Armed students are safe students

As a result of the massacre in Littleton, Colorado, government schools around the country will take steps to insure it never happens again.

Schools will more vigorously enforce existing policies that will never deter unhappy, armed assailants. They will outlaw backpacks, camouflage pants, trenchcoats, pocketknives, and even bomb-making books. They will install metal detectors, hire a few more armed security guards, and probably forbid students from entering or leaving campus during school hours.

These totalitarian policies will turn regular, law-abiding students into prisoners but will not protect them from armed assailants with bombs and guns. The only way to protect students is to allow them to protect themselves. When faced with assailants throwing pipe bombs and grenades, an armed student population would not be hiding under cafeteria tables. They would be firing back.

The threat of being shot in a cafeteria gun battle would also decrease the possibility for more massacres. Dark, brooding groups like the trenchcoat Mafia would think twice before entering a school filled with armed students and teachers. Mafias that aspire for attention or the opportunity to kill fellow students would instead stick to fake bomb threats and false fire alarms.

There is no way to prevent all gun attacks but twenty people should not have died in Colorado. It was a massacre because no one could shoot back. The assailants were like hunters targeting unarmed animals. Consider the impact of an armed deer population upon hunters and you will begin to realize the value of an armed student population.

Many people mistakenly object to guns because they only see the aftermath of gun murders and attacks. They never read about the woman who deterred a rapist by revealing her 9mm or the late-night store clerk who scared off a burglar with a shotguns. Almost all guns are strictly used in a defensive manner.

Still, some people are worried about turning the schools into the Wild West. They state that hundreds of armed students would invite more killing. The opposite is in fact true and the Wild West proved that cities with many gun owners are actually safe. Cities in the Wild West were not worried about violent men in trenchcoats because everyone carried a firearm for protection.

Had the Trenchcoat mafia tried their rampage in the “not-so” Wild West, armed civilians would have quickly killed them. If only that option was available to the more than 20 victims in Littleton, Colorado.