NRA mouthpiece Wayne LaPierre came in for no shortage of sneering derision when he proposed putting armed guards in America’s schools after Sandy Hook. But despite all the feigned horror and elitist scorn, even Barack Obama himself has come around to the the NRA’s way of thinking. After all, number 18 on the President’s hit parade of 23 executive orders was “provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.” For those unfamiliar with bureaucratese, ‘school resource officers’ are otherwise known as armed security guards. Off duty cops. And yesterday the wisdom of the NRA’s approach played out at Price Middle School in Atlanta when an armed resource officer disarmed a kid with a firearm who had just shot a 14-year-old fellow student in the neck . . .

From an AP report via sltrib.com:

Investigators believe the shooting was not random and that something occurred between the two students that may have led to it.

Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.

The only problem with those metal detectors was that the shooting took place outside the school. But an off duty resource officer was there.

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn’t release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price. Since 20 children and six adults were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December, calls for armed officers in every school have resonated across the country.

The calls have “resonated.” Translation: school districts and parents want their children protected by someone with the ability to respond to an active shooter while media mavens and the commentariat have relentlessly ridiculed the idea as militarizing our schools. Instead, they see more gun control and restrictions on law-abiding firearms owners as the path to the nirvana of truly gun-free zones in which post offices, shopping malls and elementary schools are somehow made safe from murderous headcases. If you’re very quiet and listen very closely, you can hear Wayne enjoying the last laugh.

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43 COMMENTS

  1. I caught on to this as soon as I read Obama’s EO’s. Resource officer is a nice euphemism that most people won’t even realize are armed guards. Additionally what are the chances the NRA gets credit for the idea? The NRA also offered to provide training to teachers and school security for free. You think Obama or local gov’ts will take them up on the offer?

    • In the STL, School Resource Officers are full-time, gen-u-ine POST certified, sworn officers. Take home car and everything.

      All the little fights and occasional booze and weed don’t get you sent to the office for a stern talking to. Now get children arrested, charged, and thrown into the justice system. As nothing is ever truly expunged, a permanent black mark to be held against them later.

      They’ve been there getting kids accustomed to the police state for over a decade.

      • I don’t know what I hate more, a police state breathing down my neck or, getting taken out in a gun free zone….it’s a really crappy set of choices.

        • personally I’d get rid of both the “Gun Free Zones” AND your crappy “Cops as bad guys” attitude.

  2. A disarm can be tricky, but certainly preferable to shooting some stupid kid if you can pull it off. Nice work anonymous resource officer.

  3. Now I am curious. Will this little nugget of information be bandied about in the MSM? (I am not holding my breath)
    On the other hand, examples to use in “reasonable discussion” with rabid…err…passionate anti’s is always a plus.

  4. Obummer is ok with the HRO/police presence in schools since it pushes the propaganda message the people should and need to be reliant on bigger government for their needs.

  5. An off-duty resource officer sounds pretty damn close to lawful concealed carry to me. I’m still waiting on more details, but this looks pretty damn close to the lawful concealed carry that I have been advocating. If the SRO was off-duty, he would likely have been out of uniform. If one were to ask the media, it would be impossible to be a hero without wearing a uniform.

    Once again, a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun. Our Founding Fathers were intimately familiar with this concept. Unfortunately, our current crop of political leaders demonstrate as little understanding as our voters.

    • You’re not giving our current crop in Mordor-on-the-Potomac enough credit. I’m sure some do understand that but see anybody who has guns that’s not them or one of their “only ones” as bad guys.

      • This morning CNN is reporting that joe biden admits that the gun control laws he’s pushing won’t stop the killings.

        Good guys with guns trump bad guys with guns. SRO’s vetted staff and community members are the good guys.

  6. I haven’t seen much else from the MSM…certainly no month long coverage like Newtown. Seems like the story will die off quickly, probably because

    A. No white people were involved
    B. Armed security guard (just another wacky gun nut idea, amirite?) stopped the shooting.

    No white folks harmed and gun was used by a good guy, so the MSM doesn’t want it.

    • That really does sum up the political reality. The status quo is acceptable until a group of white kids (adults, middle schoolers, grandparents, whatever) are shot by some loon. “Oh, no! I didn’t know affluent white people could get shot. We have to stop this immediately, for the kids (well, ok, for us actually). And the people who politically drive the new legislation have been living charmed affluent lives well inside the no-crime perimeter. They don’t have a clue about life working twelve months a year OUTSIDE that perimeter. And they probably never will.

  9. The AP said “Schools Superintendent Erroll Davis said the school does have metal detectors.”

    That’s like every newspaper story that says the cyclist was wearing a helmet at the time of the collision, regardless whether it’s relevant to the cause or the outcome.

  10. I agree that this was an outstanding bit of work by the SRO. However, I am leery of proclaiming this as a win for the SRO concept because of this simple fact; the SRO did not deploy his sidearm. Those opposed to armed officers in schools will cite this as evidence that these same officers do not need to be armed, and that being armed is not the only defense against an AWG. They will shout this, all the while ignoring the fact that this is being reported as a focused attack, and not random in nature, therefore different entirely from the concept of a spree shooting. Granted, these same individuals probably do not understand the concepts of controlled aggression, and meeting a threat with the appropriate level of force.

    • Actually, we don’t know that yet. The RO could have drawn on the kid, convincing him to drop his gun. Then again, maybe not. And if this is covered at all like Sandy Hook, we probably never will exactly what happened.

      • True. I jumped the gun (pun intended) on that a bit. Apologies for the oversight.

        For the record, I’m leaning towards the “probably never will” side of things. Just because this appears to have been well-handled by the local LEO’s, and there is no body-count. Quite literally, nothing to see here…

    • Let’s not forget that the fact that his backup plan may have been to use the firearm. Knowing that may have helped give him the intestinal fortitude to attempt the disarm strategy. Of course if he was off-duty and carrying concealed without a uniform on, that legal uncertainty in the back of his mind may have caused him to hesitate. If it could save just one child, we’ve got to remove that legal uncertainty!

  11. I’m hesitant to call this some sort of proof of anything.

    Did the SRO intervene in a crime in-progress? Or did he/she simply arrive very rapidly after the crime had ceased?

  12. Really the media champions Obama’s wasting billions in waste for education but for a armed guard its too expensive show the media has the same intelligence as a rock.

  13. Yet another shining example of how little the accuracy of the words matter to the MSM or the politicians when those words come from the NRA. The NRA is the devil, the most hated creature, and their words cannot be trusted. Nothing they say or do is anything other than propoaganda for the gun industry.

    Of course, the MSM and politicians conveniently forget that Clinton proposed the same damn thing nearly 20 years ago and got rave reviews. And currently, schools and PDs are doing exactly what the NRA suggested, but noone in the MSM are saying “The NRA had a very good idea, cause signs don’t stop criminals.”

  14. Yet another shining example of how little the accuracy of the words matter to the MSM or the politicians when those words come from the NRA. The NRA is the devil, the most hated creature, and their words cannot be trusted. Nothing they say or do is anything other than propaganda for the gun industry.

    Of course, the MSM and politicians conveniently forget that Clinton proposed the same damn thing nearly 20 years ago and got rave reviews. And currently, schools and PDs are doing exactly what the NRA suggested, but noone in the MSM are saying “The NRA had a very good idea, cause signs don’t stop criminals.”

  15. Look, we all know how this turns out. Remember Al Gore and how he invented the internet? Of course he didn’t invent the internet, he just told people he did. And they believed him. School Resource Officers will be deployed across the country and Obama will take the credit for keeping our kids safe. He might even credit his good buddy Bill Clinton for giving him the idea. What we can be sure of is that no credit will go to Wayne and the NRA.

  17. If the NRA suddenly “discovered” gravity, the MSM would call the idea ludicrous.

    In a culture war, the other guys’ culture and leaders must be demonized, or the war is lost.

  18. Look, the NRA has won this argument based on the evidence of schools implementing the idea of armed people in the schools in the last month.

    That a SRO actually stopped something is frosting on the cake, but school districts voting to put armed employees into schools is the real winning of the argument.

    But if you want to really spike the ball, here’s your cause for doing so:

    http://bronxville.patch.com/articles/newtown-security-vision-discussion

  19. “For those unfamiliar with bureaucratese, ‘school resource officers’ are otherwise known as armed security guards.”

    Last time I checked I was a fully licensed Peace Officer in the State of Texas.

    Just sayin’…

    • Seems to vary widely by state. MO has had them over a decade, and they are also fully sworn and certified. They rotate out to the street during the summer.

      • Our summers consist of training, of all sorts, including state mandated (TCLEOSE) courses, Active Shooter and ‘Tactical Weapons Training’ (Shoot houses, range time, ALERRT, etc.)

        We get tenfold more training than our Patrol counterparts.

  20. Kudos to APD and the officer in question. Well done!

    Sadly, in my experience…the SRO position tends to be a dumping ground of sorts. Officers that don’t do well shagging calls and putting handcuffs on grown folks end up getting hosited off on the SRO job. This results in the poorest trained, worst shooting, least physically fit, or least aggressive officers being in these positions.

    Personally, most of the SRO’s I’ve known would be a danger to themselves or others if confronted by a determined active shooter.

    MOST, not all…but most…

  21. You wrote: “For those unfamiliar with bureaucratese, ‘school resource officers’ are otherwise known as armed security guards. Off duty cops. ”

    INCORRECT.

    They are not Security Guards. They are full fledged POLICE OFFICERS. and they are not “off Duty” but actively provided to the schools as a position with the local police department or Sheriff’s Office.

    Many School Districts are starting their own Police Departments rather than rely upon the Local Law Enforcement Department to provide School Resource Officers. And these are full Police Departments, hiring in Veteran Officers, not wannabe’s.

    Why don’t you look into the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in Cypress Texas (Suburb of Houston) They just started up a Police Department (before Sandy Hook)

    • Our Department was setup in 2008, and each Officer averages 8-9 years prior service before they joined. About a 1/3 are prior military.

      We are lucky.

      • My Brother is an 11 year veteran Law Enforcement, plus 6 years Army MP before that. Traffic Accident Investigator, Field Training Instructor, and numerous other certifications. He was hand picked to join CFISD’s new police department. Over 600+ applicants, including Former FBI, ATF, US Marshalls, etc… only 60 Officers chosen. Every officer from my brother’s old department made the cut. About 6 of them.
        http://www.cfisd.net/dept2/police/default.htm

        CFISD is the one of the largest and the richest School District in Texas.

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