St. Louis County (MO) Police Chief Tim Fitch has already gone on record calling for the death of gun-free zones. Now it’s former NYPD detective John Baeza — who has three elementary school age kids of his own — jumping on the arm-the-schools bandwagon. We’re sure he knows all too well how long it takes to get “first responders” to the scene of a shooting like an Aurora or a Sandy hook. In fact, according to a CNN timeline of the events, the first cops didn’t arrive until “about 20 minutes after the first calls” came in . . .
A determined headcase can do a lot of uninterrupted shooting given a third of an hour in a place he knows he won’t face any armed resistance. Baeza wants to see teachers and others who work in schools packing.
The bottom line is, when you talk about ammunition or weapons, the bottom line is they need something, and it could be anything, any type of firearm to save the children. If you were to give me a magic wand and I could change things, I would give that principal, or I would have that principal or some teachers armed. It could have saved more of the students and staff that were killed. It’s very important.
Short of waving that magic wand (the one the hoplophobe community would so dearly love to use to make all the world’s gun disappear) this is the only solution to school safety that acknowledges the reality that a dedicated whack-job will always be able to get his hands on a gun. The only question is, how long do you want to give him before he meets someone who can respond in kind?