commentaries

Wow, outstanding. Really, only someone who refuses to open their eyes and mind would bash this. Everything he said is true. Im speechless as to how right on this is. Thank you for the time it took to write. I can only hope the nation picks this up and prints it in every paper.

I commend the author for articulately pointing out that the 2nd Amendment is decidedly not, and should be not, the province of 'rural white rednecks' and suchlike. And that it is unique in human history in that it provide for an armed citizenry. Yet, he then becomes admittedly, very conflicted. I readily agree that the penchant for high-capacity magazines is overboard for most folk's needs. Yet, the express intent of the 2nd Amendment is not to merely enable citizen self-defense, but to give the citizenry at least some rough parity with the enemy infantrymen, foreign and domestic. What is over-gunned for dealing with a burglar, many not be in other circumstances. That said, profiling potential school shooters smacks of a very slippery slope, ripe for abuses. Bonafide terrorists, at least have some authenticity that can be data-mined and profiled. Deciding between a potential shooter, and a disaffected teen who's only shooting will be done with his mouth, is a much taller order. You think guards will cost money? Wait until the tax bill comes for that level of scrying and screening! And that said, from what I can see, most of the opposition to armed guards in the schools comes from parents who are totally desperate to hold on to cherished Beaver Cleaver notions of idyllic school years. Oh, they may slyly couch their opposition in terms of program cost or other factors. But at base, they very simply don't want to acknowledge that, like it or not, schools have become the soft-targets of-choice for wackos and terrorists. If it can happen at Red Lake, it can happen in our precious Lake Woebegons. We have a simple choice, really. Do we want to protect our idealized yesteryear's? Or do we want to protect our children?

Agent Egelhof, thanks for a well thought out and written article. You are right, this matter needs to be put on the table right now and kept there until some reasonable solutions are found. I am not a gun owner and doubt that I ever will be. I'm not a hunter and I have just never really had any interest in them, but I don't begrudge others the right to have guns within reason. Somewhere between an individuals right to have guns and my right to be safe lies a solution. Your own article mentions several possibilities. The hard part however will be in having an honest discussion about this without the theatrics from either side. And frankly, in a country as divided as this one is, it will be a tall order. But it must be done. Can it happen? In addition, I found your observation about the 2nd amendment interesting; "The Second Amendment is not about hunting. It is about the history-changing idea that common people should be able to possess arms to preserve their safety and freedom. Prior to that idea's establishment, on the penalty of death, only the king's soldiers could possess arms. The poor were at the mercy of tyrants who could take their sons for war, their daughters for pleasure, and their land and lives with impunity." I found the last sentence especially succinct in it's timelessness. Not much has changed eh?

He was doing fine up to the part about "assault weapons" and hi capacity gun magazines. There is no such thing as an 'assault weapon'. To the gun haters, there are only 'scary-looking guns'. As the writer knows, the issue of hi-capacity magazines is a red herring. Evil murderers bent on destruction will simply bring as many magazines as possible and change them. It would not help at all. And as to him not understanding how anyone could need such magazines, many law enforcement and civilians carry hi-cap magazines right now. He is correct that schools should have armed security. He is also correct that only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun, as the NRA says to much derision. I totally agree that something needs to be done to identify and proactively stop such incidents from happening. Therein lies the difficult task.

Put armed guards in kindergartens and next it will be nursery schools. Put guards there and next it will be maternity wards. As long as there are masses of people, our gun culture will result in mass killings.

It's time that we as a Country look at who we are and figure out why we have failed on so many fronts. The US has the most guns per capita of any industrialized nation. The rate of gun-related deaths per 100,000 individuals in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom is 0.1, 0.5, and 0.03, respectively. In the U.S., the overall rate is 2.98. 15 of the 25 worst mass shootings in the last 50 years took place in the United States. We have the most expensive health care system, with the lowest outcomes of any industrialized nation. More people leave the US every year for medical care than come here, and the trend is growing. The US will be the world's largest economy until about 2020, when China will overtake it, as well as overtake the US' lead in manufacturing. It has amongst the lowest education rankings amongst industrialized nations. It spends as much on the Military as the rest of the world combined. It ranks 43rd in income inequality. It will soon likely be overtaken by China, India and Brazil in medical device innovation. It uses an economic system that was an experiment when the Country was formed, and found to be highly unstable with cyclical and increasingly frequent economic collapses. It's in the middle of the pack in the OECD "Life Satisfaction" ranking.

Ask yourself and answer honestly. If you were to design a new Country today, would you design it exactly the same way as we have designed the United States?

Of course limiting the magazine size won't solve the entire problem, but it's worth examining, rather than calling "red herring". For example, in the Giffords shooting, the record reflects that a conceal and carry permit holder appeared on the scene just shortly after the shooting stopped. But do you realize why the shooting stopped?? Because he had to change clips, allowing a few seconds of opportunity for bystanders to subdue the shooter. So talk all you want about magazine size not mattering... but it did in the case of the Giffords shooting. And had the shooter not fumbled his fresh magazine, perhaps the conceal and carry holder would have stopped the shooter shortly afterward. But it was the need to reload that stopped the killing. Sure, someone could still build his own larger clip. Fine, make them go through the extra effort.

"Ask yourself and answer honestly. If you were to design a new Country today, would you design it exactly the same way as we have designed the United States?" I would do the same with minor changes. Outlaw slavery and liberalism from the very beginning.

This is an excellent article. With much to recommend it. While I don't like the idea of guns even for guards in schools I think guards with police training and experience while distasteful might not be such a bad idea. I very much like classifying guns as Class III fire arms with annual checks. I think there are different reasons for people owning guns. Hunting or sport are one reason, and fear (real or imagined) or desire for power is another. It is the later reasons that glorified in "gun culture". I think the public can distinguish between the two but I think that many of the gun advocates don't. My gut reaction is own a gun but shut up about it. Dial down the "power rhetoric" that goes with gun ownership and that would be a good first step.

There is really a lot that I agree with in this article. I still cannot get behind the idea that schools should have armed guards. When the author suggests that a solution is to pre-emptively hunt down these "monsters", I am wondering if means underserved children with mental health issues? Also, Columbine had armed security, and Nancy Lanza was also armed to the teeth wasn't she? When a shooter has planned to shoot, there may not be much we can do. Experiments where individuals were trained for conceal and carry showed that , even though they were trained, and were told there would be a shooting incident, they still failed. Ask President Ronald Reagan how he fared. He was protected by the most vigilant, well-trained, armed security in the world. He was still shot. Reagan suffered a punctured lung and heavy internal bleeding. And to the poster MInn12, your logic is silly Minn12. Yes, true, a shooter can bring as many magazines as they need. They could also bring a howizter mounted on a lawn tractor. This is an issue of availability. We do not need to make mass murder it easy for people. Murder guns need to be treated as murder guns. Weapons that are not bolt or pump action should require intense scrutiny, psychological examinations for aggression, and we should assign law officers to make random visits to see that these licensed owners are meeting mandated storage standards. Weapons are very sophisticated devices, however, most gun owners are not required to be. Guns that can shoot a large quantity of bullets rapidly should be judiciously regulated. The guns necessary for hobbyists who enjoy sport can be simplified. My family has had bolt and pump action for generations. There is no need for anyone other than a peace officer or member of the military to carry a murder gun.

ps. the second amendment was drafted for protecting the established government, not to mete out justice beyond the established offices of law enforcement. Citizens were allowed to bear arms in support of being part of a legal militia, which is supported in the form of the National Guard today. If you are going to the second amendment, make sure you read it.