In his Blog Stage Seven, Dillon makes a very compelling argument for why we should have armed guards within schools. I agree with Dillon in-part. His argument can be summarized into three different arguments. The first is an argument that safety is proportional to the number of guns in an area. The second argument is the natural deterrence that comes with armed citizens. The last argument is an appeal to an authority. Then he offers his specified solution to the problem. Overall it is a good structure. We can now look at the actual content looking at each separate argument.
First, he argues that safety is proportional to the guns in the area. He says, “you don’t see bad guys going into a place with armed citizens…NRA conventions or the like.” This is a very good argument. It goes hand-in-hand with the second argument of deterrence. The more guns that there are the less reasonable it is for a shooter to come in. This takes into account the perspective of the shooter. The shooter, although deranged, is still a reasonable person when it comes to accomplishing their goal. If a shooter’s goal is attention or a high mass of casualties, the shooter would likely go to another place to accomplish that goal. Unfortunately, we have recently seen these shooters attack churches as well. That being said, if a school is a place that have as many guns as an NRA convention, then the deranged shooter may likely go somewhere else for their goal. Therefore, his argument is a good one, but the issue is: would a shooter find another means to their end? Perhaps at churches, conferences, or the like where there are less guns. One critique that I may have is that although this solution does take into account the perspective of the shooters goal, it doesn’t really stop a shooter from taking an alternative route than a school. We have to ask ourselves if we need better mental health evaluations to actually address the reason for the shooter’s goals rather than the goals themselves.
Secondly, is the deterrence issue, there is not much dispute there. As stated here this takes into account the perspective of the shooter. The shooter may be scared away from the guns of the armed guards. It’s a great argument, but I would like for him to expand or hear his opinion on those who may not have feared because they have decided on a suicide mission. Perhaps they may still come into the school and kill what they can, maybe just one person and then themselves. A counterargument to that is that if we look at this in a utilitarian view, losing one person is a win.
Third is the issue of appeal to an authority. It seems like a safe authority to lean on. A high ranked officer in the military will probably understand proper safety measures. It is true that there is a problem with not having a proper safety measure for something that is likely is unreasonable. However, I would argue if implemented, this shouldn’t be a permanent solution. Making armed guard synonymous with fire extinguishers doesn’t seem to be correct. Fires will always be a problem (unless we live in the world of Fahrenheit 451), but school shooters don’t have to be a permanent problem. There was a time before Columbine where this wasn’t a national crisis. There seems to be a bigger issue, perhaps within the home or a lack of mental health issue solutions. Arming guards is a prevention, not a solution, they may just move to churches. We have to look deeper than just armed guards to solve this permanently.
Dillon does end with his solution to the armed guard which makes sense. You have to have the best trained and with the best records in the profession. There is no dispute there.
