Front Sight, Press

On Wednesday, January 3, 2007, Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot to death Samnang Kok in the hallway of Henry Foss High School in Tacoma, Washington. The Associated Press quotes principal, Don Herbert, as saying:

[When the shooting began,] “I was 20 feet away,” said the school’s principal, Don Herbert. “The only thing I could have done was taken the shot instead. But it happened very fast.” Source

The dedication to the doctrine of victim-hood among American educators takes my breath away. There is something he could have done had he been prepared, that is armed. He might have stopped the attack, or better yet, Douglas Chanthabouly may have never contemplated his crime had he believed that he could encounter resistance. But I guess we should expect as much from a professional group that seems dedicated to discovering ever new and interesting ways to identify everyone as a victim of some sort, and thus relieve us from any sense of personal responsibility for our lives.

In a snarky piece in a little rag called the Utah Appeal, Marilee Swirczek, quips:

If you think that a Democrat cannot acknowledge a good idea from a Republican, hold on to your hat. I laud Sen. Bob Beers, who came up with a winner when he proposed that classroom teachers and school personnel be permitted to carry guns on school grounds. According to the Bob Beers Blog, “Students (or unauthorized adults) would be less likely to bring guns on campus if they knew there were responsible and armed adults around.”

Think of the possibilities. Carson High’s banner could read: “We pack heat!” If arch-rival Douglas High students aimed to pull a prank on game night, CHS personnel could accidentally shoot out their car windows. That would teach those silly pranksters never to use spray paint again.

Although teachers may balk at the proposal, my guess is that school bus drivers will be first in line, and at about the same time they acquire weapons, I suspect school bus videotapes will begin experiencing mysterious erasures. We may never know how little Johnny Bigmouth got his kneecap blown off.

I’m especially looking forward to the lectures on “Five Step Presentation from the Holster” and “Speed versus Accuracy” (I vote for speed). The course concludes with “Moral and Ethical Decisions Associated with the Use of Deadly Force.” Beers has thought of everything.

Of course, there would be small details to work out: Should kindergarten teachers, trying to create a positive classroom environment, carry Nerf-ball guns? Certainly middle school teachers would eagerly carry pellet guns, and high school teachers would need something a bit more authoritative, like M16s. When teachers send a student to the principal’s office, would the principal need to have a bigger weapon, like a bazooka?

The upside is how easy grievance resolution will be: If a student wants to argue that he or she deserves a higher grade on a composition, say, the teacher won’t have to say a word. She’ll just happen to be cleaning her weapon when the student drops by her office; then she’ll rapidly reassemble it while maintaining eye contact with the enemy … I mean, the student … and then she’ll smartly fire off a round at the paper target in the shape of a student conveniently located in the teachers’ lounge. “How may I help you?” she’ll say (student success is always uppermost in a teacher’s mind). Carrying a weapon may be the answer to that pesky grade-inflation problem. Source

Ms. Swirczek seems to have such a low opinion of teachers and administrators that she actually fantasizes about teachers using firearms to intimidate students. This kind of comic book thinking is characteristic of gun grabbers. They appear to subscribe to the most debased vision of human beings imaginable, or at least, they want us to believe that we are lower than most warm-blooded animals when it comes to dealing with our off-spring. While the likes of Ms. Swirczek snark and snipe, they make a lot of noise and smoke to mask the fact that they are utterly lacking in solutions. Their only solution appears to be the continued sacrifice of our children on the altar of “gun free schools” and their solution has been so very successful so far. The sad fact of the matter is that there have been a lot more school shootings, and particularly multiple-victim shootings, since the Gun Free School Act was passed in 1995 than there ever were prior to it. The policy is an abysmal failure.

And, of course, the vampires at The Brady Campaign for Criminal Empowerment had to weigh in:

“Our sympathies go out to the families of the young people involved in this morning’s terrible incident at Henry Foss High School,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “The police and the public need to get answers to the questions of ‘where did the gun come from, and why are guns so easy to get?’ Unfortunately, it is not difficult for many of our children to get a gun, and it has been getting easier, not harder.”

Legislators in Washington aim to pass a bill to require criminal background checks at so-called gun shows, for example. At such shows, unlicensed gun sellers can sell as many firearms as they wish without having the buyer pass a background check. Washington does not have a child access prevention statute to require parents to keep guns locked away from young people, and has lax requirements for obtaining concealed weapons permits.” Source

You would think that if they really had sympathy for the victims’ families, they wouldn’t exploit these tragedies to push their failed, bigoted political agenda. So what do concealed carry permits have to do with these crimes? As far as I know, not a single school shooting has ever been carried out by CCW permit holder, and further, had some of those permit holders been legally able to have their guns with them at school, a number of these schools shootings could have been dramatically reduced or prevented.

There is nothing wrong, crazy or barbaric about permitting responsible, trained adults to carry weapons at schools. It is interesting to note that the federal Gun Free Schools Acts carries an exemption for licensed concealed carry. CCW permit holders can actually carry their guns on school grounds under the federal statute. It is the state-level statutes that go further and prohibit permit holders from carrying on school grounds. Utah has no such statute, and guess how many school shootings Utah has suffered? Zero.

Permitting teachers and administrators the option of concealed carry would have the same effect that concealed carry has in the general population: deterrence. It raises the question in the minds of those tempted to do mayhem that their intended victims may be able to respond with force. The “we would rather be victims” crowd predicted nightmare scenarios similar to those voiced by Ms. Swirczek when concealed carry was brought to 48 states in the union. They were untrue and fantastic then, and they are untrue now. But then, telling the truth never has been a strong suit for that crowd.

For my part, I would rather have my children defended by a trained teacher or administrator than to get a consoling hug from a professional victim at their funeral.