This was sent to me by a friend...
Hey my friend, all is well. My parents live about 5 blocks from the school,
but no harm done to them other than a little traffic inconvenience.
Thought I would send you an excerpt that was sent to me from the person
organizing that training class we spoke about. What was it you used to say?
"A well informed person is one that thinks like I do." Well, these people
seem well informed.
Independence Institute Syndicated Op-Ed
Golden, Colorado
April 23, 1999
Making Schools Safe for Criminals
Dr. Linda Gorman
Feelings can overwhelm people brutalized by tragedies like the Columbine
High School murders. Grief, hatred, fear and shock shake their foundations.
Reason is buried under an avalanche of strong emotion, and the ancient urge
to kill the bearer of bad news surfaces with a vengeance. In modern times
this takes the form of impassioned, emotional pleas for firearms
prohibitions. Even before the bodies were removed from the school, Denver
newspapers received articles using the massacre as a news hook to call for
gun prohibitions.
Emotion, not reason, prompts the calls for stricter gun control laws.
Britain has some of the most onerous gun control laws in the world. They did
not prevent the Dunblaine massacre. New York has some of the most anti-gun
regulations in the United States. They did not prevent the Long Island
Railroad massacre. Colorado has laws against murder, assault, exploding
bombs in public places and destroying school property. They did not prevent
these two young men from murdering, setting off over 30 bombs, or destroying
Columbine High School.
What Colorado's law did do was disarm law-abiding citizens and leave them at
the mercy of two gun-toting predators. By all accounts, the shooters knew
that they had superior force. They reveled in the power that it gave them.
For two hours, they roamed the school killing unarmed victims at will. No
one shot back. Compare this with the outcome when three terrorists attempted
to machine-gun a crowd in Jerusalem in 1984. Handgun-carrying Israelis
immediately downed the terrorists, and only one innocent person died. The
surviving terrorist said that his group had planned to make their escape
before police could respond. They had not realized that Israeli citizens
were armed.
In the United States, two students were murdered in an October 1997 shooting
spree at a high school in Pearl, Miss. Deaths were limited because an
assistant principal went to his car, got his gun and shot the shooter. In
Edinboro, Pa., a teacher was murdered. When the shooter stopped to reload, a
bystander pointed a shotgun at him, preventing additional deaths. John R.
Lott and William Landes examined these and other cases of mass public
shootings in the United States. They found that from 1977 to 1995, deaths
from mass public shootings declined by 90 percent, and injuries by 82
percent, in states that passed concealed handgun laws.
Does "easy access" to guns contribute to massacres like the one at
Columbine? Across countries, there is no predictable relationship between
gun ownership, or "access," and murder rates. The Swiss, New Zealanders and
Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans do. All three countries have
lower murder rates. Finland and Sweden have similar murder rates despite big
differences in gun ownership. If easy access truly does contribute to the
frequency of massacres, one would expect to have seen more mass murders in
the 1950s. At that time any Colorado 14-year-old could buy a gun with no
questions asked. Such "easy access" is now unthinkable. Massacres, like
those at Chuck E Cheese and Columbine, are not.
The best available data show that shall-issue concealed-carry laws reduce
the number of murders by giving law-abiding citizens the power to resist.
Absent an equally effective alternative, this means that people who support
gun control laws also support a public policy that we know increases deaths
and injuries. In Boulder, school officials have complained that they cannot
afford "airport-like" metal detectors. The Columbine gunmen started shooting
on their way into the school. How would a metal detector have made a
difference?
Gun-control supporters also parade a touching faith in the therapeutic
effect of counseling sessions, and classes on parenting techniques, anger
management, mutual respect and tolerance. The effectiveness of such
interventions is questionable. The murderers were apparently bright
teenagers who resisted authority, celebrated Adolph Hitler, and purposefully
set themselves apart by behaving unconventionally. People want to believe
that running these kinds of kids through a couple of canned touchy-feely
group sessions would have magically unkinked their twisted psyches. Such
beliefs may be emotionally satisfying. They are not reasonable.
For those whose emotional response to the Columbine High murders is "never
again," there is only one reasonable response. Laws that disarm adults in
schools make schools a safe zone for criminals. The data overwhelmingly show
that law-abiding citizens use guns responsibly. When law-abiding citizens
have guns, crime rates fall and mass murderers murder less. Shooting back,
or threatening to, saves lives. Thanks to gun-control advocates, none of the
victims had that choice at Columbine High.
Dr. Linda Gorman is a Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, a public
policy think tank located in Golden, Colorado.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you!!! Just been crazy lately.
Will talk to you again soon.
Hey my friend, all is well. My parents live about 5 blocks from the school,
but no harm done to them other than a little traffic inconvenience.
Thought I would send you an excerpt that was sent to me from the person
organizing that training class we spoke about. What was it you used to say?
"A well informed person is one that thinks like I do." Well, these people
seem well informed.
Independence Institute Syndicated Op-Ed
Golden, Colorado
April 23, 1999
Making Schools Safe for Criminals
Dr. Linda Gorman
Feelings can overwhelm people brutalized by tragedies like the Columbine
High School murders. Grief, hatred, fear and shock shake their foundations.
Reason is buried under an avalanche of strong emotion, and the ancient urge
to kill the bearer of bad news surfaces with a vengeance. In modern times
this takes the form of impassioned, emotional pleas for firearms
prohibitions. Even before the bodies were removed from the school, Denver
newspapers received articles using the massacre as a news hook to call for
gun prohibitions.
Emotion, not reason, prompts the calls for stricter gun control laws.
Britain has some of the most onerous gun control laws in the world. They did
not prevent the Dunblaine massacre. New York has some of the most anti-gun
regulations in the United States. They did not prevent the Long Island
Railroad massacre. Colorado has laws against murder, assault, exploding
bombs in public places and destroying school property. They did not prevent
these two young men from murdering, setting off over 30 bombs, or destroying
Columbine High School.
What Colorado's law did do was disarm law-abiding citizens and leave them at
the mercy of two gun-toting predators. By all accounts, the shooters knew
that they had superior force. They reveled in the power that it gave them.
For two hours, they roamed the school killing unarmed victims at will. No
one shot back. Compare this with the outcome when three terrorists attempted
to machine-gun a crowd in Jerusalem in 1984. Handgun-carrying Israelis
immediately downed the terrorists, and only one innocent person died. The
surviving terrorist said that his group had planned to make their escape
before police could respond. They had not realized that Israeli citizens
were armed.
In the United States, two students were murdered in an October 1997 shooting
spree at a high school in Pearl, Miss. Deaths were limited because an
assistant principal went to his car, got his gun and shot the shooter. In
Edinboro, Pa., a teacher was murdered. When the shooter stopped to reload, a
bystander pointed a shotgun at him, preventing additional deaths. John R.
Lott and William Landes examined these and other cases of mass public
shootings in the United States. They found that from 1977 to 1995, deaths
from mass public shootings declined by 90 percent, and injuries by 82
percent, in states that passed concealed handgun laws.
Does "easy access" to guns contribute to massacres like the one at
Columbine? Across countries, there is no predictable relationship between
gun ownership, or "access," and murder rates. The Swiss, New Zealanders and
Finns all own guns as frequently as Americans do. All three countries have
lower murder rates. Finland and Sweden have similar murder rates despite big
differences in gun ownership. If easy access truly does contribute to the
frequency of massacres, one would expect to have seen more mass murders in
the 1950s. At that time any Colorado 14-year-old could buy a gun with no
questions asked. Such "easy access" is now unthinkable. Massacres, like
those at Chuck E Cheese and Columbine, are not.
The best available data show that shall-issue concealed-carry laws reduce
the number of murders by giving law-abiding citizens the power to resist.
Absent an equally effective alternative, this means that people who support
gun control laws also support a public policy that we know increases deaths
and injuries. In Boulder, school officials have complained that they cannot
afford "airport-like" metal detectors. The Columbine gunmen started shooting
on their way into the school. How would a metal detector have made a
difference?
Gun-control supporters also parade a touching faith in the therapeutic
effect of counseling sessions, and classes on parenting techniques, anger
management, mutual respect and tolerance. The effectiveness of such
interventions is questionable. The murderers were apparently bright
teenagers who resisted authority, celebrated Adolph Hitler, and purposefully
set themselves apart by behaving unconventionally. People want to believe
that running these kinds of kids through a couple of canned touchy-feely
group sessions would have magically unkinked their twisted psyches. Such
beliefs may be emotionally satisfying. They are not reasonable.
For those whose emotional response to the Columbine High murders is "never
again," there is only one reasonable response. Laws that disarm adults in
schools make schools a safe zone for criminals. The data overwhelmingly show
that law-abiding citizens use guns responsibly. When law-abiding citizens
have guns, crime rates fall and mass murderers murder less. Shooting back,
or threatening to, saves lives. Thanks to gun-control advocates, none of the
victims had that choice at Columbine High.
Dr. Linda Gorman is a Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, a public
policy think tank located in Golden, Colorado.
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you!!! Just been crazy lately.
Will talk to you again soon.