Almost a week before the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre made himself the most hated man in America (even more hated, I’m sure, than Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter, would be if he were still alive) by proposing assigning armed guards to schools, I proposed here — you guessed it — assigning armed guards to schools. For some reason my suggestion did not incite the national rhetorical riot provoked by LaPierre’s somewhat weaker proposal (I called for assigning two armed guards to every school).
As is not infrequently the case, the overheated response of liberal pundits and politicians is permeated with hypocrisy piled on top of contradictions, and those who shout that guns don’t make us safe are perfectly willing to be protected by armed guards or to protect themselves by carrying a concealed weapon, and they tend to send their own kids to schools with very high levels of armed security.
More hypocrisy: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York has made it clear he opposes armed guards in schools (although his brother, ABC New reporter Chris Cuomo, disagrees). Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey opposes assigning armed security people to schools as “the easy way out” (what’s wrong with easy?), adding, inanely, that “if you just have an armed guard at the front door then what if this guy had gone around to the side door?” Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter says it’s “an insult to the lives of [the slaughtered] children” and “insane.” Not to be outdone, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg issued a statement asserting that the NRA’s proposal is “a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.” New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a likely Democratic candidate for mayor next year, said the proposal for armed guards in schools is “asinine.” New York City Councilman Jumaane William was almost as succinct and even more, well, original, claiming that “The N.R.A. are idiots.”
If having armed guards is so dangerous, asinine, insane, and idiotic, why do New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania have elaborate processes to license armed guards and unleash them on a vulnerable public? What is it about children that makes them less worthy of being guarded than the convenience stores, rich people, banks, and other employers of the state-certified and licensed armed guards?
I’m waiting for Cuomo and Bloomberg to simply declare New York a “gun free zone” and give up their own armed security details to set the example.