Carping from the Sidelines

The positions of the Houston Chronicle editorial board seem to be incredibly easy to gauge on myriad issues, and armed self-defense is one of them. If the issue is armed self-defense, or if it is in any way related to armed self-defense, the Chron editorialists will invariably side with those who advocate leaving people defenseless. Or, to put it a bit more pithily, if it facilitates self-defense, the Chronsters are agin' it! Today's editorial on Harrold Independent School District's new policy of allowing teachers with CHLs to carry their sidearms on campus was no exception:

...it falsely educates Harrold's students about how nonprofessionals should manage crises. It drops the entire 110-student district in the crosshairs of legal liability. And worst of all, it places the very students it's supposed to protect — from a deranged classmate or a violent drifter from the nearby highway — in an increased array of dangers.

What if the math teacher misplaces her loaded pistol?

What if the gym coach's gun falls from its holster while he's breaking up a fight?

What if a disgruntled student wrests a sidearm from the principal?

And what if a teacher, devoid of law enforcement experience, responds to a school invader by shooting his own weapon — and more students die?

I guess it's only natural that the lefty media hacks at the Chron would take that shotgun approach (pardon the pun), as it would leave the ignorant and unprepared saying, "Oh my gosh! The classrooms will be drenched in blood!" As evidenced by this editorial and the comments by a certain poster here, carping from the sidelines about teachers' supposed lack of training as opposed to advocating for more training seems to be a common tactic among the anti-gun enuretics. (And then, yet again, there's the Israeli experience.) But the fact is that each and every one of those "what ifs" could be mitigated one way or another. This is little more than the same old "blood in the streets" rhetoric that's trotted out (and proven absolutely, positively, 100% WRONG) each and every time someone in charge proposes to broaden humans' natural right of self-defense. They say that if you keep telling a lie, more people will believe it as time goes on. I guess it's only by the grace of God that hasn't been the case as far as this goes.