Defending kids in the schools

The immediate, emotion-laden aftermath of a shocking event like the murder of 20 young schoolchildren and seven adults - including the felon's mother - in Newtown, Connecticut on Dec. 14 is rarely a wise time to craft new public policy.

The story may be apocryphal, but there's still wisdom in the tale that Jefferson, returning from France and breakfasting with Washington, asked why the great man had agreed in the nation's new Constitution to a bicameral legislature, creating a Senate with the power to veto enactments by the lower House.

"Why," said Washington, "did you just now pour that coffee into your saucer before drinking it?"

"To cool it," said Jefferson.

"Even so," said Washington, "we pour our legislation into the Senatorial saucer to cool it."

Much of the outrage expressed over the past two weeks has been legitimate - though skeptics can be excused for taking with a grain of salt the thoughtfulness of those who call for firearms bans without even informing themselves as to the difference between a stripper clip and a box magazine, between a federally taxed machine pistol and an M-1 Garand, between a bullet and a cartridge.

Yet there are also always opportunists, anxious to seize such opportunities in order to advance some pre-existing agenda.

The demonizing of the National Rifle Association - after the civil rights group's spokesman, Wayne LaPierre, called on Dec. 21 for more armed police to protect our schools - has been pervaded by that scent.

Members fund the NRA to protect their Constitutional right to keep and bear arms, as is their right. It's hardly a surprise that an NRA spokesman would point to the many times armed Americans have stopped would-be mass killers in their tracks - or to the fact that there have been no gun deaths in Israeli schools since Israel responded to a 1974 massacre of 31 children and faculty by Arab terrorists by arming teachers and parent chaperones.

Where was the outrage on the left - and among the media - when back in 2000, on the one-year anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting (which occurred while a national ban on so-called "assault weapons" was in place), President Bill Clinton requested $60 million in federal money for a fifth round of funding for "COPS in School" - a program designed to do precisely what the NRA spokesman proposed a week ago, in remarks which many now ridicule?

President Obama's children currently attend a private school which retains armed guards, as do many of the Washington and media elite. There are already armed police assigned to every high school in Las Vegas, and to most such urban campuses around the country.

Yes, providing uniformed personnel at every middle and elementary school would be a vast expense, which is why such schemes need to be weighed in a calmer environment, and why sensible proposals usually focus on allowing adult volunteers who are already on staff to carry licensed and permitted concealed weapons after adequate training.

State Sen. - now Las Vegas City Councilman - Bob Beers proposed re-legalizing such lawful "concealed carry" in Nevada schools (where the practice has been banned only since 1989) six years ago. Today, official policy at many Nevada campuses is so benighted that even off-duty public safety officers are not allowed to carry their concealed weapons when taking classes at our community colleges.

In the aftermath of the Dec. 14 school shooting in Connecticut, lawmakers in a growing number of states - including Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota and Oregon - have said they will consider new laws allowing teachers and school administrators to carry firearms at school, The Associated Press reported on Dec. 21.

In a calmer atmosphere next year, Nevada's lawmakers should revisit this question, as well.