How many times have you heard this anguished and furious cry: “We must ensure that something like this will never happen again!” The “something like this” would apply to horrific events like the 9/11 attack on America by Islamist terrorists, the Japanese surprise attack on the U.S. Navy fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Nonetheless, 13 other assassination attempts on U.S. presidents, three of them successful, happened again and again.
Many other terrible things repeatedly happen again. Like school shootings in Colorado, including the latest one at Evergreen High School, the sixth in this state starting with the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. That emotional “never again” battle cry is fully understandable, but talk is cheap and the only deterrent to repetitions is strong, effective action.
A week after the Evergreen shooting, several hundred Denver area high-school students took the day off from school for a protest march to the state Capitol. The event was organized by Students Demand Action (SDA), an anti-gun activist group started in the wake of the Parkland, Florida school shooting. The SDA-ers led the students in anti-NRA chants during the march. As you’d expect, their solution is gun control, which is a prayer masquerading as a policy. It won’t end school shootings any more than outlawing illegal drugs ends their availability. There’ll always be a firearm black market for criminals and others who want them. Chicago has the toughest gun laws in the country to no avail. Colorado’s tough gun laws mostly inconvenience law-abiding citizens.
Those student protesters interviewed in a story by Denver Gazette reporter Michael Bratihwaite offered little in the way of specific policy measures. One who said our “state needs stronger gun violence prevention measures” also said “students don’t have to feel like they’re in a fortress.” He couldn’t have been more wrong; they would have to be in a fortress.
The principal failure of Evergreen High School’s security was the absence that day of its school resource officer (SRO), a full-time trained, armed Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy who was on medical leave. A part-time SRO who was there earlier had left to deal with a nearby crash.
I’ve dusted off a column I wrote on this topic in 2019. Demanding that this must never happen again is an absolute statement, if you really mean it. The closest we could come to that outcome would be to fortify every school in the country with a permanent security force of armed, highly-trained paramilitary specialists (not mall cops) on duty to patrol and respond instantly to any attack. Every point of entry must be guarded and equipped with TSA-like screening devices. With about 130,000 K-12 schools in the country this would be massively expensive. Anything less would merely minimize the risk. And even fortification wouldn’t be foolproof. Students would still be vulnerable to off-site snipers.
I cited one sanctimonious advocate who called for the confiscation of all guns and proclaimed that “we are avoiding the hard truth about the root cause of a chronic, pernicious illness in this country. We love our guns more than we love our children.” This is irrational blather and a false dichotomy. Law-abiding gun owners can both love their children and also defend the constitutional right to possess a firearm, which might even be used to protect their family from a home invader. I also rejected his use of the personal pronoun “we.” We aren’t the “root cause” of school shootings and our society isn’t sick. An infinitesimal fraction within it are sociopaths who shoot up schools. It’s they who are sick.
I’m not minimizing this problem and this may be small consolation, but if you need to calm your schoolchildren’s fear and anxiety about being the victim of a school shooting, you can explain to them that the likelihood of that is also statistically infinitesimal, far less than being hit by lightning. Although, homeschooling may be your best option.
One last thought about those who proclaim that something must never happen again. Israelis have pledged to “Never Again!” allow the extermination of Jews like the Nazi Holocaust in Europe leading up to and throughout World War II. And they take necessary, effective actions to match their words. That explains and justifies their determination to finish the job and wipe out what’s left of Hamas’s militants in Gaza to deter another murderous attack on Israeli civilians like that of October 7, 2023.
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.
Mr. Rosen, stupidity may be defined as doing the same thing over and over and over again and being surprised that the result is always the same.
As stupidity’s apologist, I would think you would be at least a teensy bit embarrassed. But then, years of reading your opinion pieces drearily confirms that you don’t WANT to get it.
You are a mouthpiece for Death. You obstinately refuse to recognize that the Second Amendment does not say or mean what you want it to. And you perversely insist that we all agree with you and just step over the bodies so you can hawk more guns for the gun makers.
What a legacy to leave.
The 2nd amendment states clearly “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” We, the people, ARE the militia, and by having the right to own firearms will ensure our inalienable rights will never be taken away by enemies foreign and domestic. The US Supreme Court has affirmed this numerous times.
Why don’t you start looking at the data before you spew your BS to a distinguished and immensely intelligent member of our local media. The Pew Research Center reports there were 17,927 non-suicide gun deaths in 2024. Compare that with the 39,345 auto-related deaths reported by the NHTSA. When are we going to start pushing for banning cars, which, BTW, ownership of is not protected by the Constitution. The police cannot protect us, and parents aren’t being held accountable for their kids access to firearms. I for one am willing to fight to the death to protect myself and my family. If you can’t accept our constitutional rights, please try to come take my guns away.
The schools clearly need more security resources to protect the students. They should have metal detectors and security staff at every publically accessible entrance. Anything less continues to invite the kind of violence that persists in our school system.
The militia of the Revolution is now the National Guard.
The Second Amendment was written to ensure that the militia remained as an institution. Part of this is due to the creation of a national army in the Constitution as a permanent military organization. Because the army would be the national fighting force, Madison also provided for the continuing existence of the militia as a local, state-operated fighting force. This was mainly to ensure the Constitution would be ratified by the states. (Madison provided for the militia’s continuing existence under Article I. You might want to read it.) Distrust of a national army was commonly expressed by many colonials.
Garry Wills has written of this situation many times.