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Self-Defense, Implausible?

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Don’t take a GUN-FREE ZONE sign to a gun fight.

Whenever there’s a horrific incident of mass murder, advocates of citizen disarmament blame the right to protect oneself against armed attackers. The thinking seems to be that if we make it illegal for all civilians to have guns, bad guys willing to kill people will also refrain from using guns as they try to kill people.

This is implausible.

And if you do not see its implausibility immediately regarding firearms, consider drugs. Not taking them, but the war on same. Drugs didn’t vanish upon prohibition. Neither would guns if prohibited.

President Trump argues that students would be safer were schools a harder target. Why not arm well-trained teachers? “If you had a teacher who was adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly.” He’s right.

Not a new idea, of course. It’s been argued, for example, by the NRA, whose chairman says that the way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.

This idea is being practiced right now — in Israel.

As Tzvi Lev argues at the Arutz Sheva 7 site, Israel proves the NRA’s point.

Even Israel — where Arab communities are “rife with illegal weapons” despite their illegality — has not always been quick to recognize that it’s better to have lots of armed civilians when terrorists start shooting at civilians. But after terrorists attacked a school in 1974, the government began arming and training teachers — somehow failing to defer to the terrorists’ preference for gun-free zones.

In both of the only-two school shootings in Israel since then, teachers killed the attackers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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2 replies on “Self-Defense, Implausible?”

Common sense indeed, but that has never trumped ideology.  The goal is not to protect children, it is fun control as all of the “somethings” that have to be done do nothing to solve the problem.  That a hint, this is agenda, not solution. 

You never hear about the tens of thousands of times every year that people defend themselves with firearms. In most cases, the simple possession of the firearm deters the criminal without the necessity to exchange gunfire.
The same outcome would transpire if trained and qualified teachers were permitted to be armed. Mass shooters don’t want to go where there is any possibility of armed response.

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