Respect Right To Protect Life. September 2007
By Kevin Schmadeka
The people who say that Jane Doe has no right to carry a weapon for protection at school insist that she stick to other measures, like working with school security, etc.
In my state of Washington, UW staffer Rebecca Griego took this and every other conceivable measure to protect herself from a violent stalker, with the singular exception of carrying a weapon, which was prohibited. She’s dead.
Students at Virginia Tech attempted to regain their right to protect their own lives, but were told they must rely on men in uniforms to do it for them. Thirty-two of them are dead.
Where were the armed officers when these people and many, many others were gunned down at schools and campuses? Not there.
Still, people who hate guns insist that Jane Doe must rely on men in uniforms, who have a nearly perfect record of being not there. The reason is that if Jane were to successfully save herself or her students with a weapon, it would sink their whole case that guns can never save people, they can only be bad. Then more people will want them, and to keep that from happening, they will happily keep Jane living under the same threat as Rebecca Griego. The fact is, these people don’t care if she dies.
And what is it these men in uniform have that gives them the power to save Jane Doe? Well by golly it’s guns!
Where are the howls about the crossfire the children will be caught in? They’re lost amid the belief that government has a right to be armed, the citizen in danger does not.
Human beings have a fundamental, God-given right to protect their own life, and to protect those close to them. There is frankly nothing more offensive than for one person to tell another that they don’t merit that right. The UW doesn’t respect that right, nor does Virginia Tech, and ditto the Medford School District.
On the subject of crossfire, take heart, there won’t be any. In every case of an armed civilian confronting a school shooter, the shooter has given up or killed himself without one shot fired at him. Mass shooters are cowards, they only want unarmed victims, such as what the Medford School District wishes to provide. Even if there were crossfire, how is it preferable to have unopposed fire going from the shooter into victims? Virginia Tech only ended when the guns arrived. When they were finally, at long last, there.
This issue isn’t just about Jane Doe, the people in authority don’t respect your right to protect your own life or family either. The presence of children is the excuse they use to prohibit guns at schools, but children are everywhere, and there is no shortage of excuses to cover you too.
Many of these people say they believe in gun rights, just not at schools, but they can’t have it both ways. People are either safer when armed or they’re not, and the track record of gun-free schools speaks for itself.
And as for Jane’s students? Should they ever come under fire, Jane will be there.
Kevin Schmadeka is director of the Freedom Restoration Project, an all-volunteer Washington State second amendment lobbying group. In 2002 it wrote and promoted the School Protection Act, which would have created an exemption in Washington’s gun free school zone law for school staff. Currently the group is partnering with a WSU second amendment group to address the issue of the right to carry on campuses. The group can be reached at frp-wa@mindspring.com or 360 757-7122.