Like a few others, I've only read the transcript and not seen the actual video so bear that in mind when reading my comments. Overall, I thought the NRA's response was a good one. Of course the anti's are trying to eviscerate it as they always do, but that's to be expected. LaPierre was really walking a fine line here between trying to be sensitive to the situation without rolling over to the anti's. While I think it was good that the NRA took the high road in choosing not to immediately go on the attack, I think that waiting much longer would have probably allowed the anti's, who wasted no time in beginning to dance in the victims' blood, too much time to dominate the conversation. For those who think that the NRA responded too soon, consider that the anti's and their allies in the media would probably like to drag their coverage of the tragedy out so long as to say that anytime short of President Obama signing a new AWB is too soon and insensitive. While its effectiveness is yet to be seen, I think that attempting to channel the emotion in a direction other than a gun ban is a good idea. So, let's look at the proposals:
LaPierre seemed to spend the most time on school security and rightly so as I think that focusing on that aspect of the problem will probably have the most positive effect. I would have liked to have heard about the prospect of allowing teachers to carry. Now, let me make it clear that I'm not advocating that we mandate all teachers be armed nor start passing out guns to all of them. Instead, I simply think that, if a teacher meets the legal requirement to carry a gun in their state of residence that they should be allowed to do so while on school grounds if they wish.
The notion of armed security in schools isn't necessarily a bad one, but it needs to be done very carefully. I do not think that a uniformed police officer is the best way to go but rather someone in plain clothes with a concealed weapon. This has two advantages in that it doesn't upset the delicate sensibilities of parents and students and it does not give a potential attacker a heads up on who to shoot first.
As has also been brought up, funding may be problematic but I don't think that's an insurmountable issue. Given the enormous amounts of money that the federal government spends on other things, some of which are downright frivolous, I have a difficult time believing that the money necessary to fund school security could not be found by simply trimming some of the fat from other areas of the federal budget. The best solution, as I see it, would be allocation of federal money to small communities that cannot afford school security personnel and equipment much in the same way as is done with other vital services.
As to the mental health issue, I agree that we need specific proposals and that LaPierre was rather brief and vague on this issue. At this point, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the NRA will be addressing this issue in more detail soon. As to specifics, consider the following: A psychiatrist who diagnoses a patient with a mental disorder known to be associated with violent behavior, such as paranoid schizophrenia or antisocial personality disorder, be required to report this diagnosis to the federal government and the person diagnosed as such be put on the list of prohibited persons for NICS checks. If said person can go a specified amount of time without psychotic episodes or violent behavior, then their doctor is required to report such to the feds and the patient will be removed from the prohibited persons list so long as they continue to be responsive to treatment. This is not dissimilar to how other health conditions are handled, the process for someone with epilepsy obtaining a driver's license comes immediately to mind.
Of course, in order for this proposal to work as intended, we would have to ensure that people suffering from mental illness have adequate treatment available. The quality and availability of mental health care for many is, in my opinion, severely inadequate as there are far too few mental health care facilities and far too little qualified staff to run them. Given the enormous amount of taxpayer money we spend and are about to spend on health care, I think we need to ensure that a good portion of it be spent on maintenace and expansion of existing mental health facilities and establishment of new facilites in areas that don't have one. Likewise, we can give incentives such as tax credits and federal student loan forgiveness to people who choose careers in mental health, particularly in under-served areas.
Finally, the part about the media didn't really sit all that well with me. While the 2nd Amendment is the most concerning civil rights issue to me, I'm not willing to throw away my 1st Amendment rights for the sake of the 2nd. As Glenn so astutely pointed out, there is very little compelling evidence that violent media, in and of itself, creates violent behavior in otherwise healthy individuals though it may be a tipping point for people who are already mentally disturbed.
That being said, please remember that the NRA is a single-issue special interest group and their responsibility to their members right now is to ensure that gun rights are not unjustly and unnecessarily abridged. The NRA is certainly not the only special interest group that should be involved in this discussion. I think that 1st Amendment special interest groups, such as the ACLU, should also be at the table here to ensure that whatever reforms come out of this don't unjustly and unnecessarily abridge freedom of speech and press.
Also, I do think that the media carries a bit of responsibility here due to the manner in which mass murders are covered. While such events should certainly be reported on, I think that the manner in which the victims are paraded across our TV screens continuously for days, if not weeks, on end is in poor taste and that it may serve as encouragement for future homicidal, attention-seeking lunatics. Many of these individuals seem to want to end their lives in whatever manner will garner them the most attention and, thanks to our news media, killing a bunch of innocent children is one of the most effective ways to do it. Similarly, the reporting of whatever tidbit of information, accurate or not, as soon as someone hears it is nothing more than a tactic to keep the audience glued to the TV screen in my estimation and, quite frankly, I find such practices disgusting. If the talking heads on TV really want to do something about tragedies such as this, I think they should start by taking a long, hard look in the mirror.
