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RICHMOND A congressman from Texas said Sunday that the solution to the periodic slaughter of children in school is to place armed guards at every school in the nation.

He brushed off the journalist interviewing him when she said the school in Uvalde, Texas, had armed guards. He blamed Columbine (1999), its notoriety and the power of suggestion, for school shootings that have occurred since then. He said he could not see any other connection among the shootings, which appeared to him to be otherwise random.

The interviewer said guns were the connector. He repeated his proposal for armed guards as a solution. CNN anchor Dana Bash said more guns as a solution? He said, Not guns, armed guards. She thanked him for coming.

Earlier last week, the comments of national security analyst Juliette Kayyem were quite different. Adviser to President Obama and to Gov. Mike Dukakis on domestic security, she currently lectures at Harvards Kennedy School of Government on homeland security and related topics, has won awards for editorials in the Boston Globe and writes for The Atlantic.

Also appearing on CNN, Kayyem said, A society can either make gun ownership permissive or less permissive. We have essentially made it like chewing gum. The data is clear. Gun control measures work. The nihilism [that gun control doesnt work] you hear defies decades of data. ... It is a lie.

The nation had a ban on assault weapons from 1994 to 2004. It expired when Congress failed to renew it. Part of the data being defied is that deaths in mass shootings fell during the 10-year ban.

The Texas congressmans view illustrates the tunnel vision of those who want to bypass the issue of too many guns. Instead, those against new gun safety regulations prefer to blame mental illness, give guns to teachers, add guards to schools, permit people to carry concealed weapons and, in many states, allow people to buy assault weapons designed for military use.

Nine years old, those children now buried in Nashville, Tenn, where the Legislature is considering a bill that will loosen the states already nonrestrictive gun laws. Even younger at Sandy Hook in Connecticut. A little older at Marjorie Stoneman High School in Florida. In Sutherland Springs, Texas, churchgoers who survived 450 bullets (traveling at 3,200 feet per second from a Ruger AR 556) are suffering lifelong pain and crippling because of lead toxicity.

Despite the accusations of the most vocal of the gun lobbyists, most Americans arent looking for a gunless world. The nation has always had a gun culture. Its not a matter of tossing the Second Amendment.

Its a matter of common sense no one, absolutely no one, in civilian life, needs a weapon designed for military use. Gun manufacturers, however, have marketed it well, and a seven-month investigation by the Washington Post found that the proliferation of the AR-15 in the past 20 years is linked to a change in strategy by the gun industry. It began marketing the AR-15 to civilians, despite the fact that it was a product that traditionally was anathema to their culture and traditions, according to the Post.

Marketing works. Its why we ask our doctors if a TV advertised drug will cure us, its why kids want the latest toy, its why insurance companies parade geckos and emus. We respond. Now an estimated 1 in 20 America adults own at least one AR-15, a weapon that blows children to bits. The study showed AR-15 owners were more likely than adults overall to be male, between 45 and 65, Republican and live in a state won by the former president in 2020.

The industry has responded by shifting some of its manufacturing to more welcoming states. Ruger, for instance, with headquarters in Southport, Conn., has built a new plant in Mayodan, N.C., and the Post interviewed one happy employee who quit her $7.25 job (the cruel federal minimum used in some states) for the $14 an hour, plus overtime, she could make with Ruger. Still not a living wage and lower than the minimum in Massachusetts and Connecticut, another reason for the company to expand elsewhere.

The gun culture will live here. The Second Amendment will live. But just as we license drivers, have age limits on driving, drinking, voting, enlisting, we need better rules for gun ownership.

As a veteran of homeland security analysis, Juliette Kayyem says we absolutely need the ban on assault weapons. We need to make it harder, less permissive.

And when it comes to armed guards at schools, what about all those people who died in church, at the movies, at a concert venue, at a mall, at a grocery store? Vocational schools will need to add a course in armed guardianship.

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Ruth Bass: Opponents of more gun rules are dodging the bullet - Berkshire Eagle