It is intriguing and disturbing to hear the NRA espouse their belief that armed guards or police in schools will solve all the safety problems in schools and that violence in the media is a primary reason for gun violence in America.
As a strategy guy, I have a few thoughts on this:
1. You better have more than one armed guard or policeman in the school. If there is only one and someone is planning an attack, the armed guard or policeman will be the first one killed. After that, things come apart as the people confident that the guard would protect them are now vulnerable.
2. You better have the guards in multiple protected areas within the school. If you don’t, a coordinated attack takes them out first. Then see point #1.
3. They are assuming that teachers will not want to shoot the guards. Teachers demonstrate gun violence also. Don’t believe me? Check out this story from earlier in December where an elementary school teacher in Pennsylvania went bonkers and shot his wife to death in a church.
4. On the day of the massacre at Columbine, there was an armed guard on duty at the school. He was checking the “Smoker’s Corner” when the shooting took place as explained here. His presence didn’t prevent the shooting.
5. The NRA stated today that violence in the media is a major contributing factor to violence in America. The inconvenient truth they leave out is that the number one weapon used in the “violent media” is … wait for it …. guns.
Here’s the bottom line on the NRA’s inane (and insane) desire to introduce more weapons as a solution to gun violence.
We Cannot Avoid The Law of Escalation
Here’s how it works.
I bring a knife to a fight and you bring a gun to assure your victory.
To counter your gun, I bring a bigger gun.
To counter my gun, you bring a bomb.
To which I respond by bringing a bigger bomb.
And so on.
Sounds stupid doesn’t it?
But I don’t think arming everyone sounds any smarter.
So …..
We can either save ourselves a lot of time and effort, get right to the final solution by arming everyone with bombs and let them sort it out once and for all.
Or ….
We can have a MORE intelligent conversation around the whole gun debate and look for a balanced solution that, while not perfect, represents the best we can come up with collaboratively.
I know which one makes better sense to me.
How about you?
In service and servanthood,
Harry
PS If any member of the NRA denies the existence of the Law of Escalation, then allow them the right to only have the types of weapons that existed when the 2nd Amendment went into law in December of 1791 and see what they think of that.
The Cold War was the ultimate example of the Law of Escalation. The NRA’s intent is to recreate the same thing on a personal level.
And we all know what the Cold War almost produced, don’t we?
