There are headlines we never want to see, yet they pop up far too often. Yes, I’m talking about mass shootings.
These incidents, even if they just barely qualify, are horrific events that leave deep scars in the community and in our psyches. It’s easy to see why so many people want to address them, to prevent them. We all do.
Now, put it in a school and the awfulness ramps up even further.
For many, the only viable solution is gun control. We’re told that if we don’t support it, we are essentially supporting the murder of our children. I wish that were hyperbole but it’s not. I’ve literally seen people make that argument.
When we bring up alternatives, they’re dismissed immediately, then the anti-gun side pretends we don’t have any solutions at all.
Yet things like tightening school security is a good thing.
Take Nashville, for example. The school the killer chose wasn’t the first choice. Security was too good at the first school, so she chose a softer target.
Now, we have another example, this time in Memphis, Tennessee.
Authorities shot a man after they say he fired shots at a Jewish school in Memphis, Tennessee, Monday afternoon.
Memphis police were called to the Margolin Hebrew Academy-Feinstone Yeshiva of the South around 12:20 p.m. ET after an armed man tried to enter the school, according to Memphis Police Assistant Chief Don Crowe.
Police say the suspect tried to enter the building but couldn’t get inside. “When he could not gain entry, he fired shots outside the school,” Crowe said. No one was injured at the school.
In a letter to families, obtained by CNN affiliate WHBQ on Monday, the Margolin Hebrew Academy said the suspect tried to enter their school, had a “brief confrontation” with a contract worker and fired two shots from the gun he was carrying, “while retreating from this worker.”
According to the letter, the suspect then returned to his vehicle and left the property “firing an additional two shots while leaving.”
A short time later, the individual was pulled over by police. He exited the vehicle with a gun in his hand and was killed by law enforcement.
Now, does anyone think someone with a gun trying to access a school–particularly a Jewish school–was there to pass out lollipops?
Of course not. He was there to hurt people and based on what we see, it’s unlikely this was an attempt to hurt a particular person for a particular reason. No, this was likely an attempt to commit a mass shooting.
The fact that the would-be killer didn’t hurt anyone had nothing to do with gun control laws and everything to do with the fact that the school had tight security. They kept the bad guy outside the building and that made all the difference in the world.
Look, it would be great if we could swoop in and just catch these guys at just the right moment when they’ve broken the law but haven’t hurt anyone, all so they can be safely locked away from the rest of society. That’s not feasible, though. We need something more.
And gun control isn’t it, either, because we’ve seen these incidents happen on nearly every continent, all in other nations with far more gun control than we have.
Mass shootings are a scourge, but we can mitigate the risk by taking security seriously in our schools.
Of course, I can’t help but think that part of the reason people get upset by even mentioning such a thing is that they figure if there aren’t mass shootings in our schools, they’ll never have enough upset people to push people far enough to essentially want a repeal of the Second Amendment.
But I’m sure I’m just being paranoid, right?
Right?
