Some lament backpack rules over gun control :: 09/06/2023

I don’t think we’ll ever get rid of the gun control crowd.

p>It doesn’t matter what the courts rule on the subject, there will always be people who seem to think the answer to every problem is restricting guns.

Whether we opt to come to terms with that remains to be seen, but we’re going to deal with such people indefinitely.

More interestingly, at least in my opinion, is how they’ll judge every single decision they can through the lens of gun control.

Take this piece that laments rules requiring clear backpacks.

It’s a modern-day theater of the grotesque, here, at the bus stop. The characters arrange themselves on grassy footpaths and sun-bleached sidewalks, hair parted, unscuffed shoes chafing. But these protagonists don’t know they’re players. The children simply line up for the school bus hoisting clear backpacks.

The backpacks are clearso they cannot conceal AR-15s like DDM4s, neither revolvers nor rifles, not shotguns nor semi-automatics. They’re clear so they cannot hide calibers of any kind: 5.56, .45, .223, .38. They’re clear so they will deter a hidden handgun, a pilfered pistol, a firearm swiped from the family safe.

The backpacks are clear because school shootings have been rising steadily, swiftly, perhaps staggeringly in recent years. They’re clear because while school shootings are merely one of the ways American children face gun violence, 2022 tallied an all-time high in bullets fired on school grounds. They’re clear because 2023 may mark a new record.

They’re clear because the United States—the nation that arms its educators, the nation that carries out active shooter drills in classrooms, and the nation that puts children through metal detectors before first period—would rather regulate its backpacks than its firearms.

What’s hilarious is that the author acknowledges that the kids are taking guns from adults, that they’re essentially stealing firearms, and yet she also seems to think the answer lies in restricting firearms.

First, that’s nonsense. We have an entire site here filled with why that’s nonsense, so I’m not going to delve deeply into why that’s nonsense.

However, the author is lamenting schools doing this instead of passing some kind of gun control and completely ignoring one incredibly important point: Schools can’t enact gun control.

See, school boards and administrators are feeling the pressure to do something. Even if gun control was an option and there was no Second Amendment, those entities still don’t have the authority to pass it. Their ability to restrict things generally ends at the campus property lines.

Yet they’re still expected to do something, so what’s left to them? Well, things like mandating clear backpacks, as an example.

Lamenting these kinds of actions is ignoring the fact that this was never an either/or thing. It’s not like school boards decided this instead of passing gun control. They never had the authority to pass any such regulation.

Further, let’s also remember that many of the guns brought to school aren’t necessarily taken from law-abiding adults. They’re taking from the grown-ups, but those adults aren’t exactly lawful gun owners, either.

So why not mandate clear backpacks or other school security measures? Even if gun control happened, we’d still have an issue with guns in the wrong hands. Pretending otherwise requires a lack of intellect so profound that I’d be amazed such a person can muster the brainpower to remember to breathe on their own.

Let’s also not forget that there are other weapons that can get smuggled into a school including things like knives. Those get a little easier to prevent if they’re not in the backpack. Not completely, but it helps.

Lamenting such a thing is easy. I get it. I don’t like seeing clear backpacks, either. But let’s not pretend that gun control would suddenly end the potential danger in our schools, either.

https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2023/09/05/backpack-gun-control-n74485