On Guns in Schools....

The Walla Walla Union Bulletin editorial board strode forth on Monday to bloviate in opposition to guns in schools. I beg to differ.

"Guns have no place in schools."

Actually, they do - several, really. Until quite recently, rural school parking lots and locker rooms were the frequent location of student/faculty/staff rifles and shotguns - particularly during hunting season. However, another, sadder purpose is served in the present day ... as indicated by the Appalachian Law School Shooting in 2002, Assistant Principal Joel Myrick stopping a shooting cold in 1997 in Lubbock, or the Jerusalem Seminary shooting stopped by an armed student in March of 2008.

The source of the Editorial Board's distress is the policy of the Harrold School District in Texas that allows designated teachers and staff with appropriate licenses and training to go armed in the course of their other duties. The Harrold School District is a small rural district that cannot *afford* luxuries like dedicated school police or security officers - they must make do with what resources and staff they have, and that includes funding - people end up multi-tasking.

The problem with gun-free zones is that they create a large and well-known body of defenseless potential victims - enhancing the odds that the villain or whack job du jour will choose to target those in said "self-defense-free zone".

No magic wand exists that will miraculously prevent every single possible bad thing from happening. No matter *what* any of us do, school shootings/bombings/disasters will take place - our absolute best hope is to keep the frequency and the casualty count as low as is practical. Part of that solution can well be the course found in Harrold, or, for that matter, in the entire State of Utah.

On the same topic, school teachers and staff are neither so stupid as to be unable to learn the necessary skills to carry safely in a work environment, so inherently unstable as to be wholly untrustworthy, nor so evil as to be conspiring in an evil plot to shoot up a school as soon as they are allowed to lawfully carry after they've been vetted by both the license process and additional school board required training and certification.

When local law enforcement is the better part of an hour away, the budget isn't there for a dedicated security team or school police department, and you have a whole bunch of something (say...kids....) that you think it'd be good to keep safe? The Harrold School District solution starts seeming eminently sensible.

Lots of bad things can happen in 45 minutes.