A couple of weeks ago, after the school shooting in Florida, WRAL TV climbed up onto the biggest soapbox around and demanded every North Carolina Republican Congressman support banning the AR-15 rifle.

Now the AR-15 looks just like the army’s M-16 but, in fact, it’s not an automatic rifle. Like hundreds of other rifles, it’s a semi-automatic. But that fact didn’t deter WRAL.

Banning guns is one solution to stop school shootings. And liberals love it. But there’s a flaw: The Columbine school shooting happened at a time when AR-15’s were banned. Ban one gun and criminals use another.

Background checks to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill are a second solution. It sounds good too. But, here again, we’ve seen a flaw: Some mass murderers were being treated for mental illnesses but others were not.

Neither solution is a cure-all.

Which leaves increasing school security by putting highly-trained military-type guards and metal detectors in schools and by arming teachers. Is that solution perfect? No. But guards and metal detectors have worked in airports and at sporting events, so increasing school security makes common sense. A military-type guard would have a pretty good chance of stopping a shooter. But open the newspapers and what do you see? A parade of people howling at each other – about two solutions that haven’t worked.