Oregon Senator Ron Wyden is one of the first politicians to use the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary to demand new gun control laws, though the Democrat was awfully vague about what he wants to see.
Speaking shortly after the shooting on Thursday, Wyden said his heart "goes out to the innocent victims of today’s horrific shooting at Silver Rail Elementary School and their loved ones now facing the awful consequences of yet another school shooting in America.”
If he'd stopped there, I wouldn't be writing this post. Instead, Wyden went on to proclaim that the "best way to honor these victims is to at long last pass common-sense gun laws that reduce the risks of more children, parents, teachers and staff forced to live in fear of similar nightmares for their schools."
And what would those "common-sense gun laws" be, exactly? The perpetrator of the attack was 16-year-old; too young to legally purchase a firearm. He used a pump-action shotgun purchased by his mother. Does Wyden believe that these commonly-owned firearms that have been popular with sportsmen and hunters for well over a century should be banned?
Silver Rail Elementary School is a "gun-free zone," off-limits even those with a concealed carry license. The heroic armed citizen who confronted and stopped the attacker had to violate state law in order to do so.
What about gun storage? Oregon already has a very strict law in place requiring gun owners to keep their firearms secured when they're not being carried by or under the "immediate control of the owner or an authorized person."
If Wyden believes that Thursday's shooting could have been prevented if additional gun control laws were in place, he should tell us what laws he's talking about.
If, on the other hand, Wyden decided that a vague demand for gun control was an appropriate response to a school shooting that was stopped by an armed citizen, he really should have just kept his mouth shut.
Oregon's other senator, Democrat Jeff Merkley, said on social media that "no one should have to fear violence at school," and several other politicians from the state shared similar thoughts.
I agree with that sentiment, but we know that gun control doesn't solve the problem. Oregon has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, but they can't stop someone who's committed to carrying out an attack on vulnerable and innocent children.
How about this for a common sense proposal: armed resource officers on every school campus. What about trained and vetted staff members allowed to carry firearms so they can respond immediately to an attack, or improving access controls and other physical security measures that can buy precious seconds or minutes for students and teachers.
None of those ideas offers a guarantee against another school shooting. Neither does another gun control law, for that matter. But unlike Wyden's fuzzy call to action, those measures are directly relevant to what happened at Silver Rail Elementary.
I understand why politicians want to offer solutions after a tragedy like this, and honestly, if they're willing to have a conversation about specific policies I'm okay with that, even if I disagree with the specifics of what they're advocating. But when those solutions amount to "we need to do something," then those politicians are better off just shutting up.
If Wyden wants to have a serious discussion about protecting schoolchildren, I'm all for it. Let's start by examining how an armed citizen was able to stop a killer before police arrived, and what it would take to give other schools that same ability to respond so quickly. That seems like a common sense place to start the conversation to me, anyway.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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