[Mz]

Do you really think that the sort of people who would shoot up a classroom will have second thoughts if they think someone else might have a gun?

Bullies are almost always cowards. So it seems plausible to me.

On the other hand, I think I understand where this piece of satire is coming from. I was a military wife and full-time mom and homemaker for a long time. My dad was career military and grew up on a farm. I grew up with shotguns hanging on the wall of my parent's bedroom. I have been around gun culture but I insisted my husband get rid of the handgun he had for a time because I am clear that if you are not prepared to kill someone when you pull a gun, you best not pull it because you are likely just arming your opponent and escalating the problems.

Escalating the arms race rarely leads to promoting the peace. It is unfortunate that satirical pieces of this sort so rarely follow up with commentary on how on promotes the peace after they lambast the idea of arming people to promote peace. But it seems to me that many people who recognize that more guns is not the solution do not know what would be an effective solution, so presumably they simply cannot offer anything more than criticism of the proposed solution. If you do not have an alternative solution to bring to the table, it usually isn't very helpful to shoot down (so to speak) the solution being proposed. But it happens a lot.