If you are passionate about gun control, you're aren't going to like this post

I live in a blue city (Philadelphia) in a red state.  There's an old joke in my home town:  Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.  Like many jokes and cliches, this one persists because there is a core of truth in it.

And so it may come as no surprise that the Pennsylvania Senate is considering a bill that would allow public school teachers to carry guns.  Of course, the plan has attracted a lot of push back from gun control groups and also some teachers.

But might the legislators, the majority of whom are Republicans from the Keystone State's "Alabama" heartland, be onto something?  After all, even Donald Trump gets it right sometimes.

The Sandy Hook elementary school killer went to the local high school first, but left because he saw a an armed school-resource officer on duty there.

Schools at all levels, from elementary to higher ed, engage in lock-down drills. My personal opinion, based on more than mere speculation, is that these exercises are pretty much worthless.  So are unarmed security personnel at the front door.

There's another old saw that holds a core of truth: one definition of madness is trying the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different outcome.

Einstein is credited with saying that.  He also is credited with urging America to develop an atomic bomb, because he knew the Third Reich was capable of developing one.  Sounds as if he was a realist.

Is it perhaps time we got real about what doesn't work in protecting our children and ourselves from the radicals and the nuts?  Is it time to try something very different?