I’m reading about the recent Oregon school shooting with frustration as I observe the deaths of three children and a teacher. The only good thing about the situation: An armed father driving by Silver Rail Elementary School heard the shots, parked, ran into the danger and shot and killed the school shooter before he could kill any more children.
He ended the threat before police could even get on the scene.
It’s yet another horrible example of two true things. One, there are psychopaths who want to shoot up school kids. Two, they can only be stopped by shooting them.
My frustration is that Hawai‘i has stubbornly refused to acknowledge either reality and we are damned lucky we don’t have dead schoolchildren of our own.
If you think our keiki are being kept safe by our gun laws, you haven't thought past your feelings. In the real world, they are corralled into unprotected facilities with only police response time standing between them and death. That's exactly what happened at Silver Rail, where guns have been banned by state law since 2021.
One of the main sources of this vulnerability is our Act 52, the Statewide Sensitive Places Law, signed by Gov. Josh Green on June 2, 2023. He made this statement at the time:
“In observance of today’s National Gun Violence Awareness Day, I’m pleased to be signing two bills – SB1230 and HB1239 – as gun violence represents an urgent public health and public safety issue,” said Green. “These bills strike a very appropriate balance between public safety, and protecting people and children in Hawaiʻi, along with respecting the Second Amendment right of individuals.”
SB1230 became Act 52, banning guns from, among other places, all schools and universities, public or private.
HB1239 became Act 53, mandating “active shooter training” in the DOE. Well, sort of mandated, as it allows students to opt out. Here’s an example of such training at Hawai‘i Pacific University’s website, it’s the “run, hide, fight” method. I assume this same method is taught throughout the Department of Education for public schools.
And it doesn't work. There's evidence it makes things worse. Read “Unfortunate Outcomes for Popular Safety Programs,” published in 2021 at NBOA.org. This is a business leadership trade organization for independent schools. Author Michael Dorn says of run, hide, fight and similar programs, “It has become evident, however, that in multiple school attacks, these training approaches have resulted in what can only be described as tragic failures that have increased rather than decreased casualties.”
That was two years before Hawai‘i made such training the law of the land for our schools and universities.
Here's what happens to "run, hide, fight" in real life when unarmed children and teachers are attacked by school shooters:
Get shot in the back while you run.
Get shot wherever the shooter finds you hiding.
Get shot in the face while you fight ... with what, exactly? Algebra books?
These school shooters always end up being social misfit weirdos with chips on their shoulders who are going to make the world pay. They range from depressed and bullied to malicious and evil to inhumanly psychopathic. But they are generally not stupid. They select schools for a reason that ought to be jaw-droppingly obvious:
Schools are the only things weaker than the shooters themselves. The children are small and harmless. The teachers are nice people unaccustomed to violence. And, most importantly, from the shooter's perspective, they are all unarmed. No one can fight back.
Every school shooter knows this. They know it because there’s a stupid sign on the school that says, “gun-free zone.”
You know what that sign says to a school shooter?
“All-you-can-kill buffet.”
Oregon's Silver Rail Elementary itself is the proof, where three students were killed before that armed father stopped the shooter. "Oregon School Shooting District Had Banned Staff From Carrying Guns."
These laws are not safety. True safety comes from stopping the shooter immediately. True safety comes from would-be school shooters knowing they will be shot on sight so fast that it isn’t worth it, they’ll never achieve what they’ve set out to do. They need to know it’s a suicide mission with no pay-off — and note, many of them do end on suicide, but only after they’ve killed others. They want their body count first. Take away their prize and school shootings will stop.
This is reality. Under these laws, our children are no safer than the ones at Silver Rail. As far as I'm concerned, those children are human sacrifices to the moral vanity of the gun control advocates who left them undefended.
If you've seen me make this next point before, well, I'm going to make it again because it's still true.
I’ve worked Downtown for 30 years and have seen countless armored cars making deliveries, with their armed guards openly carrying guns on their hips.
No one even looks twice. No one squawks. No one freaks out, “OMG! That guard has a gun! Right here on Bishop Street! This is intolerable!”
Why? Because it’s obvious that sacks of money tempt robbers, including the armed-robbery type. We all collectively agree that people who transport money are at risk, the money is at risk, and if an armed robber gets killed during a robbery, well, too bad, you shouldn't have tried to steal the money and shoot the guards. That's if anybody gives this any thought at all, which, they probably don't because it's such obvious common sense that it's hardly worth noticing. Literally no has a problem with this. No marches on the state Capitol with a "no blood for armored cars!" sign.
School grounds, on the other hand, must be made as absolutely defenseless as possible or we simply can't live with ourselves. This is so important to us that we pass laws with fanfare and press conferences to celebrate how defenseless we've made the schools.
I don't get it.
What we're willing to protect with deadly force is what we truly value.
Looks to me like we love money more than we love children.
As for Green, he's surrounded by armed guards, at taxpayer expense. Kids on state property aren't, but he is. I guess we love our governors more than we love children, too.
How nice for him.
People sometimes grumble when opinion writers rant about a problem without proposing a solution, so here's mine: Free guns for school employees and the training needed to safely shoot straight. Does this need funding? Well, the state of Hawai‘i knows exactly how much I paid in state income taxes last year. Start with that, every penny. I'd like to pay for something that works for a change.
A. Kam Napier is editor in chief of Aloha State Daily. His opinions in Pipikaula Corner are his own and not reflective of the ASD team.
A. Kam Napier can be reached at kam@alohastatedaily.com.
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