It’s
been argued that a recent story out of Maryland has gone under-reported, so I
will do what little I can with my tiny blog to remedy that oversight.
A
boy named Austin Rollins, 17, a student at Great Mills High School in Maryland,
came to school with his father’s handgun. He shot the girl who broke up with
him the day before, and then shot the boy she was with in the leg.
That’s
when a “resource officer” named Blaine Gaskill, armed with a gun himself, fired
back at the kid. One shot was all it took. Austin Rollins was killed. The girl
he shot, Jaellyn Willey, died two days later.
The
NRA has been quick to jump on this one. They hail Officer Gaskill as not only a
hero, but exactly the sort of hero that proves that armed guards in schools
prevent school shootings far better than gun control laws.
Let’s
take a good look at that.
First,
the shooter took out twice as many innocent victims as himself.
Score:
Shooter 2, Officer 0.
Second,
the shooter’s objective was to shoot his ex-girlfriend and (I assume) her new
boyfriend (or at least, the boy she was currently talking with). He had no
other victims in mind. Thus, he completely achieved his goal. The officer who
responded failed to prevent this in the slightest.
Score:
Shooter 2, Officer 0.
Third,
the officer’s defensive shot killed a child before his 18th
birthday. Eyewitnesses say that Austin had his gun held to his own head. Thus,
the officer’s shot resulted in Austin pulling the trigger, thus killing
himself. Gaskill’s shot should never have been fired.
Score:
Shooter 0, Officer -1.
Fourth,
the NRA may see this as the ideal, but after 20 years of adding more guns to
the debate, this has only been the second in-school officer who has ever killed
an active shooter since the 1999 Columbine massacre. To date, this has been the
17th school shooting in 2018 alone.
Score:
Shooters 17, American public 0.
Total
score: Shooter(s) 21, America -1.
And
this is the best example of the NRA’s
argument? They may think that this incident, which left three kids dead and an
entire school shaken, is ideal. I happen to think it’s the very worst that
America has to offer. We can do better.
You
see, the bad guy always gets to shoot
first. Always. That means that the
gunman, whomever that person may be, has ample opportunity to take out any
number of targets before the “good guy with the gun” can even squeeze off a
shot. And that’s assuming that the
first shot doesn’t take out the “good guy.” You’d think any competent school
assailant would take the resource officer out first!
So
let’s spare the public the grandstanding of the National Assault Rifle
Association about this one, shall we? The gunman in this case took out all his
intended targets – including himself. That’s not a win for the good guys.
Now
ask yourself, what would Fox News say if this kid were a Muslim?
Eric
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