Remember your days in school when someone in class was acting up? Teachers had various methods of restoring order. Sometimes she wasn’t quite sure who it was, or didn’t want to call out the actual offender – but instead punished the whole class hoping to apply some form of “peer pressure.”
News flash! That technique might have worked on a group of 5th graders but it is NOT an appropriate method to apply to the US population at large.
Yet that “broad brush” approach to solving a behavioral problem among a few individuals misses the mark in two ways:
1) It unfairly punishes the vast majority of citizens who follow the rules, and
2) It does not focus on those few (in the case of the US population fewer than 0.1% of the total population) who are the offenders in the examples provided below.
The elementary school disciplinary technique of punishing the whole class while ignoring the perps does not work when applied to a whole nation.
Three examples come to mind: Airport security, school security and flying flags.
In the case of airport security, we understood which tiny segment of our population was involved in hijacking aircraft. We knew the personalities and predispositions of those who actually hijacked aircraft. They were those who practiced the fundamentalist Islamic faith, they were of Middle Eastern decent, and they were typically males between 18 and 40 years of age. 
Yet what did we do? We subjected EVERYONE who flew in planes to be subject to invasive body searches. ENVERYONE! It’s as if everyone who used a plane for transportation was a threat, fully ignoring those who we knew actually were a threat. Why?
In the case of school security, we understand which tiny segment of our population is involved in school shootings. We know personalities and predispositions of those who actually carried out school shootings. They were those less than 18 years of age, male, troubled, posting threatening messages on social media, often bullied, and from broken or abusive homes. How difficult is it for individuals fitting that profile to be tagged, monitored and denied the sale of weapons?
Yet what do we do? Many propose to subject EVERYONE who owns a gun or thinking of owning a gun to gun ownership and gun use prohibitions. EVERYONE! It’s as if everyone who owns a gun for protection or sport or hobby is a threat, fully ignoring those who we know actually ARE a threat. Why?
Why? Why, in these two examples, do politicians choose the broad brush approach, painting EVERYONE as potential hijackers or school shooters instead of identifying those who actually are?
This third example might provide a clue.
In the case of homeowners flying flags in local communities, the legal right to fly a flag offers some peculiar and unpleasant realities. The examples provided apply only to those situations tested by the law. Of course one could fly anything in a homeowners association if no one complains.
So here is the example:
Flags are a form of speech subject to the first amendment. So basically a flag depicting ANYTHING, a sports team, ISIS, the CRIPS, any nation, as well as the US flag, are all theoretically allowed under the law. But HOA’s typically limit formal written permission of flags to the US flag only. But we know other flags are flown without those “rules” being enforced. Why? Because if they were enforced the association would probably lose in court.
Why would the association lose? Because such enforcement would discriminate against a class of people and abridge their free speech. You can’t discriminate against Satanists who might want their own flag.
You can’t “profile” and discriminate against a person who practices a fundamentalist Islamic faith from a Middle Eastern country who is male between 18 and 40 years of age.
Does this same “excuse” apply to refusal to “profile “ kids less than 18 years of age, male, troubled, posting threatening messages on social media, often bullied, and from broken or abusive homes? Would that be considered discrimination against a “class” of people who fit that profile? After all, most troubled kids would probably not even consider shooting up their school.
So instead of assuring that kids who fit that profile are denied weapons and referred to a barely existing mental health system, we have those who insist on applying the “broad brush” and prohibit everyone from possessing weapons.
That, in a nutshell, is another terrible excuse to apply the “broad brush” that considers every evil to be entitled to first amendment protections. That is the area where more thinking and refinement of the limits of the first amendment is appropriate.
Just overly simplistically banning guns is another mindless, poorly consider approach to addressing school shootings that “misses the mark.”
Rationally and logically, keeping guns in the hands of those who are intent on SAVING LIVES to defend against those with guns who are intent on TAKING LIVES is much preferred over making those intent on saving lives defenseless.
Those intent on taking lives do not care if the weapon, whatever it is, was obtained legally or illegally or if a sign is posted prohibiting weapons on school property.
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