Opinion: School Gun Control Texas-Style

Opinion: School Gun Control Texas-Style

Opinion: School Gun Control Texas-Style

Before my first mug of coffee this morning, yet another in the long line of interviews with a Stoneman-Douglas student wanting stricter gun control laws greeted me. This child sat there looking oh-so-serious as he proclaimed everything but small handguns that could be used for home defense should be banned. Then he went on to say being allowed to own even those few guns on his approved list should be much harder than current law provides. Everyone wanting to have a gun should undergo mental health testing. They should be at least 21. His demands went on and on. Oh, his reasoning? It was only “common sense”.

The problem with this “common sense” approach is that it won’t solve anything. As we learned with Prohibition, outlawing something doesn’t mean it will suddenly vanish from the streets. The black market that already exists for guns will only grow larger and stronger. The only ones who will obey the law are, well, those who do now. Instead of having a database, flawed though it might be, for registering gun owners, we’d have none.

I’ll even admit to wondering if he thought we ought to undergo mental health testing to own a knife or drive a car. After all, those could be seen as instruments of violence. In 2014, a sophomore wounded 24 in a Pennsylvania school. His weapons? Two knives. This year, a knife attack in a Russian school left at least 12 wounded. In Prince Georges County, two students were injured in a knife attack. Then there was the attack at a Nampa school where the culprit was stopped by a fellow student. Of those four, three occurred this year. Yet where are the calls for knife control?

Banning civilian ownership of semi-automatic weapons isn’t the answer to the problem of school security. Nor is it the answer to stopping those students or other potential suspects who might one day pick up a gun – or a knife – and go on a rampage. Someone determined to get a gun and use it will find a way. History has shown us that.

So what should we do to protect our schools?

One solution is to follow the example set by Texas.

Arguably, the deterrence factor is even more important. It shouldn’t take an academic study to prove that shooters are far less likely to target a school that will offer resistance. It’s commonsense. Those willing to shoot defenseless children are deranged, evil men, and the only thing such men respond to is force. They are cowards, and the prospect of return fire is the only thing likely to convince them to leave a school alone.

One way Texas does this is by allowing school districts to designate administrators and teachers who act as “guardians”. These guardians are allowed to carry concealed on campus. The identities of who these guardians are isn’t publicized. In fact, in most instances, their fellow teachers and administrators won’t even know. Think of them as the super heroes of the school. Mild-mannered teachers by day, guardians when needed.

As noted in “On Guns and Virtue-Signaling”, these teachers and administrators undergo not only the usual requirements necessary to qualify for a concealed carry permit but additional training and, in most districts, mental health evaluations as well. Currently, there are 170 districts in Texas that allow these special “guardians” or “marshals”.

Despite media suggestions to the contrary, the system has been working in Texas and can in other parts of the country. As The Hill notes, “There have been no shootings, intentional or otherwise, at any participating districts in Texas. Teachers and students feel — and in fact are — safer coming into work.”

As a parent, ask yourself if you prefer waiting minutes for law enforcement to be notified and respond to a possible school shooting or if you’d rather know your child was protected by teachers and administrators committed to obtaining the training and qualifying for the privilege of carrying a weapon in order to keep another tragedy from happening.

Rick Mauch Special to the Star-Telegram

While you’re doing that, think about something else. Which school is a shooter more likely to target: the one he knows has no “guardians” in it or the one where it is public knowledge that there are not only armed school resource officers but also armed teachers and administrators? Which would be the path of least resistance to someone determined to cause death and destruction?

If your answer is the school that remains a “gun-free zone”, you’re right. So isn’t it time to do away with that so-called safety measure and take a real step toward making sure our children are safe?

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16 Comments
  • Orvan Taurus says:

    I’ve said for a while now that “gun free zone” translates (to those intending harm) as that Vietnam War era thing, “Free Fire Zone.”

    And for those who would ban guns, even if somehow they were successful for a moment… do they realize just what level of sheer.. inventiveness.. that would unleash? And if everything is illegal, well, best be sure there aren’t pesky witnesses to an act of defense.

    • Amanda Green says:

      Yep. But the little darlings are afraid their teachers might go off on them or something, so they’re willing to not only NOT take steps to secure their schools but to strip away our Constitutional rights in the process. I have no problem with them voicing their opinions. I have problems with the media making them out to be the only voices we should be listening to and, worse, some of them actually believing it.

      As for the effectiveness of “gun free zones”, they aren’t. It is simply an ad telling every potential shooter that they have free pickings there.

      • Orvan Taurus says:

        So the best choice is… to lie a few times (the fewer times needed, the better). SAY “Gun Free Zone”… and then have the troublemakers meet overwhelming resistance so the signs are meaningless after that.

        “It’s a ‘Gun Free Zone’.”
        “It’s a trap!’

        • Amanda Green says:

          I like how your mind works. Unfortunately, the perp — or his survivors — would sue and claim entrapment. Sigh.

    • Wyldkat says:

      “Free Fire Zone” … Also known as a Target Rich Environment.

    • SDN says:

      Which is why they’re also big on “total surveillance everywhere”. Because at that point, the witnesses are the government officials who can exercise “prosecutorial discretion” in favor of the Party faithful.

  • Chuckles says:

    The headline should be School Gun Control American style.

  • MikeyParks says:

    Gun-free zones are like putting a sign in your yard saying “My doors are unlocked and there’s nobody home.”

  • Susan says:

    Good thoughts. One quibble:
    “qualifying for the privilege of carrying a weapon”
    I would change to:
    “qualifying for the responsibility of carrying a weapon”

  • Jeff Powell says:

    “Everyone under the age of 21 lacks the experience and judgment to responsibly operate a simple mechanical device such as a gun,” says the 16 year-old high school kids while demanding changes to our Constitution and society. The “kids” are so clueless they can’t see the irony of their own position…

  • pohjalainen says:

    Yep, knives… two Ikea kitchen knives. Mental health testing. Right.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Turku_stabbing

  • pohjalainen says:

    And btw, that man is having his trial now. Did get mental health testing. Was deemed quite competent. And from what it sounds like he didn’t buy those knives but got them from the kitchen in the asylum-seekers reception center.

    Ban kitchens? Only cooks with backgrounds fully checked are allowed to go in?

    Ten people, two dead. Could have been more, police got there in a few minutes by lucky incident, a police car just happened to be nearby and got into the right spot right away. It might easily have been 10 to 15 minutes because that 10 minutes is about what it might have taken for police to get there from the main police station, which is close but not that close to the market place. They do NOT have continuous presence in that market square or near it, or didn’t until after that incident. And lucky too that the terrorist chose a place right in the middle of the city, not something kilometers away from that police station, he could easily have gotten way more victims in some of the suburbs if he had planned things in a bit more calculating way.

  • Ironically, the modern gun control movement got its start demonizing small handguns as “Saturday night specials,” which they loathed for being concealable, and cheap. They wanted to ban private handgun ownership, and the logo of one of the two major groups showed a red slash through a revolver. Back then, most handguns were revolvers, and even the semi-autos held 8 or fewer cartridges. If the anti-gunners had focused then on 10-shot limits, they likely would have succeeded, well before the widespread switchover in the 1990s to 9-mm semi-autos with double-stacked magazines, and rifles with detachable magazines. Of course, if they get their way today and ban overly large and powerful guns, they will move their focus back to the small and cheap handguns, and then to the “sniper rifles” (bolt-action hunting and pre-WWII military weapons).

    In 1974, the United Methodist Church formed the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.
    In 1990, the group was renamed the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence when they added “assault weapons” to their anti-gun portfolio.

    In 1974, the National Council to Control Handguns was founded.
    In 1980, the group was renamed Handgun Control, Inc.
    In 2001, it was renamed the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

  • GWB says:

    The problem with this “common sense” approach is that it won’t solve anything.
    No, the problem is it is anti-freedom. Even if it “solved” something, it would be a bad idea.

  • Bloving says:

    If we can all agree that:
    1. Self defense against any unlawful attack is a basic human right.
    2. That as a basic human right, self defense is and should always be considered a Civil Right of the People and thus the exercise of that right must be immune from restriction, infringement, licensing or taxation by Government at any level.
    3. That the Civil Rights of the People are not subject to the approval of the Majority Opinion and belong to every Individual regardless of their social status.
    4. That any infringement, restriction, licensing requirements or taxation levied on the free exercise of a Civil Right is a violation of that right.
    5. That any law, policy or rule that prohibits or discourages the free exercise of any Civil Right is an infringement on that right.
    6. That if a law, policy or rule that prohibits or discourages a Citizen from legally acquiring the tools, weapons or means to freely exercise their Civil Rights, then their rights have been infringed.
    -Then it follows that those who advocate for the preservation of the right of the People to keep and bear arms are, in fact, Civil Rights advocates. It also follows that those who oppose the right of the People to keep and bear arms are against the People’s civil rights.
    We have a word for people who advocate for or try to use the force of law to infringe on the civil rights of others: we call them Bigots. 

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