Whenever these things come up, there are go to responses on the right. Sometimes it can be hard to penetrate those responses because they have been designed to shut down debate on gun control. These people get placed into two baskets. The first ones are the incendiary ones. They are a part of the leadership cult. They are purposefully trying to derail debate. The rest are just parroting what they hear. Many of them mean well, but they are helping the other side just the same. So, you will get a slight variance of these as you discuss this with friends and family.

1. The school’s security measures either failed them or they were not properly used. If they had been then the tragedy would have never occurred.

Usually, all it takes is to game this one out. Someone shows up with an automatic weapon, body armor, and numerous clips of ammunition then what is likely to happen? Of course, our response should vary slightly based on the person making this statement. Again, many are not in a psychological place to admit that they are not in control of their own destiny here. As the thinking goes, THEY did not use proper security, so THEY were not safe. WE use proper security, so WE will be safe. Understand that they need a reason to feel like it won’t happen to them.

2. If the teachers were armed then this wouldn’t have happened.

Okay, since I am in the classroom let me also game this situation out. Let’s pretend that we have a handful of professionals that are also trained and experienced in using a firearm. After all, we wouldn’t want old Ms. Jones to have to carry a weapon she’s never fired before. However, during one of these events you would have your two or three heroes going across campus in a matter of seconds and forced to make a split second decision to shoot someone that might be a student without hurting those around him (assuming it’s a male shooter).

Then, a few minutes later the SWAT team enters the building. They see what appears to be two, three, or four grown people holding guns and pointing it at each other. Who do they shoot exactly? How do they know who the good guys are with the guns and which one is the bad guy? You’d be looking at multiple dead bodies at that point.

3. We can’t enact X law because in this shooting Y occurred.

Remember this phrase: perfect is the enemy of good. There will be no perfect solutions. There will be no laws that prevent every single scenario. The goal is better and not perfect. We capture as many different scenarios as possible and realize there will be a new scenario. My sister (a head volleyball coach) has had to add to her rulebook every year. There are new scenarios to consider. This is like any other law and any other rule. People are creative and they dream up new ways to get what they want. We keep us as best we can. Remember the mantra: perfect is the enemy of good.

4. The kid was a disturbed kid and there was no telling that this would happen.

You will notice that a lot of these start to melt together. The best defense is to marry these together to make a response difficult. So, I repeat my response from the last one. If you think it’s a mental health problem then step up and make some suggestions. In a lot of these cases you had parents and neighbors that knew something was wrong. They were just powerless to stop it. We can be angry at the mother in the Sandy Hook case for instance. Her son was autistic and she introduced him to guns as a way to connect with him. We can lambast her all we want. She paid the ultimate price and we have to remember that she begged for help along the way because she knew her son was in trouble, There has to be a way for family, friends, and neighbors to alert authorities and actually get assistance and not be turned away. We need to figure this out AND we need common sense gun control legislation. This is not an either/or situation. It is both.

We have the smartest readers on the known internet here. Please feel free to add your own responses to these things in the comments. We need to help each other get through this and debate the friends, family members, and trolls they will encounter in our lives.