Florida Schoolboard Shooting Illustrates How Gun Laws Serve to Disarm Only the Good Guys

As tired as you might be of the old cliche, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns", it remains as true as ever.

Last week a deranged man took the podium at a public school board meeting in Florida, spray painted a large "V" symbol on the wall, and proceeded to terrorize a group of innocent school board officials and the superintendent for several minutes before opening fire and subsequently committing "suicide by security officer".

As usual, when seconds counted, the police were only minutes away. No offense to law enforcement, but until teleporters are invented those guys will be hard pressed to make it to a scene like this in time to do much more than mop up and write the report.

The only clear answer is to comply with the United States Constitution and give law abiding citizens back their right to keep and BEAR arms. The striking thing about this episode is that the entire event was captured on video and released to public outlets. The clip is highly disturbing and contains the incredible footage not only of a surprisingly calm and self-sacrificing superintendent pleading with the gunman to let everyone else go and offering to take the full wrath of the madman upon himself, but also the astonishingly courageous and foolish act of a released female board member re-entering the danger zone and making a failed attempt to knock the gun out of the terrorist's hand with her purse.

Watch this video of the shooting only if you can stomach the sight of innocent people in serious jeopardy as a man attempts to murder them, and the subsequent shooting of the would-be murderer by the school district security officer. The video cuts off just prior to the self inflicted gunshot to the head that ends the life of this poor maniac.

Consider this as you watch these defenseless people sit and wonder if they will leave that room alive: The only armed person in the building besides the criminal was the School district's security officer. He was outside the room until the gunman opened fire, at which time he burst through the door and engaged him in a fire fight. The security officer had been waiting outside the door, unsure of the gunman's position in the room and making the wise choice not to enter and escalate the situation when he had no view into the room until he heard gun shots.

Had there been just one other person in that room in possession of a gun and the skill to use it, there were numerous opportunities throughout the ordeal for the gunman to have been taken down before he opened fire.

But current laws in Florida prohibit non-security personnel from possession of a gun in a school board meeting. That law worked fine to keep guns out of the hands of everyone except the person who had criminal intent...and the security officer who was elsewhere in the building at the time.