December 14, 2012, - 4:17 pm
On the CT School Shooting: Just Remember, Israeli Schools Are Protected With GUNS
Many readers and friends have asked my reaction to today’s shooting and murder of 26 people (including 20 children who were students) at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. My first response is sorrow and condolences for the families of the victims. My second response is: how long will it take for gun-grabbing opportunists to predictably step on these shattered lives and call for more gun control? And the answer to that is the usual–not long at all.
How Many Sandy Hook Elementary School Kids Might Have Been Saved If A Teacher Had a Gun?
A Michigan law that is working its way through the legislature to allow Concealed Pistol License (CPL) holders to bring guns into schools (with a few hours of additional training by the CPL holder) may now be held up because gun-grabbers will use this tragic incident as an argument against it. And, essentially, they will compare innocent, law-abiding, trained gun owners to this crazy person who shot up the kids today.
But schools need more guns in the hands of law-abiding adults, not less. In Israel, there are armed security guards at schools. And despite the fact that Israel is surrounded by those who would destroy it, despite the fact that there are rocket and other terrorist attacks against Israelis every single day, the kids at Israeli schools are very safe. The only times when they’ve been killed is when there were no guns around, as with the Merkaz HaRav Yeshivah, where students were shot up and murdered by two Islamic terrorists in 2008. (They were finally stopped by guns.)
In fact, because schools are guarded by armed guards in Israel, students at schools there have a much greater chance of being attacked and/or killed in a bus bomb on the way to or from school than when they are in their classrooms. And while in their classrooms, the greatest threat is a HAMAS rocket, not a crazy armed gunman like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary today.
Despite that, those of us who support a strong Second Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms are constantly mocked by the left, especially those on the left who live in gated communities and have fancy alarm systems, armed bodyguards, and other security. They mock people like Rep. Frank Lasee of Wisconsin who, in 2006, introduced legislation in Wisconsin to arm teachers.
“To make our schools safe for our students to learn, all options should be on the table,” he said. “Israel and Thailand have well-trained teachers carrying weapons and keeping their children safe from harm. It can work in Wisconsin.”
In Thailand, where officials have been waging a bloody fight with Muslim separatists for the last two years, some teachers carry weapons for self defense as they are viewed as part of the government. In Israel, teachers are not allowed to carry weapons in the school, but security guards at the entrances are armed.
The fact remains that law abiding citizens with guns stop malefactors with guns, unless, as with today’s shooter, the gunman commits suicide. Remember how Islamic terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan was stopped from taking more than 13 lives at Fort Hood? Others with guns on the base shot him. How many lives might have been saved today if a teacher had a gun? How many lives might have been saved at Virginia Tech because a student had a gun?
As I’ve noted before on this site, my late grandfather, Isaac Engel, a Holocaust survivor, owned a gun and concealed and carried it illegally to work to protect himself, because–in those days–only powerful and connected people were legally granted conceal and carry permits. But he needed a gun to survive at his business, which was located in a bad neighborhood near Detroit. Pulling out his gun when he was confronted by criminals saved his life several times, and he recounted to me how Jews were not allowed to own guns in Nazi Europe (and in many other places). Both he and my father told me about the many Jewish partisans who killed Nazis and saved Jewish lives because they stole guns and used them (just as in the movie, “Defiance” (read my review)). He felt that owning and carrying around a gun was not only a way to protect himself and provide for his family, but also a giant “F- You” to the Nazis and others who kept him from doing so and had wiped out most of his family (and tried but failed to wipe him out).
The best gun control is to have a gun. It’s the only thing that will stop someone else from killing you.
If you want to infringe upon my Second Amendment rights, it means you want to take my First and latter Amendment rights, too.
Tags: Connecticut, gun control, gun grabbers, guns in the schools, Holocaust, Holocaust survivors, Isaac Engel, Israel, Newtown, Rep. Frank Lasee, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, sandy hook elementary school shooting, Second Amendment, teachers with guns, Thailand, Wisconsin
I agree with you. It would also be good to requite gun owners to periodically certify their ability to use their fire arm. Some people still think that practicing and weapon cleaning are optional aspects of gun ownership.
I am certain that many of these monsters depend upon their victims being unarmed or otherwise helpless. The mall and school shooters might not have been as excited about appoaching such targets if there were some actual deterrent. I doubt that their fantasies included being dropped by a vigilant mall guard or taacher before they could do too much harm. These shooters are uliimately cowards. Their choice of victims demonstrates that.
Worry01 on December 14, 2012 at 5:39 pm