(Stewart Rhodes) This shooting is yet another tragic example of the failed, grotesque insistence on helpless victim zones where any crazed gunman can be assured of a large number of disarmed, undefended, helpless victims, all crammed into one place, where he can kill many children before an armed defender arrives from elsewhere. It is disturbing and sick that the federal government so hates the right of the American people to bear arms, and so hates their natural right to self defense, that the government insists on making them helpless, disarmed victims for anyone who cares to kill them. And in this case, all of the teachers and staff were willfully disarmed by the Federal Government, by force of law and threat of prison, to ensure that they would be disarmed and incapable of saving the lives of the children entrusted to their care.
That makes the Federal Government complicit in the deaths of these children, and in fact an accessory to their mass murder, by forcibly disarming (with the very real threat of prison) all the teachers, all the staff, and any parent who may have been on school property. That stupid law guaranteed the shooters would meet no immediate armed resistance, which is exactly what is needed to stop such an attack.
In such a shooting (as in every criminal attack), seconds count, and the people best positioned to stop the attack are the people on the scene – the intended victims and/or their care-takers. In this case, that would mean the teachers and staff of the school who were responsible for the well-being of those children, and also the parents, who should have the ability to save the lives of their own children as they take them to and from school.
The police cannot, and do not arrive in time to stop such shooters from killing large numbers of people. They are a slow reactive force compared to an armed citizen on the scene. This should be common sense, as it is obvious that in the immediacy of a criminal attack, it is the intended victims (or their immediate care-takers) who are there, in position to put a stop to the attack, if they are capable. And being capable means being armed, trained, willing, and able to use deadly force, right then, right there. Anything less leads to what we saw here.
But no doubt the rabid anti-gun government supremacists will use this to further their agenda to disarm the American people, totally ignoring that obvious, plain-as-day truth. Anti-gun nuts trust the government with guns, but not the people, and insist that the lowly citizen must be disarmed and helpless in the face of murderous assault, and must wait on slow responding armed government employees, who will not be there when the attack starts, and most often can only really clean up the horrendous crime scene afterwards and maybe, just maybe apprehend a shooter who has chosen not to kill himself (as they usually do).
The bottom line is that these teachers and staff at the Sandy Hook Elementary School were incapable of keeping these children safe, and incapable of defending them. And one of the biggest reasons they were so incapable and unprepared to save the lives of the children entrusted to their care is because the anti-gun nuts and their fellow travelers in government insisted on disarming every adult in the vicinity, by threatening them with prison time – EXCEPT the gunmen, who don’t care about the law and thus were not disarmed. laws against carrying weapons in schools don’t stop evil men with murderous intent. Such laws only disarm the law abiding and virtuous, who are now rendered incompetent to defend the precious children in their care.
This is disgusting. And yet another reason to home-school. Why would you want to leave your children helpless, in the hands of adults who are themselves helpless, and incapable of defending them, by government decree? For all we know, one of the teachers may have been a veteran, with the training and skill to use a firearm if one had been available. But all the teachers and staff, whatever their ability with firearms, were stripped of the choice and chance to save the lives of these kids.
There are more good guys than bad guys in the world. But the good guys need to be able to stop the bad guys, and that means they need to be armed so they can stop the bad guys on the spot, without having to wait for “official” government approved good guys to respond. Trust the teachers with arms so they can save the lives of their students.
Until the adults are allowed to actually act like adults, and defend themselves and their students, this kind of willful killing will continue to happen, and the federal government will in each case be a guilty party to the conspiracy by ensuring that the targets are disarmed.
Until this changes, you should refuse to give your children over to government schools lorded over by a Federal Government so callous and indifferent to their safety and lives.
Stewart Rhodes,
Founder of Oath Keepers
UPDATE: President Obama Issues Statement
Just hours after yesterday’s tragic mass shooting at a Connecticut Elementary School, President Obama issued a statement , in which he said this:
As a country, we have been through this too many times. Whether it’s an elementary school in Newtown, or a shopping mall in Oregon, or a temple in Wisconsin, or a movie theater in Aurora, or a street corner in Chicago — these neighborhoods are our neighborhoods, and these children are our children. And we’re going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics.
For once, I agree with something Obama says. I agree we have been through this too many times, and we are going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics – by finally, and completely removing restrictions on the ability of teachers and other school staff to carry firearms to protect the children in their care. It is clear and obvious that the fact that the teachers were disarmed by force of law was a direct cause of their inability to defend the children in their care. The police could not and did not get there in time to protect the kids. The idea that the teachers should wait for professional “authorized” armed defenders to arrive obviously failed, as it failed at Columbine, and as it failed at Virginia Tech, and as it has failed in every other school shooting, from grade schools, to high schools, to colleges. Those were all senseless tragedies of helpless victims that were made possible because of illogical politics. We need to set aside political agendas and do what is best for the children – arm their teachers and school staff, or at least let them protect the children if they so choose. After all, we trust these teachers and staff with our kids every day. Surely we can trust them to also be armed so they can competently defend our kids. So nice to see Obama finally express a willingness to talk about solutions that will actually work. It is about time.
Oh, wait … do you mean to say Obama didn’t meant we should do the obvious, logical thing and arms the teachers and the staff, who are already vetted, trusted caretakers? You mean to say he is talking about the exact opposite – more victim disarmament as the solution? That he STILL doesn’t trust the teachers and staff with guns, and he still wants them to be unarmed, and unable to defend the children? And he wants to pile on even more restrictions on the right of the people to defend themselves? No, say it isn’t so! [Sarcasm off]
Obama wasted no time at all in dancing in the blood of innocent victims, as I knew he would (I believe it was David Codrea, over at War on Guns, who coined the term “blood dancers” to describe the victim disarmament ghouls who use such tragedies to further their agenda. I think it fits splendidly).
When Obama says set politics aside and come together to take meaningful action, he means “set aside your outdated devotion to your right to bear arms, set aside your clinging to your guns, and let’s finally disarm the American people.” That’s what he means. And that is what his fellow travelers, like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Michael Moore, and others of their ilk mean. As always, and as usual, their answer to a mass murder in a “gun free” disarmed victim zone, by an armed murderer who doesn’t give a crap about any stupid laws, is MORE victim disarmament, by means of more laws.
In response to a tragedy exacerbated by, and facilitated by a victim disarmament zone, their answer is to turn all of the United States into one huge “gun free” victim disarmament zone, where the average, law abiding citizen is completely disarmed, and incapable of defending themselves, where the only people who will have guns will be outlaws and the government, leaving the great mass of the people defenseless sheep, unable to defend themselves in any meaningful or effective way against private crime – leaving them disarmed in the face of private robbery, assault, rape, and murder – and also defenseless against government crime – government robbery, assault, rape, and murder. You know, like England, where the strong and young, and those who run in packs, rule the street, and the average citizen is prosecuted for even trying to defend themselves with a kitchen knife or a screw driver. In England, women are left vulnerable to rape by larger and stronger males, and the small, frail, weak, and old are all easy prey for the young, tough and numerous attackers who want to use them as sport or as a resource . A nation of Eloi.
That is what Obama and his ilk want to see done here. Well, Molon Labe, Obama. Molon Labe. Easier said than done. There are millions of us who will NOT disarm, no matter what stupid law you manage to pass, or what Executive Order you pull out of your ass.
Frankly, I hope they try it. Maybe that will finally wake up all the sleeping Elmer Fudds out there, and all the sleeping “conservatives” who have hardly said a word at the destruction of the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments the past dozen years, because they were so scared of al Qaida that they were willing to sacrifice those vital parts of the Bill of Rights in the name of security. Maybe, just maybe, they will finally wake the hell up when it is the Second Amendment on the chopping block. It is sad, but true, that the minds of so many conservatives have been so corrupted and so mangled by the War on Terror, which is really a war on our Bill of Rights, that the only part of the Bill of Rights they still really care about is the Second Amendment. If this is what it takes to finally get them angry, alarmed, and up in arms over the destruction of our Republic – to FINALLY get them to stand up to the oath breaking, treasonous politicians in both major parties – then so be it. Let it come. By God, let it come. Bring it Obama.
About the author:
Before attending Yale Law School, Stewart Rhodes served as a U.S. Army Paratrooper and then served as a Nevada state certified concealed carry firearms instructor in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he taught basic, intermediate, and advanced combat handgun classes. Stewart also taught rape prevention and street crime survival for the Jean Nidecht Woman’s Center at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and at Yale for the Yale Law Women’s group.
Stewart has written for Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership (JPFO) and as a lawyer has worked on several gun rights legal cases, including writing an amicus brief in the Olofson case (where an innocent man went to prison because his malfunctioning rifle fired more than one shot with each trigger pull, which the BATF insisted was a machine gun). Stewart is the Founder and President of Oath Keepers, an association of current serving military, police, and firs t responders, as well as veterans of those services.
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