If it Were a Child Shooter, Would We Arm the Other Children?

 I think of children, and how we usually do not let them have weapons. Supposing we did. Supposing we taught each child to carry a knife or a gun or some kind of a weapon. After all, the playground can be a dangerous place. There are haters. A child has to be prepared to defend himself (or herself).
   Things being no different than they are now, we can see we shouldn't do that. We can if we sent our kids off to school with weapons, urging them that they were necessary for defending themselves, it would be a calamity. But, what if a few children smuggled guns in, used them, and killed a few classmates? What if it happened a few times across the country? Would many parents start arming their children, sending them off to school, guns tucked away?
   To some extent, adults are but children too old to be called children. They sometimes react the same as children. So, if a fight between two children is no more than a fight between two children -- until you give them weapons -- is it so different with adults? We can argue degree. Maybe it would be worse with children. But, the point remains, a weapon in the hands of an adult, can be a weapon in the hands of a child.
    In this, there is argument for not encouraging everyone to carry weapons with them everywhere they go. If it would be a dangerous world for children, even so is it, in fact, a dangerous world for us, as adults.
   Maybe, you will argue that if it came to it, arming children to defend themselves would be the wise and right thing to do. (I would disagree.) And, maybe the world of the adult differs from the world of the child, and we are left to figure out why.
   Still, if there are differences, there are also likenesses, and I believe we might learn from the things that are the same. If it were a child shooter, what would we do to protect the other children? This is a tender question, and the answer I offer is not quite the answer you might see coming. You might say, we ban all children from having guns in school, and think that is the answer I am driving at. But, as I said, there are differences in the worlds of children and adults. This is one. We cannot ban people from having weapons.
   But, we can quit teaching that everyone should have weapons. We can quit encouraging everyone to pack. If such a teaching would be dangerous for kids, it can also be dangerous for adults.
    Instead of arming the children, themselves, we would be more inclined to providing someone to to protect them. Even so, with the adult world, we should provide protection, instead of expecting the people to protect themselves.