The Three Weeks and Tisha b’Av

First, unless your childrens’ school has armed security guards, it is not safe. Courthouses – Federal and State – have armed guards. The US Capitol building has armed guards. The White House has armed guards. The Pentagon has armed guards. In all of these buildings there are adults, perfectly able to protect themselves. Yet, tax-payers cover the cost of armed guards. Yet, in schools – where our most precious assets are found – there are no armed guards. This makes no sense. There’s no need to make schools into prisons. We simply need at least three armed guards on duty, whenever children are in the building.

Second, many believe – wrongly – that police will protect them. In the US, police have no duty to protect the average person. The US Supreme Court so held in 1856, in South v. Maryland (59 U.S. 396 (1856): a private party has no right to police protection. In the modern language of a US Appellate Court: “But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is
monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution.” (Bowers v. Devito, 686 F.2d 616, 618 (7th Cir. 1982). This is “good law”, i.e., this decision has not been over-turned. Each of us is responsible for his/her own protection and all of us are responsible for protecting children. It is that simple.

In short, just as adults have a duty to protect children at home, adults have a duty to protect children at school. If some teachers do not wish to be armed – some will, some won’t – then we tax-payers need to come up with the money to provide professional armed security guards. There should be at least three per school, every minute that children are on the premises.

Nothing else can be made to work. If policy-makers are serious about protecting children – and we hope that’s so – then the top priority should be recruiting guards for schools.

One more thing. No responsible publication or broadcaster should mention the name – or reproduce a likeness – of the Newtown School murderer. He’s dead. No one needs to know his name or to see his face. It would be different were he a fugitive, and the police needed help to find him. That isn’t the case. He’s dead. By not mentioning his name – or spreading his likeness – we deny him the “fame” he sought and deter those, who seek similar “fame”. This murderer should vanish from among us, just as did the leader of al-Qaeda. No one mentions his name. That is as it should be.