Good For The Country as a syndicated feature isn’t for gun owners; the feature is written for the non-gun owner and heads of household n identifying adversity to our way of life here, this time in an analysis of the Virginia Tech Massacre, Part II. This may sound harsh, but precisely how to optimize any real serious-minded solution to avert the very next school shooting some may be hearing for the very first time.

I’m not talking about guns – I’m talking about citizen authority and hiding the ball.

First, locales that have become announced Victim Disarmament Zones by federal law that you and I cannot carry a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school is an invitation to murderers who simply do it. These campuses, churches and public buildings are no longer immune on grounds of decency. We may sanctify them, but criminals sanctify nothing, and spit on our decency in the most hurt ways possible. It’s time to understand this.

What to do about this indecency of violating what is precious to us is to recognize civilian authority.

One of my greatest apprehensions – and observations in the past – has been the official reaction to first consult law enforcement and to freeze constituents out of the process entirely. One example of the lip service officials give to such events is New Orleans. For all the Internet advisory on civil preparedness, as many governments do, it all went out the window with other plans already in place, plans which very obviously excluded citizens.

New Orleans is under court order to return weapons illegally confiscated. They are now in contempt and still have not obeyed the order. So much for citizen input in disaster preparedness.

Closer to home, in the case of Victim Disarmament Zones around the nation, the message of freezing the citizen out of the equation is clear: “Don’t do anything until we get there.”

Don’t think for a minute that Cho didn’t take this into account. They all do. The Citizen believes he or she has to somehow get permission or wait and Cho gets the message that he has plenty of time to shoot and then commit suicide.

Violent crime is not fought by chasing it, it is not fought by policy and it is not fought by psychoanalysis of the next murderer in queue – violence is fought my meeting it instance by instance, by facing it where the target refuses to be a victim.

Violent Crime is not fought by doing nothing until we get there, by waiting for assets, nor by debating on which teams should be organized — crime is fought with citizen authority and personal superior force. It is this authority which is being hidden, discouraged and outrightly punished against the interests of the students and the interests of the United States herself.

It’s time to muster the guts to admit it. The rest ought to take care of itself because freedom can take care of itself. Virginia Tech is an exquisite example of what not to do.

My second fear is the failure of heads of household to realize their own citizen authority in planning how they will meet and manage an encounter with violence. In my surmise as an observer, I see a tragic values shift in America to discourage Independence and to cultivate dependency on agencies. Disarming people is one example of this and at what a price.

Independence can shine and discredit many social policies, so gun control is imposed to hide the ball such that many people never have the opportunity to act in good judgement.

Individuals are more afraid of the legal system than the thugs.

This pre-emptive policy – don’t do anything until we get there – hides the ball as to how the situation can be best met, not by taking the law into one’s own hands, but by taking the situation in hand – and with full legal authority to do so. One of the best kept secrets is that thugs aren’t afraid of police nearly as much as they fear an armed citizen.

Individuals have not only a right, but the authority to act in self-defense with up to lethal force. We have the authority to act in defense of another. That authority is the law of the land, and cannot in good faith be hidden by officials who still claim to act in the public interest.

Why discourage this authority on campuses? Why do you check your citizen authority at the door? Why, indeed?

So, do we arm everyone with guns?

If necessary.

But it wouldn’t be.

All that’s needed is the recognition of citizen authority, and individuals will elect or not elect to carry their personal handgun. Hiding the ball means obfuscating individual authority and discouraging action as if it were a matter of opinion or legal question. Citizen authority is beyond question. Ever hear of citizen’s arrest? Even after this, some will still believe that someone else will protect them.

The solution is a combination of things: abandoning the dangerous old paradigm of disarming the target in the stupid name of being anti-violence, and replacing it with a belief system of citizen authority. Understand that when an armed citizen is on scene, the law is then legally on scene. We are the law. Such individuals who act within this law and who are armed are possessed of all legal and moral authority, many of whom have already satisfied the training requirement of the state, and are possessed of good judgment to act in self-defense and in defense of another. Understand that no one can take their place as the first line of defense in such matters as in the first moments. Not police, not policy, no one. Anything else kills students and stalls this solution for political gain.

Drop the idea of doing nothing until someone else gets there. The law is already on scene in the armed citizen. When we delagate authority to law enforcement, we never gave up any of our own.

In a nation of laws, it’s time for schools to stop interfering with the law.

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John Longenecker is President of the Good For The Country Foundation, a patriotic non-profit education organization at www.GoodForTheCountry.org

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