Mark America

It’s coming.  You know it, and I know it.  Every rational person knows it.  Somewhere in our nation, one or more people are preparing to go on a shooting rampage, and one of them may intend your child as a target.  That shooter-in-waiting is already armed, already possesses the means to carry out the intended attack.  It’s too late to talk about banning guns, bullets, gas masks or backpacks.  The thug is already primed, and all that is now needed is for the fuse to be lit.  Perhaps the death of a relative will be the trigger. Maybe it will be something in our highly polarized political environment that will ignite this rampage.  There’s no way to know where the shooter will appear, but there’s no doubt that the shooter is waiting, and while we bicker about banning guns or ammunition or anything else, and while we talk about “mental health issues,” we are failing our children in a sickeningly fundamental way:  We’ve shirked our first responsibility as parents to defend our children by leaving them defenseless in the face of monsters.  We cannot pretend that we can intercept these shooters by banning their implements, and we must face the fact that the only way to protect our children is to rise in their defense.

When you deliver your child to the school in the morning, or watch them load onto the school bus, you’ve effectively discharged your responsibility; everything the school does with your child is a matter of the authority with which you vested them when you placed the school in loco parentis.  You’ve effectively given the school temporary custody, presumably for the purposes of education.  At the same time, our federal government has so thoroughly nationalized our schools that we have largely prohibited the faculty and administration of our schools from participating in the defense of our children.  Except for licensed law enforcement officers, there’s nobody who can legally possess a gun on our schools’ grounds.  When it is suggested that we ought to increase security at our schools, and that the faculty and administration of our schools ought to be included in that defense, it is said that teachers cannot be armed because they cannot be trusted to refrain from a shooting rampage of their own should a child or children get out of hand.  In essence, we are told that teachers are a psychologically unbalanced lot, not to be trusted with guns.

This notion is always baffling to me, particularly when uttered by actual parents of minor children.  Are we to understand that teachers and coaches and principals may not be entrusted with a firearm, but that they are to be trusted to act in loco parentis? We trust them to shape the minds of our children, but we cannot trust them to defend our kids?  If an actual parent believes this, then there are only two rational options: 1.) Immediately withdraw your children from that dangerous school, or 2.) Reconsider your qualifications as a suitable parent for your children.  It is self-evident that if a teacher or administrator is insufficiently trustworthy to possess and carry a firearm, they have no business whatever acting in place of me with respect to my child(ren.)   If I can’t trust somebody with a gun, I certainly won’t trust them to instruct or oversee my kid(s.)

Bear all of this in mind when presented with the litany of excuses as to why we can’t or mustn’t arm non-police officers in our schools.  Remember that the thug is already out there, waiting for the timer to go off, or otherwise be “triggered” on his way.  The shooter is already armed.  The shooter already has ammunition.  You can ban guns and think you’ll discover him by psychological intervention, but you’re only kidding yourself, or permitting yourself to be misled.  The only place you can approximately guarantee the safety of your child(ren) is at home, but even there, it’s not guaranteed.  That said, you are in a position to defend your child(ren) in a way that is not possible in a conventional school environment.

It’s impossible to stress this point too thoroughly.  We must defend our children, but it must be an active defense, rather than an exercise in apprehension of villains and recovery of bodies.  Our teachers, administrators, coaches, and security must be armed and able to repel attackers.  They must be trained.  If we have teachers who cannot be trusted with a firearm, they should not be trusted with our children.  That next school shooter is out there.  It’s not possible to stop the shooter by banning anything.  The shooter is likely already armed.  The question parents must answer is this:  If you know the shooter is out there, though you can’t know his location, identity, or motive in advance, how do you defend your children?  Why are you sending your children to be safeguarded by people who are unable and/or unwilling to protect them?  Why are you putting your children in the midst of people with whom you would would not trust a gun?  The answer is an active defense.  It must be.

There will always be killers among us.  We can’t stop them all, and we can’t always intervene before they’re able to inflict casualties, but the only way we might is to present an unambiguous, active defensive curtain around our children, with trained, rational adults empowered to provide that defense.  Everything else is political cowardice.  It’s time, with all the evidence before us, for parents to insist that there be an active defense, or to withdraw their children from these schools.  What do you have that you value more?  On which political issue are your efforts better spent?  It’s simple: We must insist that our schools be empowered to mount an active defense against violent assailants.  If you sincerely wish to protect your children from the next school shooter, it’s too late to talk about bans.  That shooter is already armed, perhaps casing the target, or merely awaiting a psychological trigger; your child(ren.)  Only an active defense offers any hope.

Editor’s Note: It’s despicable that while the Parkland Florida shooter was preparing to commit his crime, the FBI, which had been notified of a youtuber of the same name threatening to be a professional school shooter, did only a cursory investigation, apparently too busy chasing phantom “Trump-Russian Collusion,” as directed by their senior leadership in Washington DC.  If only the FBI field agents had been able to conduct a more thorough investigation, perhaps the outcome would have been different.