packingdressagerider
Regular Member
imported post
This editorial is making apperances on the Yahoo gun boards. http://www.charlotte.com/171/story/456971.html
Digg it del.icio.us AIM
Permit guns in schools to stop massacres
In years past, many students had weapons, but schools were safer
JOHN LANE
Special to the Observer
A popular saying tells us that one sign of insanity is continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results. This statement was never more true than in the case of the so-called "gun free zones." It's time for a serious re-evaluation of this failed policy. No matter how well intended, any policy that results in the loss of innocent lives should be examined in the stark light of reality.
I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. Living on a military base and attending a school on the base resulted in constant exposure to guns -- guns of all types. Everyone's parents had guns in the house, and most of us who were old enough to do so ("old enough" often meant 7 years old), had fired guns on many occasions.
I can even remember that for one "show and tell" I brought to school a Walther PPK pistol, along with the German military holster. The gun, fully functional, was a souvenir that my father brought home after World War II. Guess what? No one freaked out, the MPs didn't come, and no one was shot. If I remember correctly, the gun was one of the more interesting "show and tell" items, and it sure beat a girl's pet turtle!
I also remember riding my bicycle, with a .22 caliber rifle across the handlebars, to a wooded area for "target practice." Usually there were several other boys along -- all on bicycles and most with rifles, too.
Later, when we were all older, it was not uncommon for several of us to have shotguns in our vehicles while at school. Usually they were there because we had been in the woods at sun-up hunting. We didn't have time to take them home before school, so we left them in our trunks.
Today schools are easy targets
In researching this column, I attempted to find a "school shooting" from that era. I came up empty.Fast forward some 40 years. Since 1996 there have been 37 school shootings in the United States. Those attacks resulted in 103 deaths and 152 wounded -- in 24 states.
What changed? When guns were readily available to students, when they were often actually inside the schools themselves, there were no killings -- none! Once we, in our infinite wisdom, decided to ban guns from schools, there were mass killings. Could it be that the killers sought an easy, "target rich" environment? Did they plan attacks at schools knowing that there would be little if any resistance?
Some will say that the perpetrators of such heinous acts are mentally ill. Who can argue with that? Is anyone who attacks and murders innocent children "well balanced" or "normal"?
But were these killers so mentally disturbed that they would have carried out these attacks had they known that someone there might stop them with a firearm of his own? While we had shootings at 37 schools, we have had only one attack on a police station. Could it be that these killers were not so crazy that they were unable to identify helpless targets?
Clearly it is time to abandon a policy that does not work and embark on one that has proven to have positive results. It is time to eliminate those "gun free zones" -- criminals don't obey those laws anyway -- and adopt a policy that allows any adults who have met state qualifications for carrying a concealed weapon to carry one where they choose, including schools.
Give children a fighting chance
If some of the young adults in class at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, had been armed, they could have terminated the threat long before the victim count reached 32. If you doubt that this would work, take a look at a similar situation at Virginia Appalachian School of Law where, in 2002, armed students stopped an attack that began much like the one at Virginia Tech.
A few years earlier, in Pearl, Miss., an assistant principal stopped a massacre at the local high school. According to Joel Myrick, the time he spent running to the parking lot to retrieve his handgun prevented him from acting sooner and may have cost lives. He stopped the attack without firing a shot and held the shooter for the police when they arrived.
Let's give our children something more than the thought of hiding under their desks hoping that the attacker runs out of bullets.
Give them a fighting chance. Permit properly trained adults to have the means to defend them.
Let's do it for our children.
John
Lane
Observer community columnist John Lane of Charlotte is a security expert who has worked as a police officer and private investigator. Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at M1H3L@juno.co
This editorial is making apperances on the Yahoo gun boards. http://www.charlotte.com/171/story/456971.html
Digg it del.icio.us AIM
Permit guns in schools to stop massacres
In years past, many students had weapons, but schools were safer
JOHN LANE
Special to the Observer
A popular saying tells us that one sign of insanity is continuing to do the same thing while expecting different results. This statement was never more true than in the case of the so-called "gun free zones." It's time for a serious re-evaluation of this failed policy. No matter how well intended, any policy that results in the loss of innocent lives should be examined in the stark light of reality.
I grew up in the 1940s and 1950s. Living on a military base and attending a school on the base resulted in constant exposure to guns -- guns of all types. Everyone's parents had guns in the house, and most of us who were old enough to do so ("old enough" often meant 7 years old), had fired guns on many occasions.
I can even remember that for one "show and tell" I brought to school a Walther PPK pistol, along with the German military holster. The gun, fully functional, was a souvenir that my father brought home after World War II. Guess what? No one freaked out, the MPs didn't come, and no one was shot. If I remember correctly, the gun was one of the more interesting "show and tell" items, and it sure beat a girl's pet turtle!
I also remember riding my bicycle, with a .22 caliber rifle across the handlebars, to a wooded area for "target practice." Usually there were several other boys along -- all on bicycles and most with rifles, too.
Later, when we were all older, it was not uncommon for several of us to have shotguns in our vehicles while at school. Usually they were there because we had been in the woods at sun-up hunting. We didn't have time to take them home before school, so we left them in our trunks.
Today schools are easy targets
In researching this column, I attempted to find a "school shooting" from that era. I came up empty.Fast forward some 40 years. Since 1996 there have been 37 school shootings in the United States. Those attacks resulted in 103 deaths and 152 wounded -- in 24 states.
What changed? When guns were readily available to students, when they were often actually inside the schools themselves, there were no killings -- none! Once we, in our infinite wisdom, decided to ban guns from schools, there were mass killings. Could it be that the killers sought an easy, "target rich" environment? Did they plan attacks at schools knowing that there would be little if any resistance?
Some will say that the perpetrators of such heinous acts are mentally ill. Who can argue with that? Is anyone who attacks and murders innocent children "well balanced" or "normal"?
But were these killers so mentally disturbed that they would have carried out these attacks had they known that someone there might stop them with a firearm of his own? While we had shootings at 37 schools, we have had only one attack on a police station. Could it be that these killers were not so crazy that they were unable to identify helpless targets?
Clearly it is time to abandon a policy that does not work and embark on one that has proven to have positive results. It is time to eliminate those "gun free zones" -- criminals don't obey those laws anyway -- and adopt a policy that allows any adults who have met state qualifications for carrying a concealed weapon to carry one where they choose, including schools.
Give children a fighting chance
If some of the young adults in class at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, had been armed, they could have terminated the threat long before the victim count reached 32. If you doubt that this would work, take a look at a similar situation at Virginia Appalachian School of Law where, in 2002, armed students stopped an attack that began much like the one at Virginia Tech.
A few years earlier, in Pearl, Miss., an assistant principal stopped a massacre at the local high school. According to Joel Myrick, the time he spent running to the parking lot to retrieve his handgun prevented him from acting sooner and may have cost lives. He stopped the attack without firing a shot and held the shooter for the police when they arrived.
Let's give our children something more than the thought of hiding under their desks hoping that the attacker runs out of bullets.
Give them a fighting chance. Permit properly trained adults to have the means to defend them.
Let's do it for our children.
John
Lane
Observer community columnist John Lane of Charlotte is a security expert who has worked as a police officer and private investigator. Write him c/o The Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, NC 28230-0308, or at M1H3L@juno.co