Public Schools Kill Kids

To keep them safe, keep the state away

Screams and cries echoed through the halls, as a gunman squeezed his trigger and sprayed more than a hundred bullets into an elementary school. After the mayhem, with the gunfire silenced and smoke cleared, 27 lay slain in one of the most horrific school shootings in U.S. history. Adam Lanza, the masked-man killer, will be classified as a lone-wolf nut and the government will do all it can to ensure it won’t happen again.

So prepare to lay down your arms and surrender your liberty, because that’s exactly what our overlords are pushing for – more gun control. Like any good politician will tell you, “Don’t let a good tragedy go to waste.”

“We can’t accept events like this as routine. Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage?” Obama said in the wake of the tragedy. “That the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year, after year, after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

This shooting didn’t happen because of too much freedom, it happened because we don’t have enough of it. If teachers and other adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School had the freedom to protect themselves and their students, the gunman likely wouldn’t have shot more than one person before he was shot dead himself. But because the government has legislated guns out of public places, it has left people defenseless in the face of attack.

The shooting was horrific beyond description, but giving up our guns is not the answer. It’s the problem. This, like so many other senseless shootings, could have been prevented if there weren’t a coercive government in the first place. Government schools are prison cells for indoctrination, or, in the latest incidence, kill rooms, where children are lined up and executed by what seemed like a firing squad. They fail to protect our children from outside invaders and from students inside their own walls.

Wackos

In my school, the hall monitor is 6’5, wears a black leather jacket, and is packing some serious heat. His Glock, 9-millimeter pistol is tucked under his jacket, and he comes highly trained from the world’s best security company. He walks the halls and makes sure everyone is safe. The kids love and trust him because he talks to them and listens to what’s going on, unlike in public schools, where everyone is just a number. His partner – who’s carrying a couple of concealed pieces of his own – walks the perimeter of the building, looking for anything suspicious, and gladly escorts strangers to the administrator’s office. No mass murdering under their watch, and no fights in the halls. They are the perfect team. This, of course, would be in a free world, where more private schools could exist, where money wasn’t extorted from citizens to prop up state-monopolized schools.

I know, I know, this could never happen in public schools, but it should. Oh, the horror, weapons on public property – someone could get hurt. Maybe. But more likely, someone would be saved. Here’s why: if some wacko pulls out a gun, then all the other non-wackos can pull theirs out too and protect themselves and others. Someone in the building should always be armed, ideally more than one. The principal, teachers, and yes, even the custodians should be carrying concealed weapons in case something goes wrong. How many children would have died in Connecticut if the principal were carrying a firearm to protect herself and others? I’m not suggesting everyone just carry a firearm around carelessly. A little education about how to safely use a gun for self-protection and the defense of others would come in handy, and I’m sure someone in the free-market would be happy to offer this type of service.

According to research done by John Lott, who conducted studies on this topic at Yale and the University of Chicago, unarmed populations are prime targets for mass shootings. Conversely, cities that allow concealed-carry are some of the safest in the world.

“With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns,” Lott said.

This is because would-be mass murderers know better than to shoot into a crowd, where a significant percentage of the people are likely to be armed, Lott explained. They wouldn’t get many shots fired before a Good Samaritan shot back.

It’s time to stop pretending the state protects us and start protecting ourselves. The false sense of security government enforced gun-free zones give us is to blame for these mass killings. If people were allowed to carry their arms with them everywhere, they would be aware of their surroundings. Instead of walking into the lion’s chamber, they would have a chamber of their own, and it would be locked and loaded.

To be aware, is to be alive, and there’s nothing wrong with living. If we had teachers, staff, and students awake and conscious of what was happening to them and to others, then we would live in a much more peaceful and prosperous place. And if that happened, public schools would cease to exist, because the conscious would realize how unproductive and unsafe they are and turn to alternative education.

Bullies

In addition to protecting children from foreign intruders, kids need to be protected from their classmates, who can be almost as ruthless. I remember the days when students used to yank up each other’s underwear, where the kid receiving the rope-like tug would get an uncomfortable thong between his butt cheeks. While this may seem funny, it’s not, especially to the lad receiving those tugs. However, with the advancement of the Internet bullying doesn’t stop in the schoolyard, it can follow a child home.

Studies show that cyber bullying is on the rise. Imagine if you were a student and every day someone pushed you into a locker or called you names. How would you feel? Imagine if these same kids could continue harassing you in the privacy of your own home through social media outlets like twitter and facebook, where the humiliation is published permanently. My own cousin switched schools because of what was being ‘tweeted’ about her.

There was one instance, in New Jersey, where a student was tormented so much, she couldn’t go on. She tweeted, “I can’t. I’m done. I give up,” and later that day jumped in front of a train. But she was dead long before the train smashed into her body. The students of that school crushed her emotionally and spiritually, and none of her teachers or school counselors even noticed.

End fed ed

Kids are being murdered by strangers and tormented by their classmates. This is one reason why I, for one, won’t be sending my child to government school. I’m not willing to take the chance of her being bullied, killed, or worse yet, propagandized into thinking we actually need big brother. Bureaucrats have been central planning schools for far too long and haven’t given us our money’s worth. We spend more per capita on education than any other country in the world, with the exception of Switzerland and America ranks 17^th when compared to other advanced nations.

Parents need to start looking at alternative forms of education, not only to keep their kiddos safe, but to better educate them as well. With the advancement of the Internet, homeschooling is becoming the “cool thing to do.” No more crowded classrooms where children have to beg for the teacher’s attention. Who better than an attentive, loving parent to teach their kids? Yes, I know this doesn’t work for every family, but there are tutors, small, local teaching communities, and even affordable private schools (which would be even more affordable if we weren’t being taxed for public education). These are all better and safer options than the state teaching children to be dependent, defenseless zombies.

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Lew Rockwell  originally published this article.