Guns in Schools

Last week, the Washington Post ran an article which describes how the school system in Butler, Pennsylvania is hiring former state troopers to serve as armed security guards.  The article is fantastic and presents about the best possible case for arming school employees.  The officers who are serving in Butler Schools deserve nothing but our respect, and the Butler School System deserves all credit for demanding that only the most responsible, best trained personnel serve in these positions.  That alone allays my greatest fear, which is civilians with guns taking shots at people besides the bad guys.  In an emergency situation, I have a hard time imagining anyone but a trained professional hitting the person they need to stop.  With trained officers, there's a much lower (but, to be sure, a non zero) chance that they choke.

It still won't prevent the unthinkable.

The sad, bad, awful truth is that so many of these tragedies end with the gunman turning the gun on themselves.  A lone ex-cop with a pistol isn't going to deter someone who has already decided to die.  We have multiple examples of serial killers whose planning is as thorough as it is horrifying.  Think about the bombs the Colorado movie theater shooter set up in his apartment or the planning the Columbine kids did.  These dudes can be smart.  They can and will scout their targets.  And the first bullet they fire is going to head directly for the armed security guard.  The guard is a sitting duck.  

And I repeat: no one has told me how we are going to pay for an armed guard in every school.  There are roughly 15,000 schools in the United States.  Say we can find enough retired officers to staff every school and that, out of generosity, the officers all agree to take a $30,000 salary.  That's 450 millions dollars.  45 plus seven zeros, before we factor in the cost of training and benefits.

It's simply not a viable solution.