I would summarize what I’ve been hearing from the mass media since Friday as
When in trouble
When in doubt
Run in circles
Scream and shout
Angry people, grieving people, ignorant people, and conniving people are throwing dust in the air and shouting Somebody do something! Just what is to be done is a secondary concern (except among the conniving). The main theme has been that we cannot accept this, so we must do something.
Since the shooter used a .223 caliber Bushmaster, many speakers have called for banning assault weapons. Hopefully they are speaking from mere ignorance. A hurting person can be excused from saying ill-advised things at a time of emotional upheaval. The suggestion remains, however, ill-advised. Most of those favoring this move cannot tell you what an assault rifle is and how it differs from, say, a deer rifle. For this reason they cannot tell you how the elimination of these weapons would make a school massacre less likely. But assault weapons look scary, and that’s enough for such commentators.
The truth is, eliminating assault weapons (if they could be defined) would not have affected this massacre at all. One feature of an assault rifle is a high-capacity magazine, which means you don’t need to reload as often. But what’s the hurry if you intend to shoot kids and teachers in a school? A simple revolver would work just fine. Kill the teacher first, squeeze the trigger five more times, stand at the door so that the first graders cannot leave, reload (it takes about 20 seconds for an amateur, but someone who has practiced a lot can cut that in half easily), then squeeze the trigger six more times, then repeat, etc. Schools are a mass-murderer’s dream come true: countless easy targets and nobody can shoot back.
The chattering classes also love the word “semiautomatic.” You can just hear the thrill of excitement when they call a rifle a “semiautomatic rifle.” It’s like when a Bible college undergraduate first learns the word “supralapsarianism.”
For those who may not know, a semiautomatic is simply a gun that you don’t have to cock before firing. As a boy, I hunted birds with my uncle, who carried a semiautomatic shotgun, and my father, who carried a pump-action shotgun. I carried a single-shot .410 and I may have killed as many birds as they, simply because I aimed more carefully. When a covey of quail flew up, Daddy probably got off as many shots as Uncle Max, even though he had to cock his shotgun before each shot. (A pump-action is pretty quick.) Being able to squeeze off rounds more quickly (with a semi) doesn’t obviate the fact that you still have to aim the #@$% gun if you’re going to kill anything. Even a simple revolver can be fired repeatedly without cocking it. The quick action of a semiauto adds nothing to the success of a school massacre.
Schools are already locked down, with visitors required to sign in. That doesn’t work, either. I needed into a high school recently and, since my appearance fits the profile of a safe person, kids hanging around inside just opened the door for me. (School had ended for the day some minutes earlier.) Signs were everywhere telling me that all visitors had to sign in; I ignored them. When I’d found the teacher I’d come to see, he showed me a door near his classroom where I could park my truck and come right in. “It’s probably unlocked,” he said as he walked over to check it. “Yeah, it’s unlocked; just park out there and bring your stuff in this door.” They’d have to turn the place into a prison to control all the access points. And how secure are those points when 3,000 kids are trying to get in and begin the day?
While we’re talking about banning the weapon — has anyone considered how easy it would be to drive a car onto a school playground? Anybody sick enough to shoot first graders multiple times is sick enough to drive onto a playground and mow them down.
In anything like a free society, the only solution is to maintain the ability to stop a massacre if it begins. You cannot always stop one from beginning.
Some conservatives are repeating the idea that there should be an armed guard at every school. I have to wonder if these kibitzers know anything about handgun combat, or any combat at all? Apparently not. Does a sicko like this Lanza kid want to pull a massacre at a school which has An Armed Guard? He simply walks up to the guard, draws a weapon, and kills him. It’s easy to do unless the guard already has a gun in his hand and is alert because the attacker looks unusual. And how formidable is the average guard? These days, they’re only on the premises of most places for insurance reasons and to operate a buzzer to let people in. They are obviously not combat ready.
Or suppose, like Lanza, the killer intends to die with his victims? He starts shooting children at the far end of the property and the overweight and aged guard (in another building) begins huffing and puffing his way to the sound of the shooting. Twelve people are already dead and the killer is reloading his revolver for the third time. Fatso comes through the door and, out of breath and trembling from excitement, he levels his semiautomatic handgun and empties it in the direction of the killer. Out of fifteen rounds, one of them manages to hit the thug and the murders are over. Instead of twenty dead, it’s only twelve. Not much improvement, and that’s a “best-case” scenario. Give the perp slightly better weapons and the foresight to watch for the guard and the improvement diminishes to near zero.
A effective measure would be to have many armed guards in every school, all of them combat ready. I am referring to the school staff themselves. Those who are willing can be trained, tested, and supervised. (Hoplophobes, read that sentence repeatedly until you understand it.) When the school is filled with capable handgunners, punks like Lanza cannot get far. Such scum might open fire at a school, a mall, or a bus station, but the school would be a place, like a gun store or a police station, where an evil doer is the least able to work his will.