A more armed society

The response from the National Rifle Association (NRA) to the school massacre in Newtown is to have armed guards inside schools to protect the children from armed bad and dangerous people outside the schools. Of course, they are armed to the teeth like that thanks to the work of that same organization.

The NRA made a tortuous analysis in order to reach this recommendation. It blamed everything around it for the killing of 20 children and six adults—from the media to the culture, terrorist attacks and hurricanes—except for the fact that there are hundreds of millions of firearms circulating with very little control.

The way that the NRA completely ignored fundamental aspects of the crime that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary is outrageous. An unbalanced man had access to legally purchased weapons to kill children, and the proposed solution is to wait for him entrenched at school.

The very idea is ridiculous.

First, the presence of a sheriff’s deputy assigned to Columbine High School did not stop the slaughter of 12 students and a teacher.

Second, it is a mistake to divide people into “good” and “bad” when it comes to weapons possession. This arbitrary separation fails to recognize that honest people who are negatively or emotionally impacted can turn into murderers when they express their frustration with firearms. While it is true that weapons do not kill, people do, weapons do help kill with their lethal power.

Third, the solution of having more firearms to combat “armed bad guys”—instead of disarming them legally—is good business. The NRA represents an industry worth $12 billion per year with $933 million in profits, in which sales to civilians represent 60% of the business.

Finally, it is inadmissible to have a vision of society in which you need guards with shotguns and bulletproof protection in the middle of grade schools. All because the laws are so lax that they accept the risk of having an unbalanced person commit a massacre with assault weapons.

The unavoidable reality is that today, there are too many firearms and it is necessary to reinforce school security. But external threats, in the form of millions of firearms that turn problems and personal frustrations into slaughter, must also be decreased.

We hope that the NRA’s inadequate response to this tragedy serves for it to start losing its political influence. This way, there will be more lawmakers willing to at least return to the old assault weapons ban.