The NRA's Cynical Ploy

Wayne LaPierre, the president of the NRA, made his long-awaited proposal to reduce gun violence in schools: more guns and more guards. It's a cynical ploy the NRA knows will never happen, simply because it would cost schools hundreds of billions of dollars they don't have.

But even though it's a non-starter, it's useful to point out the practical flaws.

First off, a guard will just be the first victim. If you've ever watched Star Trek or Alias or any other TV show where the heroes infiltrate a secure facility, the first one to die is the red-shirt at the front door.

Second, how many guards are enough? If there's just one, the shooter will pretty much take him out automatically by surprise. So you need at least two guards on each door. But since someone with an AR-15 could easily take out two guards in a couple of seconds, you really need a third guard in a bullet-proof control booth just down the hall. And since guards can't always be on duty, you're going to need at least one more guy who can relieve the guards when they're on break. In a big school with three or four entrances, you'll need a ten-man security team.

Third, who are these guards going to be? Your typical mall security guard is not going to hack it. These people need to be highly competent since they're going to armed around little kids. They're going to require ongoing training to ensure accuracy and quick reflexes. But highly competent, highly aware and highly perceptive individuals are not going to want this job, because it will involve sitting around doing absolutely nothing all the time. Because, while dozens of kids die in school shootings every year, the probability of a shooting at any particular school is basically zero. These guard jobs are therefore going to be difficult to staff. There's going to be a lot of bored, inattentive guards who will make mistakes. And, by the way, like prison guards and cops they're going to want to be unionized.

Unless you use a dedicated guard, they'll constantly be distracted by other duties. The bad guy will only have to wait a minute or two until the guard is occupied with something else, and then shoot him in the back.

Fourth, what kind of equipment are these glorified babysitters going to have? Will they have Glock 17s, or will they carry AR-15s? And what if the crazed shooter has Kevlar body armor and a ballistic helmet? (Which is apparently what the Aurora shooter had.) So should the guards be armed with M16s with armor piercing rounds? And will the guards wear Kevlar body armor, or full ballistic SWAT gear?

Fifth, most schools are open 16 to 18 hours a day. Sports teams practice after school, there are PTA meetings, detention, etc. Schools have plays and host sports events against other schools, which the general public attends. Schools are used by adults for community events like precinct caucuses, open gyms, etc. Guards would have to be on duty all the time and would have to search every person to make sure they aren't bringing weapons in after-hours to cache for an attack planned the next day.

Sixth, because there will be hundreds of thousands of guns knocking around schools, there will be dozens of accidental shooting each year when guards drop or clean their guns. Guards will make mistakes and shoot kids who bring gun-shaped cigarette lighters to school. Kids will get hold of the guard's guns and shoot each other accidentally, as well as on purpose. Mistakes and accidents are a simple fact of life, and the more guns there are the more such incidents will occur. It's an intractable fact of life.

Seventh, many suburban schools are sprawling single-story buildings with windows in every classroom. Could Adam Lanza have come through a window, or simply shot those 20 kids from outside the building? I guess we need to brick up all the windows, or put bullet-proof class and bars on them all.

Finally, and this is the big question: what's this all going to cost? These guards need to be as competent as your average cop, and must be paid accordingly. They're going to need health insurance, vacation time, a supervisor and all the other overhead employees entail. Then they're going to need all that equipment and ongoing training. Then there's the cost of construction for modifying school entrances to accommodate a new security regime.

The NRA did propose that volunteers could be used to ameliorate costs. This is unrealistic: who besides retired old men, little old ladies and stay-at-home moms would be available to guard a school during the day? And then there's the quality of volunteers. Nancy Lanza apparently did volunteer work at the school. I imagine she would have encouraged her son Adam to volunteer for the security detail.

The NRA also suggested we use cops to guard schools. But that'll mean they aren't doing the things they're normally doing. Which means that cities and counties have to hire more cops with money they don't have, or other crimes go undeterred, uninvestigated and unsolved.

These costs could easily add up to hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year per school, and schools are already laying teachers off. Unless the NRA is proposing to pay for school security with new taxes on guns and ammo and steep licensing fees for gun owners, their proposals are utterly worthless.

And all this security won't be foolproof. Someone inside the building could open a window and hoist guns up from a confederate outside. Someone wearing the right uniform will inspire trust and could easily infiltrate close enough to take out the guards. Guards will go mad from boredom and the incessant whining of over-privileged brats and open fire on them.

Under the NRA plan, schools will cease to be schools and will become prisons or concentration camps, replete with armed guards, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, security checkpoints, and so on.

And the crazy thing is, all this security still wouldn't stop a determined madman. The worst school massacre occurred in Bath Township, Michigan, in 1927, when a man, crazed by the death of his wife, property taxes and the threatened foreclosure of his farm, blew up a school and killed dozens of kids, school officials, his wife and himself. These days it would be a truck loaded with AMFO instead of dynamite and pyrotol.

The NRA proposal is a completely cynical ploy. They offer this as a distraction they know it will never happen, because of the expense and the fact that it would solve absolutely nothing.

Instead of blowing hot air, the NRA should get in front of this problem by demanding improved gun safety technology and requiring all gun owners be competent: fully trained, certified and licensed. In other words, a well-regulated militia. They should be the first to demand that people with questionable backgrounds be banned from their ranks. They should want to be seen as dedicated conservationist-hunters, ranchers who need weapons for their everyday work, and serious target shooters who value skill and accuracy, and not phallically challenged twits who think guns are toys and just like to shoot stuff and blow shit up.

One or two more Sandy Hooks will convince the American public that the only way to reduce the number of gun deaths is to drastically reduce the number of guns, Australian style. That will doom the NRA to oblivion by eliminating the stranglehold they have on legislators, and they will have no say in what sorts of regulations will be imposed on gun ownership.