The National Review Online recently published an article by known anti-feminist and conservative pundit Charlotte Allen. She thinks the horrific shooting that occurred in a Newtown, CT elementary school was allowed to happen because there were no men around to stop the violence.

 

“There was not a single adult male on the school premises when the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizeable number of whom were undoubtedly 11- and 12-year-old boys (it was a K–6 school), all the personnel — the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the “reading specialist” — were female. There didn’t even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at Adam Lanza’s knees. Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass-murderers. The principal, Dawn Hochsprung, seemed to have performed bravely. According to reports, she activated the school’s public-address system and also lunged at Lanza, before he shot her to death. Some of the teachers managed to save all or some of their charges by rushing them into closets or bathrooms. But in general, a feminized setting is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak — but it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. Think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high-school football, or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys, had converged on Lanza.”

“Male aggression can be a good thing.” — Yes, tell that to the 27 individuals slaughtered and their families — all due to “male aggression.” The solution is obviously more male aggression. (Or not)

Ms. Allen claims that people should try to defend themselves against their attackers. While in a seemingly “normal” attack where someone throws a punch, pulls out a knife, or even a hand gun with a known small number of bullets this could be an option. You’d fight back, you’d throw things at them, shield yourself, or maybe even run away.

What Ms. Allen fails to recognize is her apparent nonchalant defense of this violence by failing to recognize that this was not by any means a defendable act, even if an individual were armed.

A lone gunman entered a school with two hand guns and a semi-automatic rifle with extended clip ammo. A rifle that will fire as fast as your finger can pull the trigger. A rifle that unloaded hundreds of rounds in minutes. Does Ms. Allen think she, or any civilian man (or according to her even some “huskier 12-year-old boys”) could have stopped that endless barrage of bullets?

The only thing Charlotte Allen said that made sense in her article was the fact that Adam Lanza’s mother should not have had guns and ammunition like that around her son, whom she knew to be unstable. Ms. Allen actually starts to get to the route of the problem at the end of the article without delving further into it.

“You simply can’t give a non-working, non-school-enrolled 20-year-old man free range of your home, much less your cache of weapons.”

On this, she’s correct. Adam Lanza’s mother had a stockpile of weapons in her home for personal safety. The argument can of course be made that he could have gotten his hands on the weapons anyway, but it must be noted that the easy access he had to them made it possible for him to perform this heinous act and he was not mentally healthy enough to be trusted around them.

These semi-automatic assault rifles are made readily available to the public and mental health care is not.

No one seeks to ban the right to own a firearm. However just as with a car which can also kill, there needs to be limits. With cars we have registration, liability, qualifications, skills tests, health requirements, safety belts, speed limits, etc. etc. etc. Is it so unreasonable to have sensible reform on the manufacturing, ownership, and access to such deadly fire power? Is it?

Don’t go looking for scapegoats like “There was not a single male on the school premises when the shooting occurred.” That’s a pathetic excuse to be anti-feminist and shift blame. It’s also an insult to women in our armed forces, public police force, and women in general who are quite capable at asserting themselves and kicking some ass when necessary.

Let’s get to the route of the problem, which is not only access to military style weaponry, but also our culture. A culture where freedom is asserted through firepower. A culture where the ability to kill is worshiped… and yes, guns are used to kill, that is their sole purpose — to kill or practice killing (target practice and competitions). We’ve created a culture where violence is the answer. Where if someone does wrong to us we automatically want to hurt them.

We need to have a national conversation and do a bit of soul-searching. What kind of nation do we want? Do we want to live where we have armed security in every crevice of society (schools, theaters, airports, playgrounds, malls, etc.)? Or do we want to start teaching problem solving through more peaceful means? It’s really up to us. However in the mean time let’s seek logical reform to at least reduce the number of victims. Is that really too much to ask?

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