The President's Solution To School Shootings, Part II: November
By John Longenecker (10/14/06)
I’m not angry with the President: I, like millions of Americans, am angry with being ignored by a bureaucratic mindset in a society which is declared since its inception to be run by the People, not the servants who try and dismantle our sovereignty for gain and not by listening to anti-family nuts operating on alleged fear and defective theory. Fears and theories do not trump civil rights. Anti-liberty, anti-family fears have been proven - over decades by now, since before 1968 - to be irrational and unAmerican by dint of trying to dismantle a civil right. Those who listen to that hysteria and join them in fact join in dismantling a civil right. Not good for educators to join an unAmerican position against a Right.
In speaking about the President’s Summit on the recent school shootings, I’m speaking of the habit of consulting educators and law enforcement to the exclusion of the parents who are really in charge. Constituents may be heard in summits, but in the aftermath of that Summit, there is the momentum of anxiety stirred up and the resolve to do something that again ignores the constituents, something which again won’t work and which plays into the hands of those who want to dismantle all of our rights, beginning with the one which protects all the rest. Constituents get lost in the shuffle, and the deck is stacked for self-interest.
This week, several very courageous officials have stepped up to the plate to enunciate the arming of school officials. Thank you for your help, by all means, but let me add to this. If a principal of a school is designated, certain foreseeable problems emerge.
1. It’s another move toward centralization of official power (right up there with National ID Cards and its centralized shared databases) and parents and other citizens are no closer to respected rights than before, perhaps farther away. Arming more officials does nothing to recognize the rights of the citizen, and our overall chief complaint anyway is that our safety is compromised so tragically because of that refusal to recognize our rights to be involved. Recognize citizen rights and the rest will take care of itself. This is the battle between citizens and bureaucrats: bureaucrats have to cut themselves in somehow every time instead of recognizing the sovereignty of the citizen first. (Some citizens might get the idea that bureaucrats aren't needed!)
We need to make the leap directly from bans on weapons to being totally welcome on campus. This is a nationwide movement which is gaining ground. It is long, long overdue. After all, we're the parents and we're the constituents.
2. The main objective of lifting the ban on handguns on campus is to gain a tactical advantage over any thugs who may contemplate a strike on school grounds.. or workplace for that matter. or churches. This advantage is both practical and psychological: the advantage is that, in casing the location and in casing anyone visiting on campus, the thug remains uncertain as to who is armed and who isn’t. Knowing the principal is armed – and only with a weapon locked in his / her office at that – is no deterrent at all. Letting armed parents visit – welcoming them any time on campus unannounced – keeps the plotter guessing, and is the entire stratagem behind concealed carry.
3. Understand that not only do we all have a stake in the safety of our schools, but we fund them, and this stubborn refusal to cooperate with taxpayers and parents is arrogant and probably illegal to begin with. Our greatest fear is powers not granted.
4. I don’t know what the liabilities are, but I suspect it would be greatly mitigated by not offering use of force officially and it would cost a lot less to just forget it. The citizens can handle it better, anyway.
What would the liabilities be if the ban on weapons for parents and other visitors is lifted because a school district had no choice but to recognize another’s civil right? What is the liability for some smart lawyer to plead that banning weapons is an interference resulting in damages? Just asking.
At present, banning weapons – even excluding citizens from directing the solutions – is like saying that no one can give first-aid or CPR but the school nurse, and to the exclusion of a volunteer parent on campus even if the nurse is not available.
Volunteer CPR and concealed carry are identical in values, and I devote a great deal to it in my book, The Case For Nationwide Concealed Carry.
The bureaucratic solution is unacceptable unless it carries out like professional executives the needs of the People as the People enunciate them.
Where does your community stand on lifting the ban on weapons on campus for CCW parents? Lift that federal ban and let the People run their own community. Some will not agree with Longenecker, but that’s what America is all about. It is not about federal say-so to the exclusion of the citizen in order to grow the problem, and it is not about chipping away at a Civil Right.
And it’s not just one man’s opinion: your average liberty nut doesn’t merely speak for himself / herself: he / she speaks for about 80 million people and then some – individuals of the same values system – nearly all registered voters and certainly all adults.
Killers don’t obey the law no matter what you write, and I’d bet they don’t vote.
I have one word for you: November.
Any Board Of Education positions open this fall?
Register to vote. Register others. Get out and vote, and get out the Vote.
It’s good for the country.
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