SAF's Moros Offers Better Alternative to Gun Control Following Bend Shooting

Following the shooting in Erie just last week, I wrote that anti-gunners would politicize the hell out of this, then outraged a handful of people when I said that I'd called it. Well, Cam wrote about the shooting in Bend, but we all knew how it would play out. Anti-gunners capitalized on it immediately, making calls for a series of gun laws, all while framing it as "we have to do something!"

Well, Do Something™️shouldn't mean "do anything." Anything that is done should be something that will actually work, and considering how much gun control Oregon has passed in recent years, including overturning state preemption of gun bans in schools, it's clear that's not the answer.

The Second Amendment Foundation's Kostas Moros, in a post on X, outlined some legislative moves that would actually do the right something.

The following steps should be taken to further mitigate school shootings specifically:

1. Repeal restrictions prohibiting carry on school grounds, at least for those with carry permits. Such individuals have near-zero crime rates and are not a public safety threat. While I don't claim most shootings can be stopped as this one was (there won't always be an armed citizen nearby to save the day), the law should not be dissuading such individuals from carrying their firearms on school grounds. Besides, "gun-free zones," when not accompanied by metal detectors and similar screening, obviously do not deter killers. 
2. Similarly, if teachers or other employees of the school have a carry permit and want to carry at work, let them do so. The expectation is not that a teacher is going to play SWAT in the hallways and go hunt a killer, but they could be an appropriate last line of defense during a lockdown if a shooter breaks into their classroom. Note that this is not "arming teachers"; it is purely voluntary. If they want to carry their firearm, let them carry. 
3. The Silver Rail Elementary suspect appears to have been slowed down by needing to shoot through locked doors, and this may have also helped save some lives if it bought time for the armed bystander to catch up (admittedly, I am speculating on that one). While it sounds simple, this indicates the value of heavy locked doors, and perhaps ones more resistant to gunfire. 
4. Armed bystanders, voluntarily armed teachers, and locked doors are of course no substitute for proper security. We secure all sorts of other venues with armed guards including airports, banks, stadiums, and a variety of other places. Our children are worth some modicum of similar protection. My proposal would be that every school always have two armed resource officers on hand. 
5. New technologies may also assist in making schools more secure. For example, at least nine schools across the U.S. 

   are being equipped with drones designed to distract a school shooter until police arrive. "The aircraft is called Campus Guardian Angel, and it can ram into a threat at 50 miles per hour."
   
6. Finally, this shooter appears to have used his mother's firearm. If so, it may end up another cautionary tale of how parents need to secure their firearms and not allow minors to access them unsupervised. While perhaps displeasing to some of my otherwise likeminded friends in the gun rights sphere, I think civil and criminal liability should attach when parents fail to take reasonable efforts to secure their firearms, as it may encourage parents to take steps to better secure their guns. (NOTE: it's possible the mother of the shooter did make such reasonable efforts, and the suspect got the gun anyway, we'll have to wait for the investigation to play out.)

The one thing I can agree with the gun control groups on: no child should ever be killed at school, nor have to fear that happening to them. But their solutions have failed. It's time to try something different. We can absolutely have peace of mind for our children while respecting a strong Second Amendment as well. 

I'd probably add that Oregon has mandatory storage, which doesn't seem to have done all that much in this instance. His sixth point is the only one I have qualms about here, but not because I don't see his point. I'm just uncomfortable with where that particular bit might get taken, including support for those same mandatory storage laws.

But I do get where he's coming from on it. There needs to be something to...discourage irresponsible actions by parents, and while we don't know if that is the case this time around or not, as Moros notes himself, we have seen it in the past.

The rest, though, I have no issue with. In fact, I actually agree entirely.

At the heart of things, what we need are for our schools to become fortresses, but to not feel like prisons. There is a middle ground, and having tougher doors is just part of it. The same is true with technology, such as the system a couple of Seattle schools are testing. That would alert officials something is up before the bad guy ever gets to the door.

As Moros notes in his X post, the killer used a pump-action shotgun. That's a tool still used by military and police for breaching doors. Having those tougher doors would take a would-be killer even longer to gain entry, Preferably, he never makes it and the police pull up to stop him before he actually breaches anything.

Realistically, it buys time for armed teachers — and I'm with Moros on just letting teachers with carry permits carry their freaking guns if they want to, rather than creating some elaborate program — to prepare and potentially meet the threat.

Honestly, I agree we need to do something, but like I said on X:

We keep trying to do something about it, but y'all keep screaming about gun control. 🤷‍♂️

— Tom Knighton (@TheTomKnighton) October 15, 2026

We really need to do more than play defense at a time like this, because we can see the result of the anti-gun "solutions" manifest in what just happened in Oregon. We need to push solutions. Our solutions.

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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