The great and wonderful NRA has spoken! They say that the mass shooting in Newtown, Ct, was caused by the prevalence of violent video games (who knew!). The great and wonderful NRA cannot admit that the easy availability of large capacity magazines might have something to do with this. Their solution: armed guards in every school. Now one must admit that could work, but is that the best solution? First of all, even that measure would not stop all mass killings. An armed sniper with the appropriate weapon could shoot at the school from outside, he would not be able to see his victim so perhaps that would eliminate the more pleasurable aspects for the shooter but he could still kill people. Need I add that all shooters in the US have been male. The European solution has been to control the availability of guns. It is impossible to eliminate all violence but the European record is very good. Most countries have only single examples of incidents like this, the US has dozens.
What the NRA proposes rather than control guns, ammunition or magazines, is an expensive program to place paid armed guards or armed volunteers at schools. Even if it were possible to do this on a volunteer basis it is an expense, a hidden tax if you will. Guns are cost money, bullets cost money and time on a target range costs money. Even if that is all donated, it is a cost that society will have to bare. In parts of the country with low levels of gun ownership that will be a large extra expense. It is very odd for an otherwise conservative organization to recommend expensive new programs. Given who the NRA backers are, it is obvious why they recommend a program that would encourage the sale of even more guns.
The cost of gun control is far less and a far more sensible solution to the problem.
