The Secret to Overcoming Gun Violence? Train Americans to Gang-Rush Shooters!

Coward! He should just gang-rush the shooter!

Wow. This is getting fun. Who knew national tragedies like Roseburg would bring out the best in our national character?

First it was Dr. Ben "First-Do-No-Harm" Carson who came out with the very, very smart idea of everybody just rushing shooters to lower the body count.

 But Carson is against gun control, writing on Monday, "As a doctor, I spent many a night pulling bullets out of bodies. There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking — but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away."

What I find breathtaking is the position ALL Republicans take -- I'm talking politicians here -- on the gun violence issue, which can never ever ever be to limit guns in any way. It's better to train people to rush shooters than to do anything about the ridiculous availability of semi-automatic handguns and assault rifles. What part of America-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-history-of-the-world depends on how fabulously armed we all are?

I liked Jonathan Chait's response to the notion:

Are you kidding me? You think gun control is impractical, so your plan is to turn the entire national population, including young children, into a standby suicide squad? Through private initiative, of course. It's way more feasible than gun control!

[...]

Unless I am missing a very subtle parody of libertarianism, McArdle's plan to teach children to launch banzai charges against mass murderers is the single worst solution to any problem I have ever seen offered in a major publication. Newsweek, I award this essay no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Funny that Megan McArdle -- who prescriptions for a myriad of problems have almost universally dumbfounded me -- would be upstaged by the next president of the United States, Ben Carson.

Another great reaction to the latest yet-another-horrible-shooting is to put metal detectors EVERYWHERE. That's bold and bright, don't you think? Wouldn't getting rid of all the friggin' metal make more sense? Hell no, because freedom!

Now we hear that Indiana has figured this all out. ThinkProgress reveals the latest in grand thinking about gun violence with this plan to turn our schools into automatic anti-shooter units:

The safety standards Wooldridge is working to implement in Indiana schools are no ordinary measures.

They’ve already been implemented at Southwestern High School, a small school in rural Shelbyville. There, not only do children perform “active shooter drills” alongside fire drills, teachers wear special key fobs that alert police faster than a 911 call. Classrooms have “hardened doors” that lock automatically and “hardened exterior glass” windows to deflect both bullets and brute force. Cameras in the school have “shooter detection technology” — tools created for the military — to help law enforcement more quickly locate suspects. And if the suspect is trapped in the hallway, smoke cannisters can be detonated to slow down the shooter.

Active shooter drills, that's the ticket. I spent some time teaching in elementary school, and of course active shooter drills is such a very American solution, wouldn't you think? It would be so fun to scare the living shit out of every kid in America by repeatedly telling them to get prepared in case someone wants to blow their brains out.

You know what else would be fun? Answering a first-grader's obvious question: "Why do we have to do this?" Our choices are either "Did you ever hear about Sandy Hook?" or "Just trust us and do it."

Of course, Indiana's solution is "feasible" because a typical school would only take about a half a mil to secure. Let's do it, America! What are we waiting for?

What am I missing here? Get rid of all weapons not related to hunting, fiercely regulate them (like, uh, autos), make everyone who owns one get mandatory training and yearly permits (like, uh, fishing), and pay liability insurance and carry proof (like, uh, proof of insurance in our glove compartments).

NO! Better we should install a gazillion metal detectors.

Chait provided a link to this, but I wanted to make sure you saw this. It should be sent to all the "gun enthusiasts" throughout this freedom-lovin', armed-to-the-teeth country of ours:

Carson, no points, McArdle, no points, Indiana, no points, Republican politicians and all Republican candidates for 2016, no points, the NRA, OMG no points. And God have mercy on our souls.

Note. Above I pointed only to Republican politicians. One, most Democrats are for gun control of some sort, and, two, Republican voters in general favor gun control, too. Hell, NRA members do, as well.