Basic arithmatic

Somehow, I just can’t feature Sally packing heat.

Sally is possibly the most caring, ebullient, creative teacher I’ve seen bring love and giggles into a kindergarten classroom, but I just can’t imagine Sally acting out Thomas the Tank Engine with a .45 strapped to her hip.

Task folks whose natural milieu is flash cards, play dough and soothing accidental boo-boos with drawing down on a stone cold killer?

Who under high heaven thought this would be a good idea?

Oh yeah, him…

So now schools that can’t afford chalk and erasers are supposed add line items for Smith and Wesson. Instead of textbooks and in-service, tight funds go for hollow points and target practice; and when it comes to granting faculty bonuses, the key performance metric will be the ability to lay down a tight pattern in center body mass at the local gun range

All in the desperate hope that they might limit the size of the honor guard of innocents a suicidal shooter takes with him into the hereafter.

Stupid.

John Rambo with a teaching certificate?

Y’know, there was a reason “Kindergarten Cop” was filmed as a comedy…

Speaking of the movies … it doesn’t take much of a memory to recall that schools aren’t the only public spaces that have been turned into human abattoirs.

So, do we install a sniper’s nest next to the projection booth in every movie theater to prevent a sequel to the slaughter in Aurora, Colorado?

Would an AK 47 on every room service cart allowed for a faster response to the Las Vegas shooter?

Do we put an Uzi on the altar, next to the chalice and paten? Is our faith so deeply shaken by church shootings in South Carolina and Texas?

If an eye for an eye leaves both blind, what about a gun for a gun?

Oh yes, I agree. There are times when it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun. One hundred years ago we called that situation The Western Front.

But tactics appropriate to one situation don’t always translate well into another context. Smokejumpers will often ignite a controlled burn in the path of a forest fire to halt the progress of the oncoming blaze. It works. But if your bedroom is burning, it’s a questionable tactic to set the living room alight in hopes of saving the kitchen.

So, once the bullets start flying, how does another fusillade undo the damage done?

Perhaps it would be better to prevent the first shots in the first place.

Deterrence? Wrong answer.

First off, most mass shootings end with the death of the shooter at or near the scene. Mass murder has a very short career arc.

Second, Texas, Florida, the Carolinas are some of the most gun-saturated places in the country. Loose gun laws don’t seem to have much of a deterrent effect on folks bent on mayhem.

So maybe it’s time to pull heads out of heinies and take an honest look at what is common to all of these mass murders.

No, it’s not mental illness. Americans may appear to be crazier than folks in the rest of the world, but when it comes to diagnosed mental illness, we’re on a par with Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and the rest of the first world. So why is the United States the sole first world member of the Massacre of the Month Club?

Because we have about as many military grade weapons in the hands of disgruntled goofs as Syria, Yemen, and other well known vacation spots. It’s hard to find a place in the world where it’s easier for a guy with a credit card and a grudge to lay hands on the kind of firepower specifically designed to mow down human beings en masse.

The kid in Parkland? He was using his weapon exactly as it was intended.

Way back in grade school, Mrs. Caffery taught me the key to solving a problem in arithmetic was to find the common denominator.

We know the common denominator.

Do we have the will, the courage, the decency to solve the problem?