I have been thinking about school shootings and soft targets after the recent Buffalo supermarket shooting and the Uvalde School shooting. These brought back memories of the Stoneman Douglass School shooting, the Sandy Hook shooting and even the Columbine shooting.
I hear politicians saying we need to have stricter gun control laws. They propose bans on assault style weapons, waiting periods, more background checks etc. When I delve into any of the details of their proposals, I often find that these specific changes would not have prevented these shootings.
WTF? What’s the point in knee jerk reactions and propositions that, if they ever became law, wouldn’t help the situation?
I know, I know. Follow the money. Knee jerk reactions and political infighting generates campaign donations and ensures the politicians get re-elected.
I understand the motivation.
Until I think about 10 year olds watching their classmates and teachers bleeding out. Until I think about 4 year olds being mowed down by rapidly fired bullets. Until I think about children practicing “active shooter drills” in high school, middle school and elementary school.
We need to do something different.
I’ve got no background in security, threat assessment, tactical weapons training, mental healthcare or any of the relevant areas. (Then again, neither do most of our politicians).
But I have opinions. And I’m going to spew them out here for thought.
- The police will not protect you. Police do not prevent random, lone gunmen shootings and cannot prevent violent attacks. They cannot be everywhere. It is unrealistic to expect them to be. Police come after the fact. They might be able to end an attack by using superior force, but they can’t prevent it.
- The government will not protect you. As my personal experience with Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Matthew demonstrated – the government will not protect you. They’ll give warnings, recommendations and setup emergency support but it will not be sufficient. It can’t be. In times of disaster, there are not enough resources to surge to provide adequate protection.
- You have to protect yourself. This is a tough one for suburbanites and urbanites like me to swallow. We have been taught that dialing 911 will bring the calvary – police, fireman and EMTs. It does and I’m grateful for them. But when I lived on the road, it became immediately obvious that the calvary won’t (and can’t) always arrive in time.
I’m not afraid of dying. I could care less. Still, I have no desire to be mowed down in a hail of gunfire, beaten by a mob or randomly shot by some lunatic. If this happened, I cynically believe that my last thought would be, “That figures. What a stupid way to go out.”
I avoid crowds in general. I don’t enjoy being in them. So my chances of getting shot at a stadium, a concert or a festival are slim.
When there are protests or I suspect there will be lots of people gathering to start trouble, I steer clear of the area.
When I see groups of men gathering and my “spidey sense” tells me something is about to go down, I get the f*** away from there.
When I go to a movie theater, fly on a plane, check into a hotel, enter a hospital or a skyscraper, I scope out the exits. I mentally map out alternate routes in case there’s a panic, a fire or a shooter.
I pay attention to the surroundings and the people around me. If someone’s behavior seems to be out of sync with the other people- eg. he is agitated in a calm environment or he is calm in a rowdy environment – I watch him.
I think we could teach our kids and loved ones to do all of these things.
Will it prevent a shooting? I doubt it. But it might prevent someone from dying. In my case, I know for certain it’s helped me avoid getting robbed, a beat down and more than one confrontation.
So how do we protect kids in schools?
It seems to me that the only thing that stops the gunman is superior firepower. They stop shooting when they are shot (or run out of ammo).
I’ve heard the NRA line that “the only thing that stops a bad man with a gun is a good man with a gun“. I’ve heard the arguments against this line of reasoning – lack of skill, lack of training, the Wild West and comparisons to other countries that have stricter gun control laws.
Shit.
I don’t know.
I would hope that if I saw someone enter a school to start shooting that I’d grab the nearest weapon and try to stop him. I’m not brave, but the kids would need my help.
I imagine there are many men and women who feel the same way I do.
If I was a teacher, I would take courses on tactical training, practice shooting and would apply to carry a gun if I lived in a state that allowed this (Florida, I think is one?).
Should all teachers be armed? No. Should teachers who volunteer, are trained, practice regularly and are re-certified each year be given the option? Maybe.
What about the grocery store? The theater? The concert?
I suspect the same thing could apply.
I grew up in the ghetto. There were some bars and homes that never got robbed. Why? Because we all knew knew that everyone who lived there (or drank there) carried a gun.
On the Reason Roundtable podcast today, the panel discussed gun control. They talked about what Australia did several decades ago which reduced gun ownership by 20%. If we did the same thing and had similar results, US households would still have over 300 million firearms.
More importantly, I don’t believe we would ever enact an effective Federal gun prohibition. There are too many guns already. Enthusiasts, hobbyists, rural people who need guns, fearful people, and people like me who know the government won’t (can’t) protect you and I can’t see how the US could eliminate or even substantially reduce gun ownership.
Paradoxically, I wrote about gun control a few years ago. I still think those ideas are good one.
On the podcast, they talked about hardening schools and having better trained tactical police forces. Both of those make sense to me.
What about mental health? I wrote about this years ago. My thoughts on isolated men who are not attached to society and other people still stand today. We can all do something about this by reaching out, being a little kinder, and keeping our eyes open for opportunities to help.
I guess this is one of the least measurable actions. After all, we’ll never be able to know what tragedies we prevented.
To that I say so what?
I am aware this post is long, scattered and a bit of a mess. I’d be really interested in having a real dialog with others about it.