When I went on a tour of the historic monument Masada in Israel many years ago, I remember a teacher accompanying the trip with an Uzi over his shoulder. It was hot and he grew tired of following us kids up the long desert trail, so from time to time he would allow one of us carry his gun.
It seemed strange at the time, almost unbelievable, that a history teacher would take a job as an armed security guard and walk around with school children looking at monuments. On the other hand, we appreciated the fact that someone with professional training was handling the weapon and no one was under any illusions of being a hero with the Uzi. We just wanted to help him with the weight.
Yesterday I read about an elected official in Arizona, who apparently describes herself as a “right-wing wacko”, that has proposed legalizing concealed gun possession in schools. Azcentral has a useful list of gun bills that Arizona is considering:
…Senate Bill 1214, which would allow people with concealed-weapons permits to bring guns onto school campuses….
The measure is just one of several gun bills legislators are considering this session. Others include:
• Senate Bill 1132, which would allow people to carry firearms into restaurants that clearly post their permission for guns on the premises.
• House Bill 2486, which would bar illegal immigrants and other foreign visitors traveling in Arizona for business or pleasure from carrying a deadly weapon. It would apply to those who are studying in Arizona but maintain a foreign residence as well. But the bill would allow non-immigrant aliens with proper hunting permits, some foreign diplomats and law-enforcement officers of friendly foreign governments on official business to carry a gun.
• House Bill 2628, which would do much the same as HB 2486 but also would revoke laws prohibiting a person from knowingly carrying a deadly weapon on school grounds, in polling places and at public establishments or events.
• House Bill 2389, which would revoke a law barring a person from knowingly carrying a deadly concealed weapon near another person or in a vehicle without a permit.
Today I saw the news of gunmen killing seven Israeli children who were at a school in Jerusalem. Most notable to me in the story is that the gunmen were not described in any way while the people who killed the attackers were said to be special-forces policemen.
One would think that Israel would be the first place to go forward with public guns into schools if they thought it had any reasonable chance of success as a control measure. Instead, it would seem that they presently only arm trained professionals and have conspicuous carry habits.
Furthermore, when the sponsor of a gun bill thinks it funny or patriotic to call herself a wacko, there is a certain irony to her cause. Recent US school-shooting tragedies have been investigated within the context of whether people with a history or sign of mental-health issues should be enabled with deadly force options.
Consider for a moment the fear-mongering used to justify an Arizona bill:
Ms. Johnson, a Republican from Mesa, said she believed that the recent carnage at Northern Illinois University could have been prevented or limited if an armed student or professor had intercepted the gunman. The police, she said, respond too slowly to such incidents and, besides, who better than the people staring down the barrel to take action?
She initially wanted her bill to cover all public schools, kindergarten and up, but other lawmakers convinced her it stood a better chance of passing if it were limited to higher education.
“I feel like our kindergartners are sitting there like sitting ducks,” Ms. Johnson said last week when the bill passed the committee by a 4-to-3 vote.
She wants to protect kindergartners by giving students and teachers the right to carry concealed guns. That says it all, really, doesn’t it? As she slowly ran her fingers over the cold metal of the 22 pistol in her handbag, she probably could think of no other preventive or detective control that might reduce the risks, like mental health screening…