School Shootings, Part III: Arming The Administrators?
By John Longenecker (10/20/06)
I think we’re making progress in educating the Educators. Pressure is building from outside the education community to arm Administrators and it’s encountering some resistance, but it could be a sign of progress, nevertheless.
I disagree with arming more officials. I advocate lifting bans on weapons in the hands of parents and other visitors on campus.
As I’d mentioned previously, and it’s worthy of repeating, the solution is not more officials, but more latitude in recognizing parental authority with less official interference with the rights of parents and citizen visitors. All public places should lift bans on weapons because the property belongs to the People, and the people have the right to carry weapons wherever they go, because in time of crime, armed individuals are the first line of defense. Let's get real: you don't check your civil rights at the door. For all the advocay over the decades for rights, how do you check one right at the door?
Arming the vice-principal is further centralization of power and freezing out the parent once more. Again, what we feared happens with consistency: they figure it out to their self-dealing advantage and to our vexing detriment, in this case, gumming up the works further. Something has to change.
Let’s say a vice-principal is armed. It amounts to many things, the first of which is that the violent criminal now knows where the guns are. You just told him. It’s in the vice-Principal’s office, isn’t it?
Okay. Now, if you’re nuts and you’re planning on shooting up a school and then committing suicide for the purpose of evading justice, you can go directly to the Principal’s office, get that gun and go about your murder spree unchecked.
Brilliant. How does this end school shootings? Well, it won’t. Killers have the luxury of time to plan, and plans could include neutralizing that resistance.
Suppose the gun is locked up and the VP is off-campus at a conference. Does the gun go with the veep or remain locked up? Does it remain accessible to others in his/her absence? The bad guys still know where the guns are, literally.
Honestly, sometimes I think bureaucrats assist criminals in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome - that psychological twist of cooperating with one’s captors and seeing the Good as the enemy, including rescuers. It’s a defense mechanism, and as such, distorts reality when a truth is too painful to bear. That truth could be that Educators do not get the last word, we do. Make sense?
Ladies and Gentlemen, the best answer is to be sure the crook remains uncertain as to where the guns are. This is good for the country as a whole by keeping all criminals everywhere guessing as to who is armed and who isn’t, and how many are armed.
Now, for all the planning a crook does, it’s all negated by one question: how does he/she know how much resistance there will be, will he/she be stopped before getting started, and will all the plotting be for nothing because he/she doesn’t know the most critical piece of the puzzle: resistance and where it would come from?
As an old shooter once told me, "Don’t let ‘em know which hole you’re coming out of."
The genius of concealed carry is just that: the criminal remains uncertain as to who is armed and who isn’t. The Second Amendment was written purely to protect the civilians’ right to act immediately on the knowledge that the armed individual is the first line of defense. This is especially true in time of violent crime.
And furthermore, many, many gun owners are trained, well trained. I’d be willing to bet that out of 80 million gun owners, you can find more better-trained individuals instantly than you can create over time in training and arming vice-principals or other administrators.
Think: when parents visiting campus are armed, unknown to any plotting criminal and in uncertain numbers, you have the same quandary/discouraging effect as you do in everyday concealed carry. Out of six or so parents who could be visiting school at any hour of the day, how many would be armed, discreet and prepared? Unknown. Unknown is good.
[And who are you really afraid of, anyway? Parents who can take charge or criminals who will kill kids? Bureaucrats dislike parents who can take charge. I think that figures prominently in which solutions are on the table and which are not.]
You’d be surprised how many of those 80 million are well trained. This is not an aggressive concept, but purely a defensive one, and available when needed most. It’s time to drop the bias against gun owners, because we do not advocate a gun culture, we advocate a liberty culture. Shouldn’t educators be advocating this?
Irrespective of how public servants feel about it (violence is bad, informed parents is bad), it doesn’t change the fact that the Right-To-Carry is a civil right, that it is absolute and beyond debate, that it isn’t being taught as such, and in fact is being discouraged – even in the face of violence unanswered.
It is wrong to discourage armed parents when armed parents and visitors can discourage shootings to begin with. Haven’t you noticed how officials have done the same thing with school bullies? They do nothing about bullies – but they’ll punish your child for fighting, even acting in self-defense. They tie the hands of the wrong people!! Stockholm Syndrome?
When citizen rights are respected with knowledge of our History both taught and observed by bureaucrats, I’ll be you’d have a lot more cooperation than you might imagine. More respect, too. More satisfaction. More education. What are your real goals?
It’s time to put the interests of the children and their families first over the interests of the Board and its weird agenda of ignoring people and its irrational fear of guns. And parental authority. .
Not all Boards are to be indicted this way, but many, many are. And with silence from some… well, you know how this forms an alliance with the criminals.
It’s like refusing to vote: in refusing to show up to vote, you cast a vote for the opposition automatically.
The silence of teachers, administrators and Board Members is a vote for the gunmen who kill children. Beyond question.
Before November, ask your Board candidates where they stand on lifting bans on weapons for licensed gun owners. Just ask them. Ask legislators. Ask all candidates. Measure the cooperation and measure the defiance and stubbornness. If they argue at all, it’s an utter betrayal of their true attitude about parental authority. Measure the clarity or the evasiveness. But ask.
And be sure to Vote.
Arming administrators is not the better solution, because it announces where the resistance is. Lifting bans on weapons on campus for parents and visitors is the more direct solution, because it is a question the plotter cannot answer for himself: what is the real level of resistance?
For all the hysterical predictions of disaster from armed parents, none has come true in decades. Decades. Instead, the armed citizen is the first line of defense, and always will be.
Lift all bans on weapons for parents and visitors on campus and in all public places.
It would be good for the children – it would be good for the children to know it – and that would be good for the country.
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