Look, these school shootings are a grotesque fad, and there are things you should realize about fads: First: understand that it is a fad. The real, permanent solution for a fad is to wait it out. All fads are media-driven. The real, permanent way to kill a fad is to starve it of attention. Only the media can do that, but they don’t because… well… there’s no good reason for why the media are as corrupt as they are, and for why they continue to feed the fad.
So, while we wait for the media to stop fueling the school shooting fad, I have the simple solution for the here and now. Here’s all you have to do. (Note: This is a serious proposal):
- Put a locked box containing a gun in every classroom. The box should have an electronic combination lock on it, and it should be secured so that (1) the box can’t be moved, and (2) no one can get into it, because (3) no one knows the combination. The box can be opened remotely, by electronic signal, or by someone who knows the combination. Take this seriously… only authorized personnel can know the combination.
- The gun must regularly be certified to be in good operating order.
- Every teacher must pass regular certification for use of the handgun that will be contained in the box.
- There is always to be one person at the school at all times, with authorization to use the remote that opens the lock boxes. If the principal is away, it’s the vice-principal, and some hierarchy of senior teachers. Possibly two or three teachers have the remote. Or more, if needed, depending on the size and configuration of the school campus.
- Then, when an incident happens, someone pushes the button on the remote that opens the boxes, and instantly the softest of targets is… hard. Harder, in fact, than a U.S. Army base (sadly).
- Want to make the room even harder? Okay. Make every handgun biometrically operable only by the teacher in whose room it’s stored. It’d be operable only for five minutes, then it would require another finger scan.(1)
- Got several teachers in a room? Make the gun biometrically operable by all those teachers.
- Does a teacher move, retire, get fired? Remove his fingerprints from the biometrics of the handgun.
By the way, you don’t even have to do this for real, just announce that you’re going to do it. Around the nation. The killer in Parkland, Florida drove past the High School where the shooter knew there was an armed security guard, to attack the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School where he thought there was no protection. As it turns out, there was protection — if ineffective — at MSD.
When I told my brilliant son about my idea, he liked it, and then said, “But, it’ll be too expensive.” Yep. Except that it’ll be less expensive than full-time security guards who, apparently, aren’t all that effective anyway. And it’ll stop school shootings.
A high school that’s instantly hardened, with trained handgun users all around, is a much less attractive target for anyone, especially a would-be shooter who might be worried about bullets coming back. In other words: all would-be shooters.
And, again, you don’t have to do this all at once. Look at this militarily: Harden the most strategically-placed classrooms first, then steadily build up the hardness of the school.
The best thing about this is that you don’t even need a law to do this. You can do it locally — at the individual school level. A moderately competent IT-consulting company could implement the whole thing, and the technology exists to do this right now.
Don’t worry… this will all blow over. This kind of thing isn’t even all that unusual. Remember, we used to have “nuclear attack drills” too, in which school children cowered under desks, as we worried about atomic bombs raining down on us from the Soviet Union.(2)
However, if we were to do as I’m suggesting here, school shootings would stop tomorrow.
Don’t forget the unintended consequences. Any would-be shooters immediately would re-focus on some other soft target, and we’d have to consider that.
— xPraetorius
Notes:
(1) In case the shooter obtains the gun from the teacher
(2) That was our left-wing American media’s fault too.
The Praetorian Writers' Group 
Just a response to your first point.
If we assume the gun you propose should be in each of these boxes is a hand gun, how would this help if the gunman has an automatic assault rifle spraying bullets into a school playground from the street?
It’s in the post.
The shooters are in places they know are unprotected. They’re cowards. As soon as the first bullet comes back their way, they’re going to hunker down, initiate what they planned as their “end game,” stop shooting, whatever.
If the first bullet that comes back disables the shooter, then my point is proven.
Furthermore, if return fire disables the shooter, then that would end — at that moment — the fad of school shootings.
It’s all in the post.
Even if the shooter had an actual automatic weapon, which none of them have had, all the same still applies.
If the shooter tried to enter a “hardened classroom,” and meets return fire, he retreats, and the occupants of that classroom are saved. If he goes on to the next classroom and meets the same thing, then he knows that his particular jig is up.
Heck, in America, so much of what appears in the media is rank propaganda anyway, all you have to do to end the fad of school shootings is to “report” on such a shooting — whether it even occurs or not! — and report on how the gunman was stopped by a teacher in a hardened classroom, and that would be the end of the fad of school shootings.
School shooters, by definition, are not that bright, and they are afraid of going someplace with murderous intent and (1) inflicting no damage, and (2) being shot themselves.
That’s why I made sure to point out that such half-wits might move on to other soft targets — churches, and the like. My post indicated how to end the fad of school shootings.
Best,
— x
[Editor’s Note: I had to edit the following post, due to juvenile profanities. I should note that this kind of half-wittery is Ark’s stock-in-trade. I guess that’s how he thinks he’ll appear “edgy” and “deep” or something. Turns out he’s just not overly burdened with substantive arguments, so he postures, blusters, and generally plays the fool. With all that in mind, wherever you see “###” you know that I’ve extracted some juvenile profanity or other.]
Except that by the time they have sprayed their first burst into the playground a number of children and staff are more than likely dead or seriously wounded.
Your hypothesis or psychoanalysis of the average shooter leaves a lot to be desired, in fact it a crock as you are not a psychologist .
Your claim that the average shooter would not use a fully automatic weapon is also rightist ### as such adaptations are available for assault rifles. I understand.
And just suppose that your brilliant plan worked, and the average deranged semi-automatic with a fully automatic adaptation assault rifle toting ### moved on to shopping mall or night club( oops – done that) or a church (oops again … already done that) how does the brilliant xpraetorius mind believe the US public should prepare itself for this new onslaught? Arm the local Pastor or Priest?
Yeah now THAT would be a great idea!
In fact the real problem is rightist, fundamentalist, home-schooled Christian ### – just like you, probably – who think the guv’ment is about to come and take your guns and deprive you of your rights … ye haw. God bless Ermerica.
But you are simply too credulous and believe every piece of ### the NRA and its affiliates tell you. Of course there were WMDs, right?
Thinking like a normal person is just a wee bit too hard for people like you I’m afraid?
So, as Axl Rose once sang: ”Welcome to the Jungle.”
Ark said: Except that by the time they have sprayed their first burst into the playground a number of children and staff are more than likely dead or seriously wounded.
Your hypothesis or psychoanalysis of the average shooter leaves a lot to be desired, in fact it a crock as you are not a psychologist .
Your claim that the average shooter would not use a fully automatic weapon is also rightist ### as such adaptations are available for assault rifles. I understand.
My Response:
Ark: If you’re going to argue these points, is it too much to ask you (1) to proofread? The temptation to tease you for things like “it a crock” is sometimes too much… and is it too much to ask you (2) to inform yourself just a little?
Anyone who understands the topic more than at the Kindergarten level knows there’s no such thing as an “assault rifle.” It’s a term of art cooked up by the Left to fool Americans into thinking there is a special kind of military-grade rifle commonly in use in America. There isn’t.
You said: “by the time they have sprayed their first burst into the playground a number of children and staff are more than likely dead or seriously wounded”
Response: Yep. And when the first round comes back at the shooter, that ends the carnage right there. You’re not too bright, are you, Ark? The point is simple: (1) if you have a shooter, you do what you can to limit the damage he can do (hence the “hardened targets”), and (2) deter other shooters. As for your comment about my not being a psychologist: This is not rocket science, dude. No psychology degree required. The shooters are not choosing, say, police stations, NRA local chapters, military bases. When I say that they’re seeking out places they know to be unprotected, that should not be all that controversial. Even the left-wing media, your gods of information, say that. You’re a lefty, why aren’t you in lockstep with them? You’re not saying stuff approved by your high overlords. Leftists are sheep… you need to get back into the herd and recommence to bleating what your betters are telling you to bleat.
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Ark said: And just suppose that your brilliant plan worked, and the average deranged semi-automatic with a fully automatic adaptation assault rifle toting ### moved on to shopping mall or night club( oops – done that) or a church (oops again … already done that) how does the brilliant xpraetorius mind believe the US public should prepare itself for this new onslaught? Arm the local Pastor or Priest?
Yeah now THAT would be a great idea!
My Response:
Lol! Again, the answer to that is simple: until this media-fueled fad passes, harden those targets too. Ark, are you really that simple-minded that you think that deterrence fails? It always worked on a macro scale (Remember: MAD? Yes, yes, funny acronym… but there was no nuclear war, was there? And the Soviet Union, then run by the very people who did mass shootings on a daily basis… fell. Oops… I forgot: the mass-murdering psychotics of the Soviet Union are big heroes of yours! How insensitive of me! I should have said… “Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah” [to the tune of: “Nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah, nyeah”] 🙂 )
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Ark said: In fact the real problem is rightist, fundamentalist, home-schooled Christian ### – just like you, probably – who think the guv’ment is about to come and take your guns and deprive you of your rights … ye haw. God bless Ermerica.
My Response:
Yep. It’s the fault of us Christian right-wingers alright! Somehow we get all those leftist mass murderers to come out of the woodwork and shoot up schools and churches, and that’s the fault of… you guessed it: the right! Got any other ludicrous, self-contradicting talking points to spout, Ark?
Actually, I have an easy one for you: give me one — just one — so-called “rightist, fundamentalist, home-schooled Christian” who’s done a mass shooting. Just one. After all, if that’s really the problem, then there ought to be dozens of them out there. I’ll wait. (fingers drumming…fingers drumming…fingers drumming…fingers drumming…)
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Ark said: But you are simply too credulous and believe every piece of ### the NRA and its affiliates tell you. Of course there were WMDs, right?
My Response:
Lol! You make this too easy for me! Especially in light of the events of the past few days! If you were paying attantion at all — but your Supreme Overlords would not want you to do that, now would they? — then you would have caught the reporting that, indeed, there were “WMD’s” whose storage locations were discovered in Iraq after the first cessation of hostilities. You forget (because you’re a leftist, with little storage capacity between your ears) that there was a full year between the idea that there might be hostilities in Iraq, and the actual commencement of those hostilities. Plenty of time to remove those WMD’s to other places, like Syria, where they’re being used against Syrians as we speak! You must be happy about that! It’s your ilk who made the gassing of Syrians possible today! Saddam Hussein was, however, unable to conceal all traces of his WMD’s and they were, indeed, found in various places throughout Iraq. Several right-wing commentators asked rhetorically whether the media were going to apologize to George W. Bush and Colin Powell now that WMD’s have been found to have been in in Iraq all along. Some, admittedly very few, commentators came on and admitted that Saddam had had WMD’s all along, but the vast majority of commentators ignored the story completely.
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Ark said: Thinking like a normal person is just a wee bit too hard for people like you I’m afraid?
So, as Axl Rose once sang: ”Welcome to the Jungle.”
My Response:
Dude! Again, you make this too easy! Of course I don’t want to “think like a normal person!” The “normal person?” — the average, run-of-the-mill, blue-collar, default-Democrat, vaguely socially leftist, vaguely fiscally Conservative, vaguely this or that, person — tends to be ill-or un-informed, ignorant about most aspects of domestic or foreign policy, unaware of the compleities of daily events, and largely apathetic… like you. It’s why an empty-suit, milquetoast, dim-bulb rube like Barack Obama could be elected, then re-elected, President of the United States.
You, though, add a big dose of the “pathetic” to the apathetic part. You earn that epithet because your arguments never escape the bounds of the most superficial pabulum you hear on American media… pap that’s transparently stupid, wildly uninformative and mostly misleading. While you’re not an idiot, it’s why you seem so much like one. You never inform yourself beyond what you hear or read from your betters. You could, you know, try to think for yourself for a bit.
As for your attempt at cleverness… maybe it’s indicative of why your commentary is so dumb: you take your inspiration from… Alx Rose.
The jungle is here, dude, and it’s because half-wits supported by the likes of you are mostly in charge.
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Best,
— x
Dang -x
Your time and patience in explaining the obvious to folks who will never seen value in anything you say is commendable.
Good write up. I would only add that a school district could also issue a statement:
Some, if not many of our staff are trained in the correct usage of power tools, such as drills, saws, planers, and guns. Some are even armed. We will not tell you who they are. But if you would persist in stupidity, it just may be your last day on earth. This is a school, not a playground for your evil. Don’t be stupid.
🙂
GREAT press release, CS!
First of all, thank you for your kind words.
Next, just a quick point: There are several professors in several universities who peruse the content of our blog to bring up topics for discussion in some of their lessons.
I’ve long observed that the Left seems to be populated overwhelmingly by people deficient in critical thinking, and tend simply to take marching/talking orders from on high.
To test my hypothesis, I’ve long been in search of independent critical thinkers on the Left and in the ranks of the various “groups” out there — eg.: atheists and the leadership of the many grievance groups out there.
Needless to say, I find but very few. However, people like Ark, even when given real, thought-through responses to their questions tend to revert to type and to confirm my original hypothesis.
I tend to approach such people from as many different angles, using as many styles as possible, in order to provide every possible opportunity to break out of their narrow-mindedness. They usually don’t, though I had some hope for BrothaWolf for a while.
Best,
— x
Well simply put, they can’t even qualify to enter the competition with you -x 😉
Some people would actually be better served watching from afar, actually thinking about this or that before the car rolls down the hill without brakes, or tries to go uphill without an engine.
But BW made an effort.
Another good one, X! I really do wonder why Ark keeps trying. He’s plainly not informed, and you whip his ugly [deleted: mild profanity] all over the playground every time! He’s an [deleted: inappropriate insult] and you know it! why do you engage with him?
viewer
Thanks again, viewer! Much appreciated. Please, though, keep the profanity and insults either to a minimum, or not at all.
Thanks!
— x
Hey, x! Now you’re editing MY comments?!? What gives?
viewer
Please see the previous reply.
Best,
— x
Dude: I edit all bad language and inappropriate insults in this blog. I thought you knew that. I left your meaning intact, though, because I do not censor.
Best,
— x