We are stupid. We throw money at all our problems instead of using common sense.

One of the things we Americans do is to throw money at things to fix them. A classic example of this is the fact that we're now broke because of the failed social programs of the Johnson administration. The Great society programs simply didn't work.

Things like that don't work and what generally happens is that when they don't work we try to force them to work by throwing more and more money at the problem when most of the time the thing to do is something a whole lot cheaper.

The other way we solve problems is to simply pass a feel-good law and walk away from the problem. It seldom if ever changes anything for the better, but it makes people feel good and gives our elected officials something to brag about.

Right now there is a problem over the recent school shooting. While the truth of the matter is that the schoolroom is still the safest place for a child. The most dangerous part of a child getting an education is still the ride to and from school and after school activities.

It's pretty likely that there will be some kind of a firearms ban coming out of this and it will in reality do nobody any good at all. It will make a lot of people feel good but in reality will not provide a whit of security for schoolchildren.

The next step will be to post an armed guard at every schoolhouse in the country, ranging is quality to well trained and competent to people that are more dangerous than no guard at all.

I suppose the schools are going to want to put up a bunch of signs, too, advertising proudly that they are gun free zones. We can already see how well that is working. It isn't so we'll throw more money at it, perhaps by making bigger, more brightly colored signs to adertise that not only have we not learned but we are going to throw even more money at yet another failed program.

The gun free zone doesn't work. It never did and there have been enough murders in gun free zones that clearly show that. Gun free zones are clearly adertising that the victims within are not too likely to be able to defend themselves. Signs declaring a place to be gun free might just as well be neon to make it 100% clear to any sicko that they can ply their murderous plots there with impunity.

I have posted this before and I will post it again. A few years back a neighbor proudly posted "Gun free home" on his front door and was burglarized.

The truth of the matter is that concealed carry has been on the upswing for the past several years. Quite a few states have loosened restrictions on concealed carry permits and there have not been the shootouts on the streets that the antis have predicted.

Like it or not, personal protection is a personal responsibility. The police are never going to be where you need them and the old saw, "When seconds count the police are only minutes away," is indisputable. Most policemen won't deny it, although a small few will try and skirt the issue by mumbling something about their response time.

The NRA is advocating armed guards in all schools, and while that may or may not sound like a good idea one has to remember that as a country we are simply to the point where we can't afford yet another program costing us money for dubious results.

Armed guards as a concept sounds pretty good but only if they are trained and fit. While some places might pass the duty of supplying these guards off to the police departments of their municipality, others may not or not be able to.

Security companies that supply various guards range from excellent to dismal. Anyone that has ever seen a 75 year old retiree suplementing Social Security as a bank guard can see this. Would you want someone like that as a guard for your kids?

The truth is sometimes hard to handle and nobody really wants to admit the truth. We're willing to go into denial and shuffle things around and try try anything but what common sense says will work.

There are an awful lot of cops out there with pretty good street sense and they are pretty good at getting straight down to the root of the problem. Most of them agree that gun bans will not work. Confiscation will not work. We're back on this to square one because criminals are by definition people that do not obey the law.

The answer that keeps coming back seems to be that it's time to face up to the problem and decide how to deal with this and get it done.

One solution is to look at the statistics and realize that the biggest danger to schoolkids is still getting to and from school and swimming pools.

(When I pointed out that swimming pools were a greater danger to kids, it was scoffed at but the truth is that there are likely one hell of a lot more so-called assault rifles out there than swimming pools. The estimate is well over 2.5 million. Still, pools claim more lives than firearms do so I suppose the argument I put up holds water.)

One solution is to simply do nothing. We simply take comfort in the fact that the schools are safer than the highways and byways that we use to take the kids back and forth. We look at the statistics and realize that schools are safe places after all.

It's one solution except for one thing. It does not do anything to comfort our emotions. Most of the people running around now are simply doing so to feel that they are going to accomplish something that will make things safer.

Of course, it won't because it no matter what they do they are not going to stop a single criminal from committing a single criminal act of any sort. They are simply asking law to change things when it changes nothing but costing us money and freedoms.

We have been on a war on drugs for decades. Thousands of laws have been passed and yet we still have meth labs, smugglers, dealers and users. All of these people are criminals. The laws sure have done nothing but keep a lot of law enforcement in overtime with no end in sight.

Anyone that thinks that gun control in any form is going to make any of these thigs go away simply is living in another world and has no sense of logic.

This holds especially true when you look and see that the places like Vermont and Montana that have the least amount of gun control also enjoy the lowest crime rates.

Part of this is the attitude people in rural areas have toward problems. They generally at least attempt to solve them themselves. When a Vermont farmer finds his sink stopped up he generally heads to his toolbox and grabs a wrench. His big city counterpart calls a plumber.

Generally his big city counterpart doesn't have a clue as to where to start because he is used to having everything handed to him. Likely a lot of city boys doesn't even know how to use a wrench much less have one in their abodes.

Same holds true for farm security. Most farmers generally own something that shoots, AR 15s are fairly common for coyotes and other varmints. Breaking into a farmhouse is a pretty risky endeavor and as a result not too many people try it.

The truth of the matter is that most urban people have grown softer and are less likely to look after themselves. They call AAA for flat tires. Rural folks simply change them and get back on the road. It's simply a part of life.

One time out in a rural road I stopped to help an older woman with a flat tire and she said to me that she had it under control, but asked me if I would crack the lug nuts which I did. Then she sent me on my way. I pulled over a couple of miles ahead to get gas and about the time I was halfway full I saw her pull up to the pump behind me.

It's too bad I didn't ask her what they did to mad dogs in her neck of the woods. Likely she would have looked at me like I was nuts and replied, "We shoot them."

A couple of years later I ran into a similar situation of a much younger woman obviously a city girl on the side of the road with a flat. Thinking back of the older woman I had met a couple years earlier, I stopped and took her lug wrench and cracked her lug nuts, handed it back to her and told her she was on her own. She went straight into shock as I drove off.

It shows how a lot of people outside of rural America are not used to either taking care of themselves or getting their hands dirty. Incidentally, my old woman can change a tire in less than 10 minutes flat.

Our highways and byways have speed limit signs prominently posted at intervals yet there isn't a single person that has driven on a highway for more than a couple of hours that hasn't had someone roar past them well over the speed limit.

What makes anyone think that passing another law is going to make criminal not go out and commit a crime? Why are people so stupid as not to believe what is in front of them?

The truth is that we ought to take those stupid gun free zone signs off of places and simply allow licensed people to carry, including teachers. We'd actually all be a whole lot safer.

All the signs do in reality is say, "These premises protected by this sign", which of course, means an open invite to the forces of evil.

Of course, there are going to be a lot of emotional based arguments out there when a handful of people finally see the obvious. There will be a lot of bellyaching by those that continue to live in denial.

Actually it would be interesting to require all teachers to be licensed to carry firearms and then let them as they deem necessary or as their conscience permits. While it's likely that the majority wouldn't even own a firearm, the fact that all teachers in a school are licensed to do so would send out a powerful message to anyone with ideas of harming our children.

Incidentally, the teachers should be instructed not to permit anyone to know if they actually carry or not. It's best to keep people wondering and parents do gossip. Better to let everyone think that Miss Hathaway is packing a .357 in her bag. Even if she isn't.

Concealed means concealed and the psychological impact that teachers are simply licensed to carry would go quite a way in discouraging anyone with evil intentions.

It would also not likely upset the kids, either as concealed means concealed and the kids would not see anything. Incidentally even if their teacher packed a pistol on her hip out in the open it's likely that after the novelty wore off in a few days it would just become part of the woodwork. Kids are pretty flexible to new things and take more in stride than a lot of their parents do.

As far as licensing goes, if someone can't pass the background check most states require to get a concealed carry permit, then they have something wrong with them in their criminal history and they shouldn't be teaching children in the first place.

As far as training goes, it is fairly inexpensive and it is easily within the budget of just about any school to have a few interested teachers trained to use a handgun. It doesn't take much training to use a revolver at close range.

Concealed carry works. Over the past fifteen or so years a lot of states have loosened the requirements for concealed carry and the results have not been anywhere near the predicted bloodbath the naysayers had predicted. In most areas there have been measurable drops in crime. There have also been an incalculable number of crimes that have been prevented.

It is also interesting to note that the number of deaths in mass shootings that are stopped by the police average about 14.3 while the number of deaths in a spree where a private citizen steps in average about 2.3 deaths. This was figured out by a math enthusiast that doesn't even own a gun. More evidence that when seconds count the police are only minutes away.

What would be interesting to note is how many of the shootings that the police stopped were in gun free zones which meant the concealed carrier couldn't carry there.

Incidentally, nobody has ever seemed to point out that a couple of citizens legally carrying concealed could have either prevented or at least mitigated the events that took place on 9-11, but let's not go there today.

Frankly, this is about the cheapest and most effective cost effective way of making our schools safer. In fact, given my druthers I would chose having my kid protected by a young, angry, scared, resolute 24 year old armed dedicated schoolmarm than a retired old rent-a-cop with no interest in the game save to supplement his Social Security.

A grass roots effort like this is generally more likely to succeed than a govermnent program, anyway because all of the people involved have a genuine interest in the game.

Of course, those that go aghast at this proposal and declare it preposterous are probably a big part of the problem in the first place because they are thinking with their emotions instead of using logic. Most likely they want to put up more gun free zone signs which would only make things worse.

The teacher's union can argue all they want but the truth is that gun free zones do not work at all and that concealed carry does.



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