Guns Make Schools Safer

Donald L. Cline from Star Valley in Arizona, writes this cogent letter to azcentral.com:

State Rep. Andrew Sherwood, D-Tempe, says teachers should not be armed in defense of the children in their care because “there is no proof guns in schools make it safer.”

Not true.

In at least nine instances, starting with 16-year-old Pearl Mississippi High School student Luke Woodham murdering two students and wounding seven others in 1997 and ending with the San Antonio theater shooting two days after the horrific Newtown, Conn., massacre, armed citizens, sometimes off-duty police officers and sometimes not, halted massacres in progress.

Detractors who claim these shootings don’t count because sometimes the intervener was a police officer or reservist ignore the fact that a great many armed citizens, who go to the range regularly, are better trained than either police officers, who train once or twice a year, or military reservists who haven’t trained for a decade or more.

Some may believe there is no proof guns in schools make it safer, but there is certainly proof that “gun-free schools” attract murderers: They don’t commit their massacres where they know guns are carried. The only reason there aren’t more massacres stopped by armed citizens — and the only reason school massacres occur — is hoplophobic politicians refuse to allow teachers and others the tools to meet their responsibility to protect our children.

Several of those instances can be found at Mass Killings Stopped by Armed Citizens, posted over a year ago on this site.  It has also been noted that the Gun Free School Zone Act has been a disaster. 

Don has done a fine job in educating the misinformed State Representative.

Dean Weingarten