School Shooting and Bad Solutions

Yes, we should have a safety plan in the event of an armed person entering school grounds. Sheltering in place and evacuation plans at every school are warranted. However, arming teachers and providing students with rocks to throw at an active shooter are ludicrous ideas.

We are scaring the children. The odds of an active shooter are minuscule, considering that there are over 95,000 public schools in the United States. The adults should not over-alarm the children.

In the confusion of an active shooter, armed teachers is a terrible idea. The noise of gunfire in an enclosed building, the smoke, the screaming, the people running make armed teachers a danger to the children. Police officers have no way to distinguish between an armed teacher and an active shooter. Lastly, trained law enforcement officers often do not hit the suspect under the stress of an active shooter: imagine how armed civilians will perform. Bullets flying everywhere is the last thing that is needed.

The idea of arming children with buckets of rocks to throw at a shooter is so ridiculous that it beggars the imagination. Someone recently watched the comedy, “Support Your Local Sheriff” where the hero threw rocks at an armed bad guy and ran him out of town. School shootings is not a western or a comedy. It involves the death of children and the idiot who suggested giving each classroom a bucket of rocks should be run out of town by rock-throwing citizens. Ask a parent of a 1^st grader if they want their children to confront an armed killer and throw rocks at him as the killer is blazing away with an AR-15.

I will give anyone a bucket of rocks and borrow an AR-15 so we can test the ‘bucket of rocks’ solution.

Like a fire drill, each school should be prepared for the remote possibility of an active shooter. Children should be assured that they are safe and it is very unlikely this will ever happen to them

The Next Step: Fake News

The polarization and extreme positions in our nation received a huge boost when President Donald Trump cried out “Fake News.” Millions of Americans now label any fact that they do not like as fake news, completely dismissing any actual thought or debate.

Certainly, throughout history news stories have been exaggerated or built upon lies. We’ve gone to war because of such stories. But labeling a story as ‘fake’ should at least require the reasons a person holds such a view. But, not in today’s world. It is simple, convenient, and is the ultimate answer for idiots. Somehow branding facts as ‘fake’ seem to satisfy millions of people that their views are still perfect.

While we worry about foreign nations that interfere in our elections, we ignore the fact that we are killing democracy and capitalism. Russia, China, North Korea and other nations need do nothing to harm America because we continue to do it to ourselves.

If decriers of fake news provided specific reasons that a story is false, they would do America a great service. Pointing out exaggerations, missing facts, incorrect facts, flaws in opinion polls, and childish mistakes in stories, without rancor or condescension, might compel news outlets to do a better job. For example, a recent story about the murder of a mother and father at a college stated that the college was in Michigan and also in Illinois. That degree of poor fact gathering and sober editing calls into question what other parts of the story are wrong. Simply shouting, “fake news” is not helpful.

We need to find common ground with fellow Americans. This does not mean that we surrender our core values, but we must consider alternative views and compromise extreme positions.