School shootings are all the buzz these days. The shooting at Antioch High School in Tennessee is just the latest example, but Wisconsin saw its own shooting prior to that.
The shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison sort of primed all the talk of school shootings. The fact that these two shooters followed each other on social media is just a disturbing detail that doesn't make anyone feel warm and fuzzy.
Some Wisconsin Republicans, though, have a potential solution.
It's one that will work, but only if they can pass it, and since it's controversial, there's no guarantee of that.
See, they want to allow teachers to carry firearms.
Republican lawmakers in the last week have started circulating three proposals they say would be more effective in curbing gun violence.
One of the proposals, from Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) and Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), would allow teachers with a gun license to carry firearms on campus if school boards adopt a policy saying it’s allowed.
“School shootings are tragedies we hate to see… The knowledge that no one on the premises has the firepower to stop them emboldens bad actors,” the lawmakers stated in a co-sponsorship memo.
Asked at a Monday press conference why his proposal is preferable to Evers’, Allen noted that an armed guard is typically stationed outside his office in the state Capitol.
“Must be for a reason. If you travel with the governor, you’ll find that he has Wisconsin State Patrol armed with him wherever he goes… Why should he deserve that kind of protection and not our kids in schools?” Allen said. “The reality is that if somebody is intent on doing evil, and they have a weapon of any sort — whether it’s a firearm or a knife or anything — they’re dangerous, and we need to meet force with force, if we’re going to stop it.”
Allen also said that he thinks many actions could be taken to address school shootings including working to improve mental health.
“We’ve supported things in the past regarding that — supported the governor in increasing mental health aides and improving our schools’ ability to communicate with students and address mental health issues in schools,” Allen said. “We need to harden the targets. We need to make it impossible or practically impossible for any perpetrator to get in our schools to begin with.”
Of course, the media report goes on to quote pretty much every biased, anti-gun source it can find to suggest this is a terrible idea, probably because they know most people won't delve too deeply into the topic itself, but let's be real here. This is probably the only idea that will really help.
Hardening schools is absolutely essential, if for no other reason than there will always be people with nefarious intentions and access to weapons regardless of what laws you put on the books.
Islamic terrorists, for example, have ways of shipping arms all over the world, as well as shipping terrorists themselves. Do you think they wouldn't resort to a school shooting? In their minds, we're all infidels. That makes us less than human, thus our children are less than human in their eyes.
Then you have other forms of violent individuals who can and will still get firearms.
What people need to understand is that mass shootings will happen regardless of what guns are available to the general public. When people are disarmed, it doesn't really matter if their magazine only holds 10 rounds. It doesn't matter if they've only got a handgun or two. It doesn't matter if they had to undergo a background check or anything else you try to put in place to slow them down.
But when a teacher puts 124 grains of Don't Mess With My Students between the eyes, guess what? The shooting stops.
This needs to happen. Good luck to these lawmakers, though I doubt Evers will sign any such bill. Still, it would be nice to be wrong.
