Guns and schools

[sleigh]

 I’m not optimistic that Wednesday’s latest mass school shooting in Florida will result in any changes. We’ve already seen the obligatory “thoughts & prayers” comments from politicians and lawmakers, followed by the “it’s a mental health issue” lie, which will soon become the standard “do nothing at all about it” response.

 

Check back in a few months, and I expect that’s what we’ll be seeing.  The outrage and fury lasts a week or so, then quickly fades as the news cycle moves on to the next big news story, and — except for the victims, parents, and families who will have to deal with the hole in their lives and the trauma that will stay with them forever — the entire incident vanishes into the fog of the past.

 

Parents want to have some certainty that when they send their child to school, that child will be safe. That’s perfectly understandable. However, to my mind, there are only two options (or perhaps some blending of the two) that can give parents that sense of security. 

 

The first is to turn every school into an encampment: with armed guards walking the halls; with every door locked; with the grounds patrolled by more armed guards; with metal detectors at every entrance; with every students, every backpack, every faculty member, and every guest going through the equivalent of an airline security check before they’re permitted to walk the halls.  

 

The problem, obviously, is that schools begin to more resemble inside-out prisons than anything else, designed not to isolate the criminals but to keep the criminals outside. This is probably not going to help those inside the prison feel like they’re in a good learning environment.  In addition, this would be terrifically expensive in both technology and additional staffing. For state and federal governments already dealing with budgetary concerns, with Congress not increasing taxes but foolishly cutting them, this is almost certainly an impossibility.

 

The second option, then, is serious gun control. Ban assault weapons -- and not only ban them, but take them away from the private citizens who already own them.  Ban the hacks that turn a semi-automatic weapon into an automatic one (and yes, take those hacks away from the private citizens who have already bought them). Require that in every state you have to acquire a permit before you can purchase a gun (Florida is one of the states that doesn’t require a permit to buy a gun). Require consistent laws across the states so that those wanting guns can’t drive to a nearly state with lax regulations (which means, yes, we need federal laws on gun purchases). Require that anyone selling a gun (privately, or at a gun show) has to do the same paperwork as a licensed gun dealer before selling someone a weapon. Do the serious work to create a viable national database of people not permitted to buy guns, a database that is consistent everywhere in the nation and available to all gun sellers.

 

The issues here are, of course, huge. The NRA and its thousands of members will howl in outrage about this attack on their Second Amendment rights. Every last politician who takes money from the NRA to help fund their campaigns is going to vote “NO!” on any legislation that tries to do even one of the above suggestions. In essence gun control is also an impossibility in today’s world.

 

So if making schools armed enclaves is impossible and serious gun control laws are likewise impossible, what solution is there? I don’t see one. At this point, all I see us doing is waiting for the next mass shooting, when we’ll all again say how terrible it all is, how our hearts and prayers are going out to the victims, after which we’ll do the same ‘nothing’ we’ve always done.