Guns kill good people and bad people. In Parkland, Florida, good people were killed. In St. Mary’s County, Maryland, today, the bad guy died and good people lived.
A gunman who opened fire at Great Mills High School in Maryland was killed today after engaging an armed school resource officer, authorities said.
The shooter, Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17, was the only fatality. Police said Rollins used a handgun to shoot a 16-year-old female student who is in the ICU with life-threatening, critical injuries. A 14-year-old male student was also shot and is in stable condition.
It’s an inconvenient blow to the narrative of those who wish to exploit deaths in order to eradicate liberty. But facts are stubborn things.
We’re supposed to assume there’s no such thing as good or bad. Violent killers, whatever their motives, age or weapons, show us otherwise. Again and again.
It’s considered unsophisticated to speak of bad people. “Who’s to say what’s good or bad?” Yet bad people have no such pretense. They simply do their thing. If good people were half as consistent as bad people, they’d overwhelmingly start winning. In moments like the one today, they do.
It’s considered mystical or supernatural to speak of evil. But evil is as real, objective and true as the moon in the sky or the nose on your face. If you doubt it, then talk to the survivors of any of these school shootings, or any place where evil has shown its existence. Good and evil are real life things, and they have consequences.
Blaine Gaskill, a St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office deputy with SWAT training who had been positioned at Great Mills High School since the beginning of the school year, immediately responded after being alerted of the shooting, officials said. According to wtop.com, it’s not known whether the shooter died from the bullet of the deputy, or from his own hand. Regardless, others are alive because the deputy was armed, present and focused. It’s as simple as that.
There will always be bad guys with guns. Getting rid of them is not an option. The only option is to make sure at least one good guy has a gun. Thankfully for the students at Great Mills High School today, one good guy did.
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