Wayne LaPierre of the NRA has called for armed cops to be placed in every school in America in response to the shooting of children by a deranged manic last week in Connecticut. He also suggested a national database cataloging the mentally ill.
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre during a news conference today.
“How many more copycats are waiting in the wings for their moment of fame from a national media machine that rewards them with wall-to-wall attention and a sense of identity that they crave, while provoking others to try to make their mark,” LaPierre said. “A dozen more killers, a hundred more? How can we possibly even guess how many, given our nation’s refusal to create an active national database of the mentally ill?”
LaPierre also announced a NRA model security program of armed volunteers to guard schools. He said Rep. Asa Hutchison, R-Ark., will lead the program for the lobbying organization.
While the idea of armed citizen volunteers protecting schools is reasonable, the call for adding more police is not. The presence of police in public schools has created a number of problems – from tasering and handcuffing students to shooting them to death – in addition to fostering a prison-like environment.
As for creating a government database of people suffering from mental illness and then presumably denying them Second Amendment rights, this is a dangerous idea begging for government abuse. If the state is allowed to determine what mental illness is and who suffers from it, large numbers of people will undoubtedly have their right to own firearms denied (like veterans suffering from PTSD are denied their rights).
It looks like the NRA is merely passing the buck on this issue and once again relying on government to devise solutions.
The solution to public school violence is really quite simple – citizens must be fully empowered to exercise the right to self-protection and the protection of their families (defense is a natural right that has nothing to do with the real reason the Second Amendment was established). This right to self-protection cannot be denied by “gun free zones” that are in essence self-defense free zones.
If the government continues to insist that schools remain self-defense free zones and responds to inevitable shooting incidents by employing more police (or as Sen. Boxer has proposed, sending in the National Guard), citizens will have no choice but to remove their children from public schools.
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