So, one week after the Red Lake massacre, while the state's landed punditry carries on its endless wailing looking for answers, Mark Yost at the PiPress goes one better; He proposes a solution:What can we do to keep this from happening next time? How about arming security guards, as well as a handful of administrators and teachers who volunteer to be properly trained?
But Mark, savvy fella that he is, knows his market:I can hear the gasps echoing from Mac-Groveland to Crocus Hill. But if we think any legislation is going to stop the next Jeff Weise, we're fooling ourselves. Indeed, the idea that with the right legislation and an unlimited pot of money we can take the risk out of any of life's endeavors is simply wrong...As distasteful as the idea may be to some, we need to be honest and admit that only one thing would have stopped Weise: a security guard, administrator or teacher, properly trained, and armed with a gun.
Mitch's article is titled A Pack, Not A Herd
and Yost's is Only a gun could have stopped Jeff Weise.
In case you don't want to register with the St. Paul Pioneer Press, here's a little of the Yost article:
Shotguns would be the perfect weapon. Unlike handguns, they require little or no skill. Just point and shoot. Looking at the Red Lake chronology, it's clear that a shotgun could have stopped Weise early on and saved a lot of lives.
While security guard Brun was confronting Weise at the school door, another guard, LeeAnn Grant, was alerting students. Imagine if she'd been able to lay in wait for Weise, just inside the door. It all could have stopped right there.
Same for English teacher Neva Rogers. She locked herself inside a classroom and looked on in what must have been sheer terror as Weise broke the glass, unlocked the door, walked in and shot her three times. If she'd had a shotgun and been properly trained, she could have shot him at the door and saved those five students.
And the conclusion:
Indeed, it's an exercise in futility to try to make sense out of the senseless. Things happen and often times we don't know why. Instead of crafting a bevy of new legislation — on top of the laws that already exist — our time would be better spent preparing for the next time a school security guard or teacher is confronted by an insane student.
As distasteful as the idea may be to some, we need to be honest and admit that only one thing would have stopped Weise: a security guard, administrator or teacher, properly trained, and armed with a gun.
