Lesson To Be Learned
By Mitch Berg
Palestinian gunman kills eight Jewish seminary students:
Witnesses said the gunman went into the library at the Mercaz Harav seminary in the city’s Kiryat Moshe quarter and opened fire.
Here’s the interesting part: the shooting was stopped…wait for it…wait for it…
…by an armed student:
One of the students, Yitzhak Dadon, reportedly shot the gunman twice before he was finally killed by an off-duty Israeli army officer, who had gone to the school after hearing gunfire.
“I shot him twice in the head,” he told the Reuters news agency.
“He started to sway and then someone else with a rifle fired at him, and he died.”
I have a strong hunch he wasn’t going to be doing any more shooting after that.
Israel has had a policy of allowing lawful concealed carry in schools of all types since an earlier rash of terrorist school shootings. The rate of school shootings in Israel is vanishingly low.
Why does the American left hate students?
March 7th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Infantilizes, not hates, I think. And they pretty much infantilize everybody. (And, let me hasten to add, there are lefties who don’t — and righties [not present company] who think that eighteen-year-old are sufficiently mature to pick up a rifle and hunt for Al Qaeda up and down the hills of Afghanistan, but not put a revolver in a pocket and go to school.)
March 7th, 2008 at 8:48 am
“Israel has had a policy of allowing lawful concealed carry in schools of all types since an earlier rash of terrorist school shootings.”
Yes, but my guess is that there had been so few school shootings, in recent years, that a lot of people who legally could have been carrying had chosen not to. Hence the presence of only one armed civilian.
March 7th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Yup. Murdering students — generally, the younger the better — in school was quite the fad among the Pallies, some years ago, but after enough of the shithead terrorists got gunned down by parents, guards, and bystanders, the fad seemed to go away.
March 7th, 2008 at 10:05 am
No, I’d say the Left hates students. Haven’t you seen the state of education at the schools they run?
March 7th, 2008 at 10:14 am
Haha, yeah Nerd. Nothing better than the schools run by Republicans in places like Alabama and Mississippi. Kids at those lefty-controlled schools don’t even learn that Jesus had a pet dinosaur.
March 7th, 2008 at 11:21 am
I am surprised how easy it is to ignore angryclown’s “Jesus and the dinosaurs” comments. Maybe someday he will discover this kooky belief is not a widely held by Republicans. Maybe not. *shrug*
March 7th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
So tell me, Mitch, considering one of your meme’s is that shooters won’t start a fight in a gun club – why did this guy start shooting students in a place where, clearly, someone was likely to be armed?
Myth #1 = an armed citizenry deters crime
Then, please tell me, at what age do you think students should carry guns around? Do you think 12 year olds should? What test would you put on it – what’s more, what rationality factor do you think a 12 year old will get over when he/she is pissed at the bully or the girl who repeatedly criticizes her hair?
Myth #2 – that students are ready and able to make sound decisions with firearms.
Mitch – I have no issue with concealed weapons – frankly I think it’s prefectly fine for an adult. But the first time that some 14 year old kid shoots another in school, you lose the argument. Given that we know that 14 year old gang members take each others lives without thought and with routine, pretty clearly this scenario is likely.
The bottom line is, your solution isn’t a solution, and anecdote as proof, is stupid. You’d laugh it out of the room if used against you, and have done so, so why in the hell we not laugh you out of the room?
The final point to consider, Mitch, is that if some gunman figures out that he can’t just use a gun, he uses a bomb. Exactly what good do you suppose will come of this shooting?
March 7th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Myth #1: All folks are reasonable and intelligent.
Counterexamples: Suicide bombers, al Qaeda, angryclown, yourself.
Myth #2: Students are as dumb as lefties.
Counterexample: Nearly all students who know anything about guns know 14 year olds aren’t able to pass CCW classes, not to mention own guns.
The argument is not that idiots are carrying, they’ve been doing that since guns were invented. It’s that restricting the ability of those who are vetted to carry is a bad idea given the proof that evil folks do prefer gun-free zones and gun-free victims. You’re making the classic idealist’s leap of faith that incremental improvements that are shown to work are worse than absolutely perfect systems, despite years of evidence that idealized perfect systems don’t exist and often have unintended consequences. Just look at Britain’s experience.
Oh, and if the idiot in question could have used a bigger bomb, he probably would have. It says something that the Israelis have been able to shut down most of the bomb factories and drive most of the violence to isolated individuals.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
So tell me, Mitch, considering one of your meme’s is that shooters won’t start a fight in a gun club – why did this guy start shooting students in a place where, clearly, someone was likely to be armed?
You think someone is “clearly” going to be armed in a yeshiva? (Not just any yeshiva, mind you – Mercaz Harav is particularly significant, as it was founded by the father of religious Zionism, Rabbi Kook; attacking it is not especially dissimilar to attacking the Vatican or the Qaaba).
That’s just silly.
Myth #1 = an armed citizenry deters crime
Not a myth; statistically pretty well proven. See Lott. For that matters, see the record for the past 30-35 years in Israel; as Joel noted, terrorist school shootings in Israel dropped away from tragic commonplace to virtual nonexistence when Israel started allowing public school teachers to carry guns.
Then, please tell me, at what age do you think students should carry guns around? Do you think 12 year olds should? What test would you put on it – what’s more, what rationality factor do you think a 12 year old will get over when he/she is pissed at the bully or the girl who repeatedly criticizes her hair?
Strawman – and a really clumsy one to boot. I’ve never said that minors should be allowed to carry. Never.
Under Minnesota law, concealed carry permits are available to those over 21. In Israel, I believe the cutoff is 18. The right to carry is clearly an adult right. Why you would veer into the whole “kids with guns” thing is kinda inscrutable to me.
When talking about legal civilian gun carry in American primary/secondary schools, I’m pretty clearly talking about adults; teachers, administrators, parents. In college, adults should be able to carry subject to state laws (and we can debate the idiocy of allowing 18 year olds to drive tanks, submarines and machine guns, but not allow them to get a carry permit until they’re 21)
Myth #2 – that students are ready and able to make sound decisions with firearms.
The “students” in this incident are largely adults, some of them veterans of the Israeli military – which isn’t, of itself, important, since vastly less-trained shooters have a good record in such situations. Infantilizing them as you have is both silly and, sadly, a hallmark of dimestore leftist thought.
Mitch – I have no issue with concealed weapons – frankly I think it’s prefectly fine for an adult. But the first time that some 14 year old kid shoots another in school, you lose the argument.
An argument I’ve never, ever, not once, made.
I’m putting a gun to your strawman’s head, and pickling off a 230-grain hollowpoint.
There. It’s dead.
The final point to consider, Mitch, is that if some gunman figures out that he can’t just use a gun, he uses a bomb.
Bombs are much more complicated; they’re not for the casual terrorist (to say nothing of the typical American spree-killer – although, as I noted some time ago, the worst school killing in American history was carried out by a bomber, at a time when explosives were much more readily available to civilians). Finding explosives and building a bomb is a lot more complicated, more fraught with danger to the builder, has more deterrent steps (merely buying explosives, or precursor components, is both more complicated, regulated, and frequently prone to tipping off authorities). Anyone who would be “deterred” from shooting to bombing is serious enough about their terror that “deterrence” is less of an issue than “finding and killing or arresting”.
And for all of that – someone lugging a bomb toward a school is also vulnerable to being shot by…an armed teacher or other adult!
Exactly what good do you suppose will come of this shooting?
Huh?
Nothing “good” comes from a shooting.
If we’re lucky, the Israelis will get serious about the genocidalists in their midst, and the US will realize that allowing law-abiding teachers to carry firearms to deter spree-killers makes sense. That’s not “good”, that’s pragmatic.
March 7th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
AC: “Nothing better than the schools run by Republicans in places like Alabama and Mississippi.”
Sorry, you’re right! I’d much rather send them to places like any school in California where my 2nd grader would be encouraged in class to discuss his sexual fantasies. But I could do even better sending him to schools in LA, right? Lousisana, maybe? Or those schools in Harlem where he’d get such an awesome edjucashun! Or the absolutely terrific system they’ve got in DC. Of course, I could just send my kids to school in Mpls, too. That’d work out great, too!
Thanks, you’ve opened my eyes!
March 7th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
If we’re lucky, the Israelis will get serious about the genocidalists in their midst, and the US will realize that allowing law-abiding teachers to carry firearms to deter spree-killers makes sense. That’s not “good”, that’s pragmatic.
Yup, to both, although not just the ones in their midst; there’s something like a million and a half Arabs in Gaza, and while it would be unreasonable to claim that they’re all genocidalists, all but an insignificant fraction were raised in the perverted Pallie death cult, where a bloody-handed murderer like Mahmoud Abbas is denounced for being too “moderate.”
March 7th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Counterexample: Nearly all students who know anything about guns know 14 year olds aren’t able to pass CCW classes, not to mention own guns.
Permit me to make a mild quibble out of a father’s pride, nerbert — my seventeen-year-old could not only pass a carry class, she’d be able to teach a carry class better than the majority of instructors. (Granted, she won’t be able to get her Minnesota carry permit for some years, but she will probably get her first out-state permit this year.)
March 7th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
AssClown gets pissed when anyone disses publik edukayshun ’cause with out public edukayshun he woudn’t be able to read the kullers on his shoe polish cans, which would mean that he wouldn’t have had a job all these years, which would mean he wouldn’t have been able to put his clown kids through shoeshine kollege, which would mean that the AssClown family *still* wouldn’t have any “professionals” to brag about.
No, don’t dis publik edukayshun around ol’ AssClown.
March 8th, 2008 at 2:32 am
Mitch–
Thanks, as always, for your stellar clarity on the issue.
March 10th, 2008 at 10:32 am
If we wish to talk about 14 year olds shooting up their schools, there are plenty of examples where the teachers are not allowed to shoot back, sad to say.