An Ounce of Prevention

Written by Guest Author: Rick Cohen

It has been said that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. When various entities concentrate on prevention to the exclusion of intervention, the extreme violence continues to cause irreversible harm. What needs to be addressed is what we can do to stop criminal violence when prevention fails, which it has done multiple times over the last 50 years despite legislation to stop it.

One thing is for certain: there is no one more motivated to stop imminent violence than the person against whom that violence is directed. It would therefore seem advisable to identify sane, sober, moral, prudent persons who are willing to be trained and armed and provide them with the necessary tools to be able to immediately stop the threat when all else fails. I am certain that some of the aforementioned individuals, such as teachers, maintenance staff, and administrators would gladly volunteer for such an honorable duty. There are superb training facilities who have already advised that they would willingly supply the necessary instruction at no cost.

In past school shootings, armed individuals have successfully terminated the threat. I am reasonably sure that there have been many more unknown instances when evil actions were prevented by the mere knowledge of the presence of armed personnel. I truly believe that no one of any color, gender or political persuasion wants anything but a totally safe and uneventful school experience for all staff and students. To pose a rhetorical question in these instances of criminal violence in “gun-free” zones: suppose there had been an armed individual as described above present at any of these events. How might the outcome have been different? Suppose two armed individuals, or three? To stop the killing, we must stop the killers—if not by prevention, then by immediate defensive action.