School Shootings, Who's Fixing Anything?

There's so much to say and so much being said, but I want to start with this question:

Who's job is it to make your kid's school safe?

Is it the President's Is it Congress's?

I would propose that it's your school, school district, school board, and your responsibility to make your kid's school safe.

It is certainly not the NRA's job, or Marco Rubio, both of whom (Dana Loesch in the NRA's role) were jumped all over at the CNN "Town Hall" last night on CNN.

**edit - now we know just how badly the local sheriff's office failed and what a tool (elected Democrat) Broward County Sheriff Israel is. It was his job. 

Seriously, Columbine was in 1999. Since then, there have been all these school mass shootings (and I personally limit my discussion to the mass shootings, as the little individual gun incidents are fundamentally a different type of thing entirely) and there has not been substantive change since then. Why not?

I would suggest a different way of looking at the situation. I've mentioned the famous story of the statistician brought in to help with protecting bomber planes. I think we need to stop looking at the schools where shootings have happened and look at the schools where they havent'.  Don't look at what the kids that made it out alive did to survive, look at what the victims did and learn to not do that. That's more applicable in other types of crime scenarios maybe, but still, I think we are just looking at it backwards, even if I'm not sure what the better view is. The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy may also avoided at all costs, as we assume meaning to clusters of data that may just be random as ignore other data that may be contradictory yet helpful.

I offer this story as one step in that direction.   My question is, do the students feel like it's a prison rather that a school, because I am not an advocate for that.

As I've said, when I was a teacher in the early 2000s, I floated the idea that having some teachers armed on a rotating basis so that even if the students knew who the "school marshalls" were (I never had the thought to compare them to the air marshalls, which is a great communication win) they wouldn't know which teacher or teachers were carrying on any given day. Glad to see the world has caught up with me.

The president's suggestion that some teachers be armed has led to the predictable howls from the lefties, including teachers in my feeds. If I were the type to engage them on social media, I'd say this:

If that's how you feel, then know that you aren't a teacher that either should be or will be asked to participate in the program. One additional reason is that you don't know that teachers are already armed, you really aren't informed enough. Lastly, three teachers in this most recent school shooting (Stoneman Douglas) sacrificed their lives for their students, one of whom was a CCW holder, another a veteran and Navy reservist while the actual officers cowered, so absolutely I would trust teachers to defend their students with deadly force more than the people you want to, and more than you do. Aaron Feis, Chris Hixon, and Scott Beigel are heroes, the Broward County Sheriff and Deputies are not.

Guns. An Interesting Read.

I just want to put this up so that I have access to it, but feel free to read it, too. This Harvard study says guns and murder aren't related. Guns and suicide aren't related. More guns = less crime, as Lott has said.

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE

MURDER AND SUICIDE?

The final words in the article are these:

Over a decade ago, Professor Brandon Centerwall of the University of Washington undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the United States and Canada to determine whether Canada’s more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition:

If you are surprised by [our] finding[s], so [are we]. [We] did

not begin this research with any intent to “exonerate” hand‐

guns, but there it is—a negative finding, to be sure, but a nega‐

tive finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us

where not to aim public health resources.

Guns and Crazy People

Yes, I have some thoughts about the events in Newtown, Connecticut. Mostly sadness, grief, and sympathy for the people there.

This is colored by my ever-present disdain for the media in our country, and the world. The Fake Morgan Freeman quote nailed it. I am also again reminded of the Kevin Kline movie January Man, where the question is asked when he catches the crazy serial killer, "who is he, who is he?" He replies, approximately, "he's nobody, he's just some crazy guy!" We are like that, we expect the bad guy to be "somebody" but he (or she) ususally isn't somebody, they're just the crazy guy.

Also coloring my perspective, in the two weeks preceding this, two armed robberies were foiled in Cincinnati by concealed carrying citizens, one on the street, one defending a minimart. We now know that the Oregon shooter was likely dissuaded from continuing his rampage by a man with concealed carry and then went on to hide in a stairwell and kill himself.

Here are my inflamatory remarks for the day:

1. The problem is clearly a mental health problem not a gun problem.

2. We have a violent society. Yes, some of the gun numbers floating around are accurate, but we bludgeon each quite a bit, too. Why? One guy I know thinks it's the influence of secular humanism. Hmmm. This site shows that there are many more violent countries, however.

3. If the school had a Resource Officer (armed) it's likely that the carnage would have been severely reduced. I know a couple, she's an Elementary Principal, he's a Policeman. Her entire district has 1 SRO. He is upset about that. Districts need to pony up and find a way to fund safety personnel, not just a written "safety plan." In fact, when I taught, my plan was a little different: make it publicly known that there are 3 or so anonymous staff that have concealed carry in every building, and on any given day, you will have no idea who is wearing a weapon.

These last 2 are pretty outrageous.

4. The perpetrators of gun violence in this country are almost exclusively left-leaning and believe the same politics, yes, even vote the same way as the people that are now screaming (again) for more gun control. NRA members never do this. Hunters never do this. I guarantee you that if you go ask every recent perp that used a gun of any kind in the crime they committed, they voted for Dems in every election. Guaranteed.

5. Hey, Dems, what's the big deal, isn't this just a really late-term abortion? I hate saying that, because I don't really mean it. I have 3 kids, you know? But if you voted for a guy that consistently, unequivocally supported partial birth abortion, your overwhelming weeping over child murders in Newtown doesn't move me.