Do gun control debates ever change anything? In these countries they did. CLICK IMAGE
Washington’s luck ran out today.
Our state dodged the bullet (or bullets, literally) several times over the last few years when would-be school shooters were apprehended by authorities before they could act, usually because someone tipped off police. This one wasn’t caught in time.
The Seattle Times identified today’s shooter at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, but I won’t repeat his name here. We’re told he’s dead by his own hand. That newspaper, drawing on student sources, says he was a freshman football player who was angry at a girl for refusing to date him. (If I were a high school girl, I wouldn’t date a kid with his problems, either.)
It appears he walked into the school cafeteria, walked up to her and shot her, and also shot several other students at her table. One unidentified student is dead (I’m guessing it’s her) and four others are injured – three of them shot in the head. If this was done in a classroom, there may have been a bulletproof shield partition or a similar form of protection (which schools can purchase from Versare) but because this occurred in the cafeteria, by a fellow student, there was nothing in place. Unlike some school shootings, this one wasn’t random, the shooter sought out a specific target.
I’m not going to say a whole lot about this. America’s gun culture is out of control. We, as a society, need to rethink our love of guns. And then we need to make them much, much harder to get.
Our national gun fetish isn’t rational. Guns, in most people’s hands, are useless for self-defense. Few people have the skills to use them effectively in a life-or-death encounter, which is the only time they should be used. Even people with the best of intentions are likely to do more harm than good under the extreme stress of a gunfight. The best thing for an average person to do with a gun, if s/he has one, is get rid of it.
I’m not writing this from an ivory-tower. I’m very familiar with using firearms to kill people. I was trained by the Army and was in a war; and after the war, I served as an Army Reserve infantry weapons instructor. I know what it takes to win small-arms combat, and except for battlefield-hardened soldiers most people don’t have it, and no untrained person has it.
I want to tell you a real-life story. When I was in college, one of my classmates picked up her son after class, then found a burglar in her home. She told her son to lock himself in the bathroom. He was okay when the police found him later. She tried to shoot the burglar with a .22 pistol she kept in a drawer. She might have gotten away with it using a .357 or .45, but getting shot with her .22 didn’t keep him from shooting her between the eyes with his .38. He survived, she didn’t. So much for novices using guns when there’s no margin for miscalculation.
It might sound like I’m wandering off topic, but bear with me, I’m going somewhere with this. What I’m saying is guns aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. They’re much less useful against criminals than most people believe. Often, a gun is worse than useless. My classmate probably would have survived her encounter with the burglar if she didn’t have a gun. Her gun made it “her or me” for the burglar. Taking someone down quicker than they can squeeze off a shot in return is incredibly difficult. Her chances of pulling it off wouldn’t have been good under any circumstances, and armed with a gun incapable of the task, her odds were zero.
The Sandy Hook shooter’s mother liked guns, collected them, and didn’t adequately secure them so her mentally-ill son couldn’t get them. She was the first to die. Within minutes, a score of innocent little kids also lay dead or dying. Nothing we’ve tried so far has stopped these crazy people; someone posted on the Horsesass.org blog this morning that there have been 87 school shootings since Sandy Hook. I’m not advocating confiscating people’s guns. What I’m suggesting is that people do voluntarily what obviously needs to be done. That requires passing no laws and involves no government intrusion into our lives.
America, get rid of your guns.
