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Showing posts with the label school shootings

Mass Shootings: Root & Branch

Whenever a mass shooting occurs, especially at a school, two questions go through my head: 1) What kind of prescription medication was the shooter taking? 2) What kind of family life did the shooter have? It seems like the majority of time I can answer these questions without bothering to read the coverage. Firearms are, fundamentally speaking, tools.  Tools do their masters' bidding, enabling those who wield them effectively to accomplish their goals or ends more efficiently.  These goals can be productive (building houses, preparing food, etc.) or destructive (theft, murder, etc.).  Throughout history firearms have been used for many productive purposes, especially hunting and self-defense (individually and nationally). This concept is not difficult to understand.  We all recognize it in our daily lives.  Many medicines and supplements are poisons if taken in excessive dosages, many household products can be deadly if not used carefully, many machines in facto...

Should We Put Armed Guards in Every School?

A popular Christian blogger has responded to the most recent school shooting with a radical, yet simple and common-sensical, solution.  He insists that it is time to put armed guards in every public school in this country.  This idea, while viewed as radical by many, really shouldn't be novel or radical at all.  Walsh's logic is sound when he points out that most public buildings already have armed guards and that schools being the exception really doesn't make much sense; that this is an unpleasant reality of living in a fallen world and that bad things, which should never happen, do, in fact, happen; and when he says that the real issue is evil, not politics. As much as I agree with his logic, I still must ask the question, is the solution to our problem really putting armed guards in every school?  That might be too radical for some, but it's not radical enough for my blood.  I have a far more difficult pill to swallow.  How about we get rid of pu...