As you might imagine, we received lots of comments on the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, and proposals to arm teachers and/or regulate semi-automatic rifles in North Carolina. We’ll begin with Pat Orsban, who says the issue is, in fact, the gunsthere aren’t enough of them.

“It is about the guns,” Orsban writes, “and the efforts of liberalsocialists [sic] to keep them out of the hands of victims. Plenty of warning signs here. All ignored. No law would have stopped this. One law allowed the body count to reach liberal news proportions. Norway has gun control laws liberalsocialists [sic] here drool over, yet one man was able to slaughter eighty disarmed victims there. Yet liberals want to disarm more victims (no-gun zones), violate the rights of more law-abiding citizens (gun control laws), and continue to protect more criminals (sanctuary cities), all while they call me a racist and say I do not care about the dead children. Remind me again why I should listen to these barking insane people, or why anyone would vote for them? How about we allow teachers the choice of what they would use to protect their students?”

Joe Wright concurs: “It still amazes me that people continue to blame an inanimate object for the acts of people. Yes, the gun was the instrument of death, but there was a person behind it. Blame the killer. Do you blame the bomb? Do you blame the car? Do you blame the knife? You are deluding yourself when you think the gun is the problem. The killer is the problem.

“They’re not talking about arming teachers. They are talking about allowing teachers to bring their own guns to work with them. Do you remember the last time a teacher went awry and murdered any students?”

Donovan Merrill isn’t sold on giving teachers guns: “What a great idea. I’m sure some frustrated, unhinged teacher wouldn’t use the gun on students, or some frustrated, unhinged students wouldn’t get their hands on the guns. So freaking stupid.”

Neither is Scott Dotson: “You don’t need to arm them, you just need to restrict access to schools so that adults who have no reason to be on campus can’t get on campus. As a father, the idea that some random adult has access to the school is insanity. Even on military posts, which have guarded gates and random car searches, the schools have secure access. As a parent, I have to be buzzed in, sign in at the desk, and then wait for an escort. My child is scanned in and out of the building. That doesn’t require a firearm at all. Just a door lock.”

Counters George Martin: “When you libs put away your cell phones, computers, and tablets and start using a quill and pen, I might think about going back to a musket. Also, the Israelis haven’t had a school shooting in forty-four years, after the Palestinians murdered thirty-one and wounded sixty-eight teachers and students at the Ma’alot massacre in 1974. Teachers and staff are trained and armed and drill with students on a regular basis to work as a team/alone.”

Quick fact check: Israel, which has compulsory military service, only allows private citizens to acquire firearms if they can prove their professions or places of work are dangerous. Also, while it stations armed guards outside of schools, this is to prevent terrorist attacks.

Speaking of fact checks, Michael Lee Buie comments on an article we published after the Pulse nightclub massacre in 2016 on how to buy an assault rifle in North Carolina: “Your fun facts are completely wrong. The AR-15 only became an ‘assault rifle’ when control freaks started labeling it that. Read up about the M-16. That’s a military weapon. Your whole article is wrong because it’s based on a false premise.”