NRA CEO and Executive Vice President LaPierre has called for, on behalf of the NRA, a National School Shield Emergency Response Program, with it's central point being the placement of armed police officers in every school, free of charge to the school.
Wyatt Earp was a lawman, gunfighter, business and property owner, even at times an outlaw himself. When faced with gun toters regularly shooting up businesses, bystanders, and each other in old Dodge City, he (and Bat Masterson) came to a different conclusion. Instead of placing a peace officer in every saloon, dry goods store, barbershop, and church, he (and others) did a far simpler thing:
They banned the carrying of guns - sometimes in part of Dodge, other times in all of it.
More after the squiggly.
You checked your guns at the sheriff's office. You got them back when you left town. You could carry whenever and whatever you wanted when you were out on the range. But in town, guns in public were a no go except for peace officers.
There were not enough lawmen, or enough money in the town treasury, to put officers everywhere a shot might be fired. They did not expect business owners, church leaders, or the local populace to take on drunken or angry cowboys. It was their job, and they did it well. They were practical in their solutions, and enforced their decisions fully.
Today we still do not have enough lawmen or money to do what LaPierre and the NRA suggests. Does the NRA advocate we raise taxes to put more police on the streets? I did not hear that call, nor do I see it on their website.
We already are letting banks and others hire police officers in uniform as some kind of privately controlled armed security. Do we further blur the line between public law enforcement and private security?
And for those who worry more and more about government intrusion - do we effectively militarize one more sphere of the pubic? Do we need to put police in every post office, every theater in a complex, every summer camp, every campus building?
Wyatt Earp had it right - you don't put a policeman on every corner, risking confrontation and gunplay. You find a real, practical solution, and put the burden of responsible action on the gun owners, and have them understand carrying guns is not necessary everywhere, all the time.
Work the problem - don't make another one.