I’m all for having armed guards in every school. In fact, they should be anywhere children gather. That includes churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques; Scout meetings; children’s birthday parties (disguise the guard as a cowboy); family reunions (never know when there will be a drive-by shooting); the zoo and children’s discovery museum; even political events where politicians kiss babies. And hire only babysitters who pack pistols. Nothing is too extreme to safeguard our children.
These should be trained guards, required to take a two-hour gun safety course. Some may be volunteers (I’m sure the NRA will recruit willing volunteers from their membership). But many will be professional peace officers, fire-fighters, and school principals.
Expensive? Not really. The Kids Are Our Concern (CROC) program can easily be paid for by money saved by revamping our penal system. First, execute all the roughly 725 people currently on Death Row–they’re taking up space and using too much court time and money on appeals. Maybe a few will be executed for a crime they didn’t commit, but if they’re on Death Row they must have done something else terrible enough to be taken out of society permanently. Then, within two weeks of having been sentenced to death, execute newly convicted felons. Next, sentence to death anyone using a gun that causes, intentionally or unintentionally, any kind of bodily harm (except to animals, of course). Think of all the money we’d save on housing and feeding these monsters AND we’d free up space in our prisons–maybe close down a few, thus saving even more money.
And all that savings would be earmarked for the CROC program.
I urge you to write your members of Congress (once they climb up from the bottom of the cliff) and urge that they adopt the CROC program at once!
[To my shocked readers: Remember that irony is one of the tools I use to make my point.]