You're still wrong, Wayne LaPierre...and here's more proof

First, a little review:

Shortly after the shootings last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where 20 young students and 6 others were killed by a young man with weapons and a lot of ammunition, National Rifle Association Wayne LaPierre famously said while proposing that all US schools be protected by armed officers that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." He said that on December 21, 2012.

On January 10, 2013, Wayne LaPierre was proved wrong.

On that day, less than a month after his pronouncement, a student had entered Taft Union High School in Taft, California, with a weapon and shot and wounded another student who he said had been bullying him. The armed guard who was customarily on campus was absent that day because he was snowed in and couldn't make it to work. In his absence, an unarmed science teacher, Ryan Heber, talked the student into putting down his weapon and surrendering after distracting the shooter long enough for the rest of the students in class to escape. Yes, the one student was injured, but nobody died.

I wrote about this here shortly after the events in Taft.

Now, fast forward to yesterday, Tuesday, August 20, 2013, to Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in Decatur, Georgia. A 20-year-old young man entered the school with an AK-47-style weapon and close to 500 rounds of ammunition, took a couple of school employees hostage, shot a hole in the floor of the school's office, and exchanged gunfire with police. But there were no injuries as the 870 students at the school, pre-kindergarteners through fifth graders, escaped.

They were able to escape not because the police shot at him, but largely because one of his hostages, the school's bookkeeper, an unarmed woman named Antoinette Tuff, engaged the young man in conversation, then talked him into putting down his weapon and ammunition and surrendering.

Again, an unarmed school employee managed to do what armed officers could not do - end a dangerous incident with as little violence as possible.

So, you know, Wayne. Once again we see that you were wrong in December and you're still wrong now.

And, once again, everybody lived. That can't be a bad thing.

Wayne? Meet Ryan...

Sometimes, in this world of YouTube and Twitter and Facebook, of 24-hour news cycles and the ten-second sound bite, we occasionally decry the fact that anything and everything can be out there for the world to see and hear nearly instantaneously, and that once it is out there, it's out there forever.

However, there are times when this state of affairs does a service to society, because anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can go back and confirm exactly what was said, and when, and why.

This is one of those time.

As you probably remember, back on December 21, Wayne LaPierre, the executive director of the National Rifle Association, stood up at a news conference and said, "The only thing that stops a bad buy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Here is the quote, at the 1:11 point in this clip:



Notice the emphasis on the word "only", and the number of times he uses it during this part of his message. La Pierre clearly wants us to believe that more guns are the only answer to things like school shootings.

Now, here is another clip, with two California law enforcement officers speaking in the aftermath of yet another school shooting, just last Thursday, at Taft Union High School, in Taft, California:



In case you didn't hear this story, a student showed up on campus at Taft High oon Thursday morning with a shotgun and a grudge, looking for two other students who he claimed had bullied him. He shot one student, but quick-thinking science teacher Ryan Heber, with the help of another school employee, managed to distract the student with the firearm long enough to let the other students flee the room and then talked the student into putting down his shotgun.

Now, there is another aspect to the story. According to local news reports, there is ordinarily an armed officer on campus at Taft High. Ordinarily. However, that officer was not at the school...some stories have said that he was not able to get to work because he was snowed in. Whatever the reason, he was not there. The teacher was there. The teacher was not armed, and yet he managed to keep that student from using all of the at least 20, according to reports, shotgun shells he had in his pockets.

So, there were injuries. That is indisputable. But, it is also indisputable that Wayne La Pierre's statement, that the only thing that can stop a gunman is a gunman, is inaccurate. One would hope that La Pierre would learn from this that very few things are as absolute as he would have us beleive.

Honestly, I don't hold out too much hope for La Pierre. He is, after all, a shill for US firearms manufacturers, and his plan is clearly a ploy not to protect school children so much as to generate sales for his masters. The take-away for the rest of us, however, should be that the solution to violence is not more violence, and that the solution to guns is schools is not more guns in schools.

I'm not sure why this is such a difficult concept for some people to grasp.

Friday Extra: Armed guards are not the answer...

First of all, I would like to congratulate Wayne LaPierre, CEO and Executive Vice-President of the National Rifle Association, for proving today that he is even more tone-deaf, both politically and socially speaking, than former Republican presidential candadite Mitt Romney, who I thought was the most tone-deaf individual in the world. I'm not sure what century Mr. LaPierre is living in, but it isn't the 21st century.

I'm not going to address everything in his speech today. That would take more space than I have here and more time than I'm willing to give him. However, I have a couple of things to say about his proposal that every school in the US be staffed with armed guards in the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School a week ago today.

First of all, I cannot believe that he managed to take a horrible event like the Sandy Hook shootings and turn them into an opportunity to lobby for US firearms manufacturers. That is, effectively, what he did in his speech, since I'm fairly sure he did not intend that his organization donate all the firearms that would be necessary to carry out his plan, nor that the manufacturers donate them. More armed guards would mean more firearms purchases.

I'm not sure what Mr. LaPierre thinks having an armed officer on premises on all campuses would do to prevent gun violence. I say this having had some experience regarding the issue.

In my senior year of high school, the school I attended had an armed officer on campus at all times. He was mainly a drug officer (who was not-so-affectionately known as "The Narc" on campus), but he did carry every day. Wore his gun on his belt, so everyone knew he was armed.

Did this prevent bad things from happening on campus? Absolutely not.

It did not prevent an individual running from being caught after commiting a robbery from coming onto the school grounds one morning while my gym class was out on the field where he entered the premises. Fortunately, he was not armed, and just as fortunately, the police who were following him did not feel the need to pull out their weapons and shoot at him. Fortunate, because my class would have been right in the line of fire.

Among other events, having an armed officer on campus also did not prevent a full-scale riot one afternoon, complete with Sheriff's deputies swarming the campus and the Sherrif's Department helicopter circling overhead. It also didn't stop a deputy from getting shot in the knee by an armed student. It was pure luck that there were no other serious injuries.

So, don't tell me that armed guards on campuses are the answer to school shootings. Not unless they plan to ring every school with them.

But I shouldn't say that, I guess. It'll just give the NRA...and Mr. LaPierre...ideas.

Honestly, turning school campuses into armed camps would only mean that the bad guys have won.