See this excellent comment by Richard Fernandez about his experience growing up in the Philippines:
If Lanza had advanced on even the most wretched educational institution in Sampaloc Manila in that tactical getup he would not have been greeted by unarmed women administrators. There would have been a warmer reception than that. And for a generation which was accustomed to thinking of America as the somehow superior reference culture, that is deeply puzzling.
Why are there so many nutcases of late? And why can they get away with shooting up Columbine, or Virginia or Sandy Hook. Do you mean to say poverty stricken schools in a third world country can hire shotgun armed guard at every school, but America can’t?
Read the whole thing. More here.
Being a filipino who grew up in the Philippines, I still can’t get over some of the ideas that pass for physical security here in the US. ALL the schools and businesses had armed security guards, with access strictly controlled. And most filipino homes even to this day, have bars on the windows, and iron gates in front of the doors. And barbed/concertina wire on top of the perimeter walls. Some less affluent homes would have broken glass embedded in the concrete on top of the walls if they couldn’t afford the wire. Even the poor families would have 2×4’s blocking the doors at night. And yes, 2 foot long bolos/machetes, and WWII vintage long arms, shotguns and backyard paltik handguns are lurking in the walls of the homes ready for use. I definitely felt naked during the first year of my arrival until I got my first firearm.
I’ve been an American expatriate here in Philippines for over 2 years now. As a non citizen, I am not allowed to carry a firearm. I relate about that naked feeling without my G30SF. The public security here seemed like overkill (no pun intended) at first. Now, it makes perfect sense. The idea of guns throughout the public is not a big deal. They are simply tools that keep peace and good behavior intact. In the US, in my opinion, guns represent power and control, with a fragile ego penis anxiety thrown in. With the majority of weapons unregistered and illegal, they are used by untrained and dim witted goof balls with low self esteem. American streets are extremely dangerous.I left the United States in 2010 to remove myself and family from the gang violence, the liberal nutcases, and the more and more frequent deranged mass murderers. I support the NRA’s suggestion to saturate public schools with trained armed guards. I would go further and recommend all public arenas have cops with visible weapons placed everywhere in public.
Even better: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404721,00.html
They have 110 students and 50 teachers and staff?
So it is not just the Israelis that don’t have their head in the sand like we do.
By the way, it is time for the NRA to get out of their bunker and lead. The antis have been out there since before the shooting stopped. Rush and Glenn and the gun blogosphere are out there. Where is the NRA? Hiding may be good for them as an organization but it is not good for gun owners.
There is some kind of weird paranoia going on. The libs would be afraid that the security guard or armed Superintendent would go crazy and start shooting kids. I think they don’t trust themselves and project that mistrust on others.
I could easily organize enough parents in my town who are Veterans, cops, shooters / hunters – enough that each armed volunteer could hang around the school one day a month. I would do it, but it would never fly.
Today I had a bit of a sobering glimpse into why armed guards at schools are not options in some peoples minds.
“But we’re not some third world shit hole. We shouldn’t need that sort of stuff.” said my extremely smart but highly sheltered and well off friend.
It seems that idea of armed guards or guns in schools is seen as an explicit surrender to something that’s unfamiliar. Unwelcome.
To a state of civilization and human relationships that a lot of people seem to have forgotten exists. In fact, forgotten that it has often been the default nature of humans. Violence is present in so many parts of the world and always has been. But here, it’s as if some people have confused the infantile Disney stories they heard while growing up with how life really is.
This concept, that you need to protect your own, your community, your family, the people around, is very vivid and real in the rest of the world but has been muted here.
It’s an alien concept to many “average”, sheltered, people who gag at the very idea of a teacher fighting back. It almost offends certain sensibilities that teachers would ever have to fight back.
One reply is to cite deinstitutionalization and say we’ve partly created a “third world shit hole” through it. Enough to get you (or at least some of us who are pretty absolutist) to accept the need for the NICS (at least, I found Clayton’s case for it sufficiently compelling).
Maybe something like:
“Evil exists; we’ve drawn back from the ’60s loose polices with criminals, but done the reverse with the severely mentally ill, who are the ones who shoot up schools etc.”
“We’ve now had three K-12 school mass murders by the mentally ill, Stockton, Columbine and Newtown, 4 if you want to count Virginia Tech. The first and last of those would have been prevented by the old policies we had towards the dangerously mentally ill; I don’t think that’s true of Columbine and current rumor has it that Newtown is a case where the process is too long and difficult. And I’ll bet there are quite a few cases that didn’t make a big splash because e.g. no kids were hurt, or hurt badly.
“It’s hard to escape the conclusion that in the face of this societal failure, the correction of would be fought tooth and nail due to ideology and $$$, we don’t need to counter it with the only proven response. It sure beats hope….”