Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Constitution sets an age limit for Congress – must be 25 years old – and for President – must be 35 years old. Why? Because we want national leaders to have acquired the wisdom which comes from maturity, so they make responsible decisions. It’s hard to test for wisdom so we use age as a proxy. We do it for lots of important activities – sex, voting, alcohol, enlistment, marriage, contract – restricting people from engaging in those activities until they are wise enough to do them responsibly.
Lots of angry tweets about the Texas school shooter being able to buy AR-15 rifles within days after his 18th birthday. Why? Do they think 18-year-olds lack the wisdom and maturity to use rifles responsibly? Millions of responsible hunters and military service members cast doubt on that conclusion. What additional life lessons would the Texas shooter have learned between 18 and 21 which would have taught him it was wrong to kill his grandmother and then shoot up the grade school?
It’s not an age issue. It’s not a wisdom or maturity issue. He knew damned well what he did was wrong. He even told people on social media that he was going to do it. He did it anyway. What law can we pass, what age can we set, which will stop wicked people from committing evil? None.
So what can we do?
First, stop making soft targets. Gun Free zones sound good but a sign at the door doesn’t keep criminals out, it simply notifies criminals where the soft targets are.
Second, harden soft targets. Liquor stores hire off-duty cops. Pawn shops use two-room man-traps at the front door (they operate like airlocks on a space ship – second door doesn’t open until the first one is closed and somebody inside confirms it’s safe to open the second door). Why don’t schools have better security? Is gin more valuable than Jimmy? Is jewelry more valuable than Julie? Fire a Diversity Counselor and use the savings for structural improvements.
Third, harden staff. The qualities which make a great teacher – compassionate, empathetic, caring – are not the qualities which make a great protector. The guy guarding the door must be armed, trained, and mentally capable of opening fire on an armed intruder. S\/He must instinctively run Toward the sound of trouble. There must be a few retired cops or Fallujah vets who could fill that role (or train others to do it).
Fourth, stop making soft-target-seekers by hardening police spokes-persons. After a mass shooting, the official response should be, “We have no comment because we won’t glorify the killer and inspire others to copycat. We implore the media not to do it, either.”
These are short-term responses. The long-term solution involves a change in societal attitudes. When I was a kid, every pickup in the school parking lot had a shotgun, for pheasant hunting before and after school. School was cancelled for Opening Deer Season because nobody would be there anyway, we were all out in the fields with guns. And there were never any school shootings, despite young people having guns, because we were raised differently, society was different then. I know what you’re thinking – okay, Boomer – but look at those tiny bodies in Texas and tell my why society today is so much better than in my day. I genuinely want to know.
Joe Doakes
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\nMuch more to come on this\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026but you knew this. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails: The Constitution sets an age limit for Congress – must be 25 years old – and for President – must be 35 years old. Why? Because we want national leaders to have acquired the wisdom which comes from maturity, so they make responsible decisions. It’s hard to test for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crime-and-punishment","category-victim-disarmament"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82276,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82275\/revisions\/82276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}