From: hal@finney.org
Date: Sat May 29 1999 - 18:30:25 MDT
A fantasy which I can't help considering is of a fully armed Columbine
High School. When the boys enter and begin shooting up the room, there
is panic and several people are hit, but at least some of the kids draw
their own weapons and either shoot the attackers or at least drive them
from the building. The net result is that many lives are saved.
Imagine that there was a private school which had a policy of allowing or
even requiring all students to carry loaded handguns at all times. The
students would be trained in gun safety, the guns would be provided for
those who could not afford them as they enter the school, etc.
What do you think would be the effects of such a policy? High school
boys are notoriously wild, immature, hot-tempered and prone to fighting
and violence. If they were armed, would the daily minor fistfights become
gun battles? Would students, not sufficiently mature to consider the
long term effects of their actions, misuse the power of their weapons
and lead to even greater violence?
I think the conventional wisdom is that they would. Arming high school
students would be like giving a hand grenade to a six year old. The
result would be tragedy at a scale that would make Littleton look like
Sesame Street.
And I think the conventional wisdom is correct in this case. If I had
the option of sending my kids to a school which had newly opened and was
going to operate under this philosophy, I would not do so. I would not
knowingly put my kids into a situation where they were surrounded on all
sides by guns, and any hot-tempered argument could instantly flare into
deadly gunfire.
Does anyone here think differently? Does anyone believe so strongly in
the civilizing nature of firearms that they think supplying them to high
school kids as in this scenario would actually decrease violence?
Hal
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