Facts are part of the problems that must be solved to prevent “school shootings.”  Everyone who is distraught about yet another mass murder of our most innocent and, in every case, unprotected children, has facts about the incident, about other, similar incidents, perhaps about certain guns or numbers of bullets in a clip, and about what various public or political leaders have said about the same subjects.  Facts, however, are often mere data-points and not necessarily good anchors for solutions or even “truths.”  Those require judgment, balance, cool reasoning and imagination.

For example, we have learned that Salvador Ramos, the sick, troubled 18-year-old who had considered, if not planned, to shoot up a school for at least FOUR YEARS, had managed to buy two AR-15 model rifles and more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition.  Those are facts but they don’t lead us to any solution.  Some have said, in effect, “He should never have been able to buy those items!”  They are absolutely right, but why?  Because no one should be able to buy them?  It is a Constitutionally protected right; do we throw out our right to self-protection because a crazed teenager committed a terrible crime?  Some believe that removing the rights of law-abiding Americans IS a solution.  It’s not that clear.

Ramos was known to be disturbed and dangerous for at least 4 years.  He was arrested and held for mental evaluation at age 14.  Nothing was placed in his record.  Four years later he appeared to be a legal 18-year-old ADULT when he went to buy a gun, BUT HE SHOULD NOT HAVE appeared so!  One has to ask why we have background checks if no data is going to be added to that background?  Legal, licensed gun owners are fully in favor of realistic registration and licensing… not to punish gun dealers, but to keep guns out of the hands of people too unbalanced to handle the responsibility of gun ownership.  If regulations are not designed to assess responsibility and balance in individuals, then they will likely reduce freedom and rights for honest citizens, which is not the covenant the Constitution is based upon.

We could list all the mistakes made on the day of the event in Uvalde, but few will listen because they already “know” some un-Constitutional restrictions are the “real” answer.

Here’s another set of facts: somewhere between 600,000 and 2 Million times a year (fairly steady data over the past 20 or more years, including studies by beloved, official agencies), private gun-owners stop or prevent crimes, almost always without actually shooting a gun.  Even if it were only 1,000,000 times a year, that’s an average of 2,740 incidents a DAY that a criminal act is prevented or interrupted before police could arrive on scene.  It likely prevents several hundred other crimes that would be perpetrated had the “perp” succeeded in the interrupted one.  Civil society would be almost impossible without private, legal gun ownership.

In fact, legal gun owners – MOST ESPECIALLY NRA MEMBERS – are the least likely demographic to commit crimes in the United States!  Why is the NRA hated and vilified by so many?  Perhaps it’s because they do not compromise on the Constitution, whereas one political party, and politicians individually, are constantly trying to soften the restrictions placed on them by the Constitution… especially on the Left.  One can look not so far back in history to see that authoritarians, dictators, fascists and Communists consistently move to disarm their populations.   Why are America’s “leaders” always trying to do the same?  Perhaps they dream of leaving the home of freedom and its massive responsibility, and joining the club of dominance, repression and never having to answer to anyone or for anything.

A known screwball, virtually unchallenged by those well-paid and trained to challenge and STOP nuts like him, is allowed into a “gun-free” school where, again, he is not challenged for an HOUR or more, during which he completes the murder of 19 children and two teachers.  Before the little bodies have cooled off, leftists began clamoring to take guns away from honest citizen-gun-owners, especially if they are members of the NRA!  It makes only twisted, leftist sense while offering no solution to mass shootings.  Yet anyone who tries to point out all the failures of existing gun laws or of police agencies is vilified and accused of “having blood on (your) hands.”  What rot.

No gun, hand or long, has ever shot a bullet by itself, but people who are the most ignorant about guns have labeled the scary-looking ones as “assault” rifles.  Somehow, the scarier the appearance of the rifle the more likely it is to have its own intentions.  Augmenting the intentions of the shapes, springs, nuts and bolts of a rifle are the declarations of the frightened that “no one needs a rifle that can shoot 10, or 20 or 30 bullets without reloading.”  Alternatively, those scared or angered by the shape of rifles climb a little higher upon their dudgeon, claiming that, “no one should be hunting a deer by spraying it with bullets from an assault rifle.”  Finally, something that has a kernel of truth, although it’s not the argument that will expose a solution to the vulnerability of school children.

Prudence’ task is not to defend AR-15’s or any other legal weapon; the purpose at hand is to figure out how to keep bullets fired from ANY weapon from traveling toward a child, in school or anywhere else.  This is the point, is it not?

First, without destroying any part of the Constitution, let’s “harden” the schools, themselves.  Make it a rational process to get into school buildings, and have an armed guard at the point of entry as children arrive and leave.  Have facial recognition systems that identify any adults who may be connected to a student, there.  Have metal screens that can block doors and windows by remote control, and panic buttons that start recordings of every hallway, office and classroom, as well as immediate surroundings, as they summon police electronically.  Along with this there should be at least a handful of staff who are exceptionally trained to fire back at shooters with AR-15-type weapons that are locked in a gun safe or safes inside the school.  Schools would become very UN-inviting targets, rather than corrals for “sitting ducks” as they now are.

All of these steps only apply where people who think children are entitled to grow up, live.  They aren’t designed to help anyone’s re-election.

What about “common-sense gun laws?”  Apparently, there aren’t any since all of those proposed don’t add to anyone’s safety.  But there are rational, Constitutional regulations that increase both freedom and public safety, and they should be employed before anyone loses his or her unalienable rights.  Here are a few:

First, teach children about guns, safe handling, the law, and responsibility.  We seem Hell-bent on teaching kids how to have sex, with NO responsibility, while non-marital sex ruins more lives than guns each year – many time over.  Prudence would start gun clubs and teams around the 7^th or 8^th grades, with severe consequences for irresponsible handling of any firearm, even to the point of delaying the age at which a person can legally buy a gun or be licensed, should he or she not take school gun courses seriously.  Such training and practice would also reveal certain psychological problems or tendencies around guns that could bring useful counseling into the picture.  It would also prepare youth for later military acceptance should they choose that form of service or career.

Firearm skills can be the basis for healthy competition just as golf, tennis or basketball skills are.  Sharp-shooting is hard.  Learning the mechanisms, maintenance and proper handling of a weapon is no more likely to turn a teen toward murder than learning how to cook with sharp knives, hot oil or heavy frying pans.  But it will reveal tendencies to ignore safety and propriety and some other reasons for denying or delaying later gun ownership.  It is infinitely safer than school-age sexual experimentation.  Being taught to be afraid of guns is both illogical and immature.  Guns are tools, in a sense, like baseball bats.  They can’t shoot themselves any more than a bat will hit a pitched ball by itself.  They should be learned and understood: it’s part of growing up in America.  After learning about them one isn’t forced to own or deal with them later in life; he or she should know the rights and responsibilities that connect to guns… it’s part of the Constitution, after all.

We all should fear the warped intentions of the few who are willing to commit gun-shot murder, itself, or to enforce surrender by the victims of other crimes.  Many of these intentions can be discerned well in advance of the commission of criminal acts, including school shootings.  Whether in Newtown, Connecticut (Sandy Hook School), Parkland, Florida (Marjorie Stoneman Douglass High School), Uvalde, Texas (Robb Elementary School), or even in Littleton, Colorado (Columbine High School) and elsewhere, the troubled mental and emotional states of the perpetrators was well-known to many, sometimes for months or years.  Parents knew, school officials knew, fellow students knew.  In some cases, police, mental health services or agencies, even the F.B.I.(!) knew of threats to “shoot up” a school and did nothing or blame some bureaucratic error for doing nothing in time to stop the impending murders.  To solve this problem, the Biden administration and other dim bulbs want to take away legal weapons owned by law-abiding, stable citizens.  That’ll work.

Another approach consists of “Red Flag” laws, where guns might be removed from people who appear to be unstable in some way, or criminally inclined.  A strip-mine dump-truck could fit through that legal loophole as currently proposed.  But maybe a form of pre-emption would be Prudent; maybe clear heads could craft laws that preserve due process and the Constitution while minimizing the likelihood of future crimes.  Instead of punishing people for their political views by accusing broad groups of Americans of some “ism” or other, observations of aberrant tendencies could be acted upon in special, secret hearings that won’t destroy suspects’ reputations.  Would this mean executing an arrest warrant?  Not necessarily.

What if a plain-clothes officer arrived at a residence to interview the person named – what sort of document would he or she have that might convince the resident to allow entry?  Could it be created and presented without creating a permanent “black mark” on a suspect’s “record?”  Could the “accuser,” or, at least, suspicious observer, remain anonymous throughout the process to avoid retribution?  What about when the suspicious observer is a member of the suspect’s household?  Will the revelation of the suspicions aggravate family tensions?  These are all factors that must be dealt with before police legally try to take guns away from a licensed owner.

Perhaps gun training in school would help create a profile that would enhance the licensing process for certain individuals, keeping guns away from potentially unstable young adults.  We know the profile of instability; couldn’t we be just a little more careful in the presence of that profile?  Even Prudence would agree to some limits.  Why is the “solution” proffered by leftists ALWAYS confiscation and banning?

One of the “commonsense,” but dopey ideas that is often mentioned on the left, is some form of personalized connection to one’s firearm.  That is, a fingerprint or palm-print has to match before the gun is operable.  This is so impractical, especially at times of emergency, that it literally negates gun ownership for any of those one-to-two-Million prevented or interrupted crimes each year.

However, as is popular for certain cars, the gun could be rendered usable only in proximity to a key-fob type, RFID device.  Even if stolen, the gun would not be usable without gunsmithing work.  The proximity could be so localized that children handling the gun would be prevented from accidental wounding.

It seems obvious that “protecting children” is not the purpose of Democrat-proposed “commonsense gun laws.”  Protecting children could start in any urban ghetto by enforcing mandatory sentencing for illegal gun use or possession.  Hundreds of children, mostly teenagers, kill one another with illegally possessed AND used guns, primarily handguns.  If arrested, so-called “gun charges” are routinely plead down specifically to avoid incarceration, which is so unfair if a perpetrator’s skin is brown.  Disproportionate impact.

By the same token, they could protect kids who are struggling to be born… if they cared about children.  There’s certainly disproportionate impact on unborn babies with brown skin.  But those killings aren’t murders – killings with guns are.  Yet, they continue, despite all gun laws to the contrary.

Are we interested in preventing school shootings?  Protecting our children from sexual abuse in grade school?  Protecting our children long enough to be born?  How are the children, anyway?