Active Shooter?

USA – In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, there’s been a fierce debate on how to best protect our schools. This conversation often arises after school shootings, and undoubtedly, gun control comes up as one of the “solutions” for protecting our schools. Other measures are of course brought up; The ideas of hardening our school with things like metal detectors, more secure entrances, etc. but more often than not the proposal for gun control often takes center stage.

Unfortunately, when these gun control measures are brought up, they are often marketed as “common sense” or “reasonable.”

I wouldn’t blame those who don’t know much about firearms for thinking that these gun control measures they hear about seem reasonable; they’re meant to sound reasonable. But despite the amount of coverage the topic of gun control gets from the media, rarely do they ever go into detail on what the specific gun control legislation or bills actually say.

In my home state of Minnesota, where we have seen gun control bills proposed and pushed into committee hearings in the aftermath of Parkland, the media often gives there one minute sound bite on the legislation being proposed with little detail on what the bill actually says and does. I get it; their viewership probably doesn’t want to see a half hour piece on proposed gun legislation going line by line through bills.

But again, the issue this creates is that for most who don’t know much about firearms or gun laws, these proposed changes seem reasonable. It’s only once you dive into these proposed bills themselves (many of which are very similar from state to state) where you find the issues. And these issues could be a blatant violation of Second Amendment rights, complete disregard for due process, or a back channel for gun registration.

Besides all these issues, too often it seems like there’s another important element being completely overlooked in the conversation on gun control and school safety: Efficacy.

Does the proposed solution have some evidence supporting its effectiveness? If we look at many of these shootings, we usually find that the gun control proposed in the aftermath would have done very little to stop the shooting or minimize the casualties.

However, as I mentioned, in the wake of the Parkland shooting, other strategies have been proposed as well. While there are plenty who have criticized the idea, the Parkland shooting seems to have brought up the conversation of allowing those in schools to be armed more than any other previous school shooting.

I’m not going to try to dive into all the different ways that this could happen. There have been many ideas proposed, some good, and some bad. Rather I would like to look at the efficacy of armed presence in general.

Armed Resistance, Any…

Long have we known that the most effective way of stopping an active shooter is to meet him with resistance as quickly as possible. This has been understood clearly since the Columbine shooting. And yes, Parkland did have an armed officer on campus, but knowing what the most effective strategy is and actually executing it are two different things. The tactics need to be carried out for the strategy to be effective, and we know now that there were MANY failures at MANY levels in Parkland.

We have a perfect example of armed resistance very likely cutting short a shooters rampage and greatly reducing casualties just recently in Maryland.

So instead of talking about teachers carrying guns, or specially trained officers armed in schools, why not take the most efficient way possible to the solution that we know will be effective; Allowing those who are licensed, (whether they be teachers, parents, staff, etc.) to carry their guns on school grounds, just as they can most everywhere else.

This places no undue financial burden on school districts, wouldn’t force anyone who is not comfortable carrying a gun to do so, and doesn’t rely on the manpower of armed volunteers. Instead it simply removes another place from the list of completely ineffective gun free zones.

Originally published by AmmoLand.com.

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