Our fathers used to tell us that the good old days were the days of wooden ships and iron men and that the pansy modern world had reversed things.
In this vein, it is good to read stories from time to time like the one below, when a gunman began shooting at a Denver school recently:
Heroic Teacher Describes Tackling Shooter
A math teacher at Deer Creek Middle School said he didn't know if it was "courage or stupidity" that was driving him when he approached and then tackled the man who shot two students at his school on Tuesday.
"I grabbed him by the front. And then we were kind of dancing around for a while and I don't really remember how we got on the ground," said David Benke at his home in Littleton Tuesday night.
Benke, 57, told CBS4 he was on parking lot duty as school was letting out when he heard the first gunshot, which he said sounded like a firecracker going off inside a trash can.
That's when he spotted the man police say was Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood.
"I started walking over there pretty quickly," he said.
As Benke approached he says he saw the man fire a second shot with his weapon.
"I saw that the guy had a rifle and then, unfortunately, he got another round off. I was walking towards him and then I realized that it was a bolt action rifle and that he wasn't going to be able to load quickly enough, and so I grabbed him," Benke said.
"What I noticed was that he was trying to manipulate the action of the rifle and that I had time to grab him before he could get another shot off. I didn't even think about whether he had a pistol or anything like that.
Benke, who is 6-foot-5, then wrestled the man to the ground and said another teacher, Norm Hanne, also jumped on him. Yet another employee, Becky Brown, grabbed the rifle and took it inside the school, Benke said.
When he and Hanne had the gunman on the ground and were struggling to restrain him, they said the man was threatening to sue them. They said the suspect was thrashing around as they were trying to calm him down.
Benke is the father of three children. He was once a finalist for Colorado Teacher of the Year and was teaching in Gilpin County when the shootings at nearby Columbine High School happened in 1999.
Cindy Stevenson, superintendent of Jefferson County Public Schools, and Jefferson County Sheriff Ted Mink both praised Benke and the actions of the other teachers on Tuesday.
A Facebook page was also created called "Dr. David Benke Is A Hero!!!!" for people to praise thank Benke for his heroism.
Now, let's imagine this might have happened somewhere in New Zealand, rather than in Denver, Colorado.
1. The police would likely have warned the public from taking matters into their own hands, and admonished the three teachers not to be so foolish in future, reprimanding them for setting a bad example, especially to impressionable children.
2. The two male teachers would be charged with common assault. The female teacher would be charged with theft of a firearm.
3. Legal aid would be offered to the victim, Bruco Strongeagle Eastwood to enable him to sue his assailants.
4. ACC would issue yet another warning against anyone taking undue risks.
5. The teachers union would cancel the membership of the three teachers for bringing the profession into disrepute and setting pupils a very bad example of attempting to solve problems with gratuitous violence.
6. The Teacher Registration Board would suspend the registration of the three teachers, pending a full investigation.
7. OSH would take legal action against the school for failing to ensure a safe work environment.
8. The school would set up a Facebook page inviting the public and the community to leave notices of humiliation and correction for the three teachers.
9. The Greens would call for the banning of all guns and for urgent action to combat global warming which they would allege is causing escalating violence in society.
10. The Maori Party would issue a statement blaming white colonisation for, well, everything.
11. Dissident Maori Party MP, Hone Harawira would congratulate the gunman for using his firearm to draw public attention to his grievances, and would invite him to come to NZ on the Parliamentary expenses budget to address disgruntled Kaipara Harbour fishermen, to show them how it was done.
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