Reply #39: Not blaming the victim. [View All]

[Xithras]

First off, my statement was clearly qualified with "those bystanders with the capability". Those who are innocent and unable to defend themselves are obviously not to blame. However, those who could have defended themselves, or who could have reasonably prepared to do so but elected not to out of some misguided morality, or who could have implemented procedures to do so, do not get off quite so easily.

In this case, a taser would have been a good example. Had she been equipped with a weapon such as a taser, she might have stopped him. She might have offered some resistance. Is it her fault that she didn't have one? No. The responsibility for that lays with the school, the district, and the common mindset that schools should remain defenseless. The teacher in this case bears no responsibility for what happened to her, but the school, which is quite aware of these kinds of dangers and yet chose to NOT implement ways of dealing with them, does bear it.

Your own proposal does not make sense in light of your argument. You advocate metal detectors and rules, but what good would those do against someone like this...someone intent on harming and killing anyway? What would have stopped this guy from merely shooting the door guard dead, proceeding to the classroom, and carrying out the attack anyway? The ONLY thing that would have stopped him is the presence of someone armed with a device capable of taking the guy down. Whether the device is a gun or a taser is irrelevant. Whether the shooter is a teacher, a principal, or a security guard is also irrelevant. What is NOT irrelevant, no matter how you look at this, is that ONLY the presence of A PERSON with the means to stop this attacker using violence would have prevented that teacher from being shot and stabbed. Only the application of violence could have stopped this violence.

My own contradiction is simply the fault of missing a couple of words, "Children need to see that those who would use violence are stopped" should have read: "Children need to see that those who would use violence to harm society or innocents are stopped". There is such a thing as right and wrong. It's wrong to hurt others. It's right to stop people from doing so.