm the principal, and the killer is in. It’s like arming pilots: the hijacker is headed to the flight deck anyway, and the passengers are totally defenseless.
Liability issues take a different shape when a school employee is to be armed, and an absent administrator leaves that door open to the killer once again. Where’s the improvement? I’ve always been opposed to the idea of designated persons andin favor of liberty for all, namely the average Joe and Josephine Citizen. yet officials want to do it their way more than anything else, including solving the problem.
Well, we want to solve the damned problem. The answer is to keep them guessing on the core value of concealed carry for all, which is the tactical concept of not being able to know who is armed and who isn’t. This means that parents and other citizens must be permitted to carry wherever they have a right to be, including school campus. It works. Or will that politically embarrass officials and take some control out of their hands?
Stop fighting the honest citizens.
Many, many parents will elect to carry concealed weapons wherever they travel, and they abide by the law when carrying within 1,000 feet of a school is verboten. They are unarmed, which is what’s wrong with bureaucratic thinking. This disarms the first line of defense in protecting our children. [Don’t think that police are the first line of defense, because they aren’t.]
Certainly, Educators don’t protect children. Look at the body count. Killers succeed unchecked, then kill themselves.
Aren’t you proud of yourselves?
I don’t have to be nice to you, we’ve tried nice. The time for being patient and courteous is passed. It’s as if Educators don’t understand English. We do not have to listen to you, you have to listen to us, and your arrogant refusal – on any grounds – is a reflection of the overall health of our sovereignty. Defiance of the people is unAmerican. You may not legally refuse the will of the People. Yet, you’ve been doing it for generations. It’s time you stopped clubbing parents over the head with unreasonable laws when you will not obey the law of the land, and that is that we carry wherever we want.
So I’m not asking you to include parents and liberty enthusiasts in your meetings this week, I’m telling you. I think I can say without much fear of contradiction that I’m joined by millions of parents, gun owners and even law enforcement individuals, not to mention some politicians, pundits and maybe even a few emigres.
Because the result of your running things and excluding the people from the process has been that children are killed. It’s your fault.
Your refusal to hear the law and the wishes of the pro-liberty people results in killing passengers on airplanes..
And killing employees and customers in postal centers …
And, of course, your kind of mindset is responsible for killing Americans worldwide.
Repeal all gun laws. Until the very hour that you untie the hands of parents to carry weapons, you are responsible for every single shooting of our kids. And so is Mr. Attorney General and Madam Secretary.
And it’s also the fault of parents who won’t get involved. I’ve battled administrators and their slippery, adolescent, my-hands-are-tied, worker-bee thinking; I know it’s frustrating, but it’s the only answer for your community. You don’t have to be smarter, all you have to do is be heard, because you are in authority. Get involved, or you have no moral right to expect much.
Don’t think about arming more officials, arm parents.
And Educators and other bureaucrats: whatever you do, when facing a crisis, stop freezing the people out of the planning and recovery. You don’t have the last word in this, we do. Refusing to hear the very practical discussions of the liberty enthusiasts who wish to participate at the President’s meetings would be to freeze the people out of the discussion and out of the recovery from the crisis.
And if you go against the will of the people this week, I’ll say one word to you: November.
Think. Both parties: Think.
Untie our hands so parents can protect their children, because government cannot. That means you.
Whatever you enunciate as an objection, think first: why don’t you let us worry about that? We’ll let you know what to do. Because public service isn’t all initiative, it’s also doing what you’re told.
That would be best for the country.
November.
John Longenecker’s second edition of The Case For Nationwide Concealed Carry is available in Hardcover. See www.TransferOfWealth.net
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