Guns in schools

I realize that this is outside my usual posting of things about our life in Belize, but I don't know how else to express my extreme sadness about the recent shootings in the US.  It was upsetting enough to hear of a gunman in Clackamas Town Center in our home state of Oregon, but I'm still having trouble trying to fathom the devastating  deaths of those sweet children in Connecticut.  There don't seem to be any real answers to one human thinking he has the right to destroy another, especially children.  

Now we get a solution from those deep thinkers in the NRA, stating that the answer is to put guns in the schools.  Right!  Can you imagine the fear that those guns will create?  What message will that send to our children?  Guns are the answer to everything?  How do you tell a child to run from someone with a gun, but trust the people in the halls with guns?  How do you know that the person guarding the school with a gun isn't the one who's going to go off and use it? 

This puts me in mind of a dilemma that my husband dealt with as a mall Santa for several years.  Parents would get so upset when their little one cried when forced to sit on Santa's lap.  A child just knows that they don't know this strange man and Mom & Dad have told them to be afraid of strangers.  Now Mom's upset that the child cries.  This is Santa for lands sake.  No he's not, he's a big stranger.   How about someone with a gun?

There isn't a perfect answer in this unperfect world , but it seems to me that locking the schools from the outside and monitoring who comes in would be a better answer.  Even years ago when I attended school, we had bar door openers that allowed children to go out, but were locked from the outside.  I'm not sure about the effectiveness of gun control, but  can't fathom any reasonable answer for anyone to have an assault rifle or machine gun.  Target shooting isn't enough justification.  What's the purpose?  They're just designed to kill people.   I sure don't have an answer, but I do know that we can't let our children grow up surrounded by guns.  Please don't destroy the rest of childhood from our children.