Guns in teachers’ hands save lives

Oct. 1, 1997: Pearl, Miss. Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham stabbed his mother to death, and then drove to Pearl High School where he shot and killed two students and wounded seven more. Assistant Principal Joel Myrick ended Woodham’s murderous rampage by retrieving a .45 caliber handgun from his truck, disarming Woodham and holding him until police arrived.

April 1998: Edinboro, Penn. Fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst shot and killed a science teacher at a restaurant where a school dance was being held. Two students were wounded in the shooting spree, until restaurant owner James Strand appeared with a shotgun, chased Wurst out of the building, then captured and held him until police took him into custody.

Jan. 16, 2002: Grundy, Va. Nigerian immigrant Peter Odighizuwa, a disgruntled former student, shot and killed two faculty members and a bystander and wounded three others at  the Appalachian School of Law. When students Tracy Bridges and Mikael Gross heard the gunshots, they ran to their vehicles, retrieved their handguns and confronted Odighizuwa. Faced by two armed students, Odighizuwa dropped his weapon and was subdued by a group of students.

In the hands of responsible teachers and students, guns save lives. Last week’s editorial naively declared that “Guns are bad” and decried Oregon teacher Shirley Katz’s battle against a school district policy that prevents her from carrying a concealed weapon at school. I dissented from that simplistic and uniformed opinion, aghast at the ignorance of reality and lack of logic it contained.

The editorial stated that “adding another weapon to any given situation” only “exasperates the problems” and “another gun only adds to the fear of what if, and it also adds to the ability to shoot and kill.”

The idea that guns should never be brought into any criminal situation is ludicrous. That’s why police officers are unarmed, right?

The truth is that guns are tools that can be used to stop criminals. Guns are inanimate objects, incapable of being “bad” any more than knives, baseball bats, hammers or bricks can be inherently evil. People commit crimes and sometimes the only way to stop criminals is through the threat or use of a gun. This inherent right to self-defense by deadly force is an inalienable right recognized by the Constitution.

Joel Myrick and Tracy Bridges possessing weapons at school didn’t add to the problem of school shootings. They were able to heroically save lives and stop student gunmen only because they were armed. They were the solution to the problem, not an exacerbation of it.

Look how well banning guns on campus worked at Virginia Tech. Cho Seung-Hui, like all school shooters, wasn’t dissuaded by a regulation forbidding weapons at school. “Gun-free” school zones simply ensure a large mass of unarmed victims for a psychotic murderer like Cho.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold broke 17 different state and federal laws in obtaining the weapons used to slaughter 12 people at Columbine High School. A school policy forbidding any weapons on school property certainly didn’t stop them. What policies like these do is prevent teachers and other responsible adults with concealed weapons carry permits from protecting students and exercising their right to self-defense.

Shirley Katz shouldn’t be lambasted by an ill-informed editorial board as a wanna-be killer, but rather should be commended for fighting against an unconstitutional and irresponsible regulation that could cost her life and the lives of her students.

JONATHAN SAWMILLER
Opinion Writer

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