It Takes a Police State to Raise a Child
Doug Newman
dougnewman@juno.com

Special to The Libertarian Enterprise

In the aftermath of Wednesday's hostage taking and murder-suicide at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, I can just hear all the gun grabbers proclaiming that it only goes to show that we cannot tolerate guns in—or anywhere near—schools. Well, one of their dream bills has just been passed by Congress.

On September 23, World Net Daily reported that the House of Representatives has passed an anti-drug and anti-weapon bill—HR 5295—that "would require local districts to develop search policies—including strip searches—with immunity against prosecution for teachers and staff."

HR 5295 reads in part as follows:

"A search referred to in subsection (a) is a search by a full-time teacher or school official, acting on any reasonable suspicion based on professional experience and judgment, of any minor student on the grounds of any public school, if the search is conducted to ensure that classrooms, school buildings, school property and students remain free from the threat of all weapons, dangerous materials, or illegal narcotics. The measures used to conduct any search must be reasonably related to the search's objectives, without being excessively intrusive in light of the student's age, sex, and the nature of the offense."

Five things came to mind immediately.

• First, the requirement of "reasonable suspicion" of a teacher or school staffer is not nearly as strong as the Fourth Amendment's requirement of a judge's warrant that shall not be issued "but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or Affirmation." In the case of Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the Supreme Court stated that students do not "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door". These rights also include the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
  
• Second, student-teacher sex is happening more and more frequently across America. Moreover, there is a new trend of female teachers having sex with male students.
  
• Third, while schools have been gun-free zones for years, this do-gooderism did not prevent the orgy of blood at Columbine. The Harrises and Klebolds of the world do not give one flying rip about anyone's little pantywaist gun laws. On that horrible morning in 1999, the students, faculty and staff were absolutely defenseless as those two little pukes sprayed bullets all over the school.
  
• Fourth, the War on Drugs has been a monumental failure. There is now one drug arrest every 40 seconds in America. Largely because of the War on Drugs, America—the land of the free—has the world's highest incarceration rate. America has more drugs than ever and more dangerous drugs than ever. Drug prohibition has not solved anything and has created a whole new host of problems that did not exist when we started down this road decades ago.
  
• Fifth, there is no constitutional authority whatsoever for federal intrusion in education. Article 1, Section 8, which spells out the 18 duties of the federal government, does not even mention the word "education". The Tenth Amendment forbids Uncle Sam from intruding in any area not authorized by the Constitution. (The Constitution thereby forbids the drug war as well.)

The same folks who laughed convulsively when Hillary Clinton stated that "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child" evidently have no problem with the idea that it takes a police state to raise a child.

Well, I have some news for police state groupies: disarming students did not stop Columbine and it did not stop Wednesday's bloodshed 38 miles southwest of Columbine. Duane Morrison, 53—totally undeterred by everyone's stupid gun laws—entered a classroom, fired a warning shot and ordered all the students out of the room, except for six girls. Over the next four hours he sexually assaulted several of the girls and killed one—16-year-old junior Emily Keyes—before killing himself.

I can hear people saying: I basically support the Second Amendment, but do we really neeeeed guns in schools?

Let me give you a little thought experiment.

Let's say that one of the students ordered to leave the room on Wednesday at Platte Canyon High had a gun in his book bag. And let us say that, fearing for his life and the lives of those around him, he shot Morrison. The innocent life of Emily Keyes would have been saved and no girls would have been sexually assaulted and traumatized.

Let me give you two more little thought experiments.

Let's say that students were not forced to "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door". Let us say that Eric Harris and Dyaln Klebold would have been deterred by the mere possibility that someone somewhere on the Columbine campus could have busted a cap on them on that horrible morning in 1999.

Let's say that the mere thought that someone somewhere on the Platte Canyon campus could be packing heat could have been enough to deter psycho sicko Duane Morrison from doing what he did on Wednesday.

When you disarm innocent people, bad things happen.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In the seven-plus years since Columbine, nothing has changed. We throw more and more money at schools, and they just get worse. We lock up more and more druggies, and things just get worse. We continue to disarm students and we get more school shootings. We continue to beg for our government to "do something" after every crisis, and things get worse.

It takes neither a village nor a police state to raise a child. It takes loving, dedicated, involved parents. Nothing will change in America until enough people realize this and starting acting accordingly. No law or "policy" can bring about this change. The needed change has to come in the hearts and minds of the American people.

Related articles:

What's Wrong With Education?: It's the Government, Stupid!

Pining for the Peaceful Paradise of the Omnipotent State by Vin Suprynowicz, April 21, 1999.

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