"Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center (VPC) states, "America must face the fact that we have a love affair with guns that exacts a tremendous and unacceptable cost in human lives lost."
Unacceptable to her perhaps. The occasional sensational tragedy always overshadows the day-to-day losses we all accept. How many high school students were lost to traffic accidents over the last year, versus "high school shootings"? Life is simply not safe, end of story.
Guns, like it or not, have perfectly legitimate uses and restricting legitimate access to them (by adult citizens) isn't the answer.
"Mass shootings like that at Red Lake High School are the future for America's children until policymakers decide it's time to enact real gun control. Other countries have found the solution to mass shootings, and it consists of severe restrictions on the availability of specific classes of firearms, such as handguns and assault weapons."
These shootings are tragic, but they also affect an infestimal fraction of our schools and students. The cure would be worse than the disease.
'Rand adds, "There is simply no way the criminal justice system or a series of security measures—such as the guard and metal detectors present at Red Lake High School—can prevent a shooter determined to kill and willing to die."'
Um, wrong. The guard could have shot him and saved many or all of those victims. Too bad he didn't.
And for the brilliant statement of the day award:
"These shootings, like the vast majority of such incidents, were perpetrated with a gun."
Thank you for that scintillating insight. ;-)
On a more serious note, improvised explosives are fairly easy to concoct. If the maniac is willing to commit suicide, walking in with a backpack full of ANFO and broken glass isn't that hard to arrange.
A fact this opinion piece ignores is that this student was recognized as a problem long before this happened. If the right kind of intervention had taken place, this tragedy would have been averted.
Yes and usually the law makes it impossible for the school to move troublesome kids to someplace else. "they are yours until they are 18, so do something with him" is their mantra.
Actually with the fact that a terrorist could do this as well, if I were a school administrator I would quietly be arranging it so that a handfull of teachers in every school would have training in weapons use and have a firearm available at the school. This would be far more effective than to waste people's time trying to get guns off this planet. (Never work anyhow, but some armed teachers would.)