Funding Fantasy and Ignoring Evil as we Protect Our Students

Our schools are attacked by disgruntled students and former students. Our schools are also attacked by outsiders who select the school so they can murder innocent victims. We have had armed staff protecting our schools for years. We’ve learned from their vast experience so we know how to protect our children. The latest act from congress, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, doesn’t do that. In fact, it prohibits it, and that tells us everything.

We’d like it if every child developed a fully formed conscience. That isn’t the real world. I’ve met neglected children who were raised by parents who were physically or mentally ill. I’ve met children who were raised a neglectful addict. Some people who lack a conscience are made. That experience can turn healthy children into violent sociopaths. Mental health treatment will help some of them. The Safer Communities Act does a little to help them.

Some people who lack a conscience are born. About 3-in-a-hundred of us are psychopaths and lack empathy and sympathy with other people. Some of them are also narcissists who think the world owes them more attention. Mental health treatment doesn’t change their propensity towards violence.

The Safer Communities Act can’t change the human condition. We are broken, and some of us much more so than others.

The problem of evil has always been with us. Yes, we want to help children so they don’t want to murder their classmates. That does not solve the larger problem of protecting our schools. What should we do with the evil in the world that wants to kill our kids?

We have several-million-man-hours of experience with armed school staff who volunteered to be first responders. They trained to stop a violent threat and stop the bleeding until outside help arrives. We have never had a child killed in school by an outside attack when these defenders were there.

We have also seen what happens when the school is disarmed. We saw the police wait outside at the high school in Parkland, Florida. We again saw the police wait outside as children were being murdered in Uvalde, Texas. We’ve seen similar carnage in attacks on a gun-free zone away from school where the victims had to wait for the police to save them.

Thank god that we have dedicated police officers on campus protecting our children every day. These officers tell us that too many students will die if we wait for outside help to stop an attacker. The Safer Communities Act ignores their advice. The Safer Communities Act explicitly prohibits funding to arm or to train armed school staff. That tells us everything about the legislation and the politicians who proposed it.

These politicians need public violence so they can hold a press conference and appear concerned. Expressing that faux-concern is more important to the politicians than really protecting our kids.

One way to stop narcisists from attacking our schools is to stop electing them to public office. Until then, work with your local school board.