Chardon

There was a school shooting this morning at a Cleveland area high school. For some reason this has really hit me. Maybe its because I value life so much, maybe its because I have so many friends who work in education. I don't know what it is, but it really REALLY pisses me off that anyone can be stupid enough to do what that prick did. There is nothing that can be going so wrong in your life, nothing that can be so painful, that it can justify hurting and killing innocent unarmed children. Bringing a gun to school and popping off a few rounds? What a little bitch. Then he runs away. So he can't be mentally disturbed or anything like that. The real headcases at least have the balls to shoot themselves too. As far as I'm concerned, there is no punishment sufficient to even the score. Except perhaps one of those really prolonged highly controversial methods of torture. Or an eternity in hell.

Guess that NASCAR didn't really do the trick.

Now to the solution...

Judging from the internet reaction, people jump to gun control as the problem. I, like many others, disagree completely. This child was already in violation of several laws. Guns are not allowed in schools. Most people know this. Some of the morons commenting on the internet do not. This is a problem in my eyes. Someone who wants to go on a shooting rampage in a school knows there is going to be no one to stop them because guns are not allowed. A school is like a personal killing ground for someone who wants to let off some steam. There is also the little detail that this kid was violating the law the second he stepped onto public property because you have to be 21 to get a conceal carry license. The bigger issue is mentality. There is no perfect solution to the problem. No matter what the level headed, intelligent people (and in some cases complete headcases who happen to be in charge) try to put in place, people who want to inflict pain will do so. Rather than prevention, I think the answer is discouragement. Do something like the air marshals on airliners. Have certain teachers and administrators go through classes and training to posses and carry non-lethal weapons. You can bet that someone would be much less likely to cause that kind of trouble if they knew that there were other people in the building packing heat. Clearly this is not a complete solution, but this along with other deterring measures would make schools safer for the students. 

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed."-- Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188

"I sympathize with people who want to ban guns, but I can't agree with them. We have to be careful in our zeal to abolish guns that we don't wind up with counter-productive legislation that will leave armed only the people most likely to do harm with them." -- Hugh Downs

P. S. Big props to the teacher who chased the kid out of the school.