mom calls on trump

In this emotionally-charged CNN video, the mother of Alyssa Alhadeff, who was tragically murdered in yesterday’s school attack, calls on President Trump to take action. Namely, she calls for security. “How do we allow a gunman to come into our childrens’ school? How do they get through security? […] Put metal detectors in every entrance to the schools!” Yes, we may be on the right track here . . .

At least this is a more practical, achievable, less controversial and less politicized option for reducing the likelihood of tragedy. We can and should harden what are, currently, often the very softest of targets.

But, while a metal detector will provide warning of an armed person entering the school — at the risk of sounding crass — so do gunshots. A metal detector or similar system is only effective if its warning is followed by an immediate, meaningful reaction. Something that prevents the metal detectee from entering the premises should they alarm on the detector.

This could be secure doors. This could be armed security, to include a stand-by/covert “response force” since the idea of visible, armed security is not appealing to many or most of us. Or, it could be both (and more).

I have a daughter in grade school, and they have simple yet hopefully effective security in place. During school hours, there is one single available entrance to the school. I’m told windows and other glass elsewhere on the premises are “hardened.”

To enter through that available door, one must be buzzed in by the front office staff. Once in the office, you must still be buzzed out of it in order to enter into the school itself. Fort Knox it ain’t, but your average, wide-open school it ain’t, either. You’d have to look like you belong there to get buzzed into the office in the first place, then, if you’re hoping to harm more than a couple admin types, force that staff to clear you through into the school.

In the morning, when the entire student body is arriving, the two entryway “tunnel” doors are open and students are free to walk through unimpeded. However, there’s always a teacher manning each door and greeting the students. It’s cute to see them shake hands with each kid (immune systems of iron, no doubt), but in actuality they’re manning the doors for security purposes, too.

We can take steps to prevent or mitigate the next tragedy. Steps that everyone can or should get behind. Don’t worry, anti-gun crowd, hardening soft targets does not detract from your side of the constitutionally-protected rights debate. We’re here for that discussion, but let’s simultaneously make our schools more secure, too.

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58 COMMENTS

  1. How about instead we get rid of the physical schools and have kids learn online through Facetime? What’s the purpose of spending millions on electricity, buses, etc. when these kids could be on computers at home just like lots of online universities do.

    Think about it: these high school kids 14-18 years old could learn on their own time at home where they’re not going to be subjected to bullying, gang violence, or shootings and they won’t fall in with the wrong crowds if they’re not exposed to them.

    • Because they’d probably be on there looking at porn or playing around on Facebook most of the day instead of studying.

      • Good grief. That’s what some idiot said on Rush’s show. Yea, great idea. Make the world so unsafe that the only option is to stay locked up in your home.

        Talk about being anti-American. Even conjuring up the idea of students staying home because America is too dangerous means our country has failed. No point in the military. There’s nothing here left to defend. Right?

        • The education system of universities and high schools have degenerated to the point that after spending 4 years there you will be dumber than when you entered.

          I’m for every action that deconstructs the public indoctrination system.

        • That a load of crap. Kid’s don’t want to learn when parents don’t want to teach them. There is nothing wrong with school. The opportunities are there for the kids who what to learn. Even with my kid going to public school I still work with him 15-45 minutes a day on homework. It makes a huge difference.

      • Yeah I’d have to agree. Better social skills and we’d probably have fewer shootings. And the trend in social skills hasn’t been towards the “better” side of things, either.

        Plus remote stuff doesn’t stop bullying. The consensus is that it’s actually worse now than before social media. Kids don’t get to escape bullying when they leave school, as it’s online and pinging their pocket 24/7. Plus the detachment provided by the interwebs, even without taking advantage of the ability to harass and comment anonymously, emboldens people to say things they never would in person.

        Also, without getting into whether it’s good or bad or what, it is the norm now that both parents work. Kids physically going off to school allows for that, and many families would struggle otherwise.

      • Yet how many school shootings have been carried out by kids that were home schooled? Not being facetious, just don’t recall any.

        • Well, Adam Lanza for one, but that’s neither here nor there. Most kids that do go to public schools do not shoot them up. Mental health has to come first, but we risk pathologizing kids that really are of no danger to anyone just because they might be a little weird. More police officers is not really the answer. Nikolas Cruz was apparently expelled because he had some rounds in his backpack. This was the wrong way to do things. If people really thought he was strange, he should have received counseling and an evaluation to see if he needed more help, not simply telling him to stay out and leaving him to his own devices. There are plenty of kids just like him that will never harm a fly, but it’s always that one that casts suspicion on the rest.

        • I think Lanza was homeschooled because no school would accomodate his bat-shit craziness. He needed to be schooled inside a psych ward.

        • How many kids are home schooled by parents who are not involved with their kids. The very definition of home schooled kids is involved parents. Would be interesting to see the rates for tutored kids, but I don’t think the sample size is beg enough (I have a felling that the same is true for high school level home schooled kids)

    • Problem with that idea is if you have a household that depends on both parents working. Who gets to quit their job and stay home to watch the kids? Most people wouldn’t want to be leaving their third graders at home by themselves all day.
      That’s one of the benefits of schools. Gives you a place to drop your kids off where someone will atleast kinda keep an eye on them while you’re working.
      Plus I already barely did any studying in school and I HAD to be there for 8 hours a day. If I was at home and had the opportunity to do almost ANYTHING else I doubt I would have even graduated. Young kids don’t exactly have the best long term planning abilities. Who cares about getting a good job when you grow up. PLAYSTATION!!!!!!!

      Edit: Jeremy beat me to it

      • I know people who graduated early because they did their education outside of school. They finished high school by 14-16 years old. Their parents actually cared and had structure. They didn’t think making money is their only duty or the most important thing.

        It look like since the 60s US schools have created worse human beings and less educated ones. It’s possible they might be creating school shooters or at least contributing. Even institutions of higher education are creating violent tribal collectivists who are deteriorating civilized society.

    • “How about instead we get rid of the physical schools….”
      Yes, and then we could hatch them like eggs upon their high school graduation to enter the world for the first time.
      (When irrational fear overwhelms all common sense)

    • I’d do whatever it took to homeschool a kid if I had one. Not because of shooters which are not very high on list of things that kill children but because most schools suck IMO. I’d try to raise a kid that wasn’t afraid to fight and was at least modestly trained at it across the spectrum of disciplines. The reason I don’t have kid though is that I’d probably kill them as a baby by leaving them in the car or something.

    • It’s simple. We have to start disciplining kids again. And if they’re so soft they can’t be disciplined without going crazy then they need to be locked up until they learn how to behave appropriately in polite society.

    • Because, based on experience, with young “adults” internet classes are total BS and useless if your objective is something other than “check the box”. How that differs from a typical progtard gov’t school “teacher” is a big variable.

    • The teachers’ and other public employee unions won’t like that. Not one little bit. And, in terms of dollars spent on political influence, they actually are what they falsely accuse the NRA of being.

  2. Another example of failure.

    First of all, what is the President of the United States supposed to do to make a school more safe? The only thing that the President has an actual obligation to do is keep illegal aliens out. Of course Congress, sanctuary cities, and sanctuary states refuses to support any President on that.

    Second of all, there is an exceedingly simple and cheap solution immediately available to reduce the death-toll of these attacks to almost zero: armed teachers, staff, and adult volunteer armed guards. Of course the states and school districts refuse to support that.

    • Yes, effectively there is little POTUS or anyone else can do to prevent another attack on a school – but he does have options:
      1. Move to end the “Gun Free School Zones” act. It clearly has had no measurable benefit and indeed can be shown to have had a detrimental effect on the adults ability to defend their students.
      2. Using the bully pulpit, push for school districts to begin hardening schools against attack. By that I mean actual, effective measures: armed staff and strictly controlled and monitored entrances.
      3. Publicly and repeatedly state that schools are no longer (after the aforementioned measures are completed) easy targets. Publicly state to anyone considering a school shooting “our schools are no longer defenseless. We will fight you and we will stop you. You will not have the revenge or glory you hope to gain and we will show you to be the fool you have chosen to be.”
      Yeah, I know, but let me have my fantasies will you?
      🤠

      • Agree completely! Heard about a high school in Indiana today on a radio program that has been hardened. Emergency response at the sheriff’s dept. School has a direct line there by pushing a button. School has drop down gates in the hallways to trap the intruder/shooter, cameras, doors they can lock, and other counter-measures to incapacitate the shooter. It’s not the fed govs. job here, it’s up to the local govs. This school was hardened for about $400,000.00. If parents want their children protected then they need to get busy at the local level!

    • You know, I was truck my something yesterday, almost gobsmacked in truth.

      I watched “Six Days”, which is about the 1980 Iranian Embassy hostage situation in London. The one that put the SAS on the map. Watching the film caused me to do some research to see how accuarate the movie was.

      The thing that lept out to me was a fact about the British cop who was taken hostage. He was actually armed the entire time and it went undetected. Now, granted it was a snubbie and his uniform was somewhat specialized to keep it concealed, but the fact that, as a hostage, he could keep his snubbie concealed for six whole days suggests that we can in fact arm teachers with little to no student knowledge/fear if we’re smart about it.

      I’m sure there are plenty of clothing and holster companies that would love to help too.

  3. Volunteer armed security personnel
    Or
    Every politician takes a 10 percent cut to their security, holiday and travel budget that’s then given to protect schools and the children
    After all if it can save just one child’s life it makes common sense

  4. There is only one way to make our schools safer. Let the staff members and parent volunteers come to school armed.

    Anything else is simply enabling murder.

  6. Allow me to point out what should be obvious: a deranged person who is determined to harm school students can achieve wild success without firearms.

    Option 1) Secure doors with cheap chain and a padlock and set 2 gallons of gasoline on fire. Total cost: $10 and will ALWAYS be available.

    Option 2) Drive car at high speed into mass of students pouring out of main doors. Total cost: $0 if you already have a car or you “borrow” someone else’s car and will ALWAYS be available.

    Option 3) Bring a gallon of bleach and a gallon of ammonia, mix them in a 5 gallon bucket, and walk away. Total cost: $8 and will ALWAYS be available.

    Option 4) Purchase some steel flat stock, heat it over a fire and quench it a few times, use a file to sharpen the edge and some duct tape to make a handle and you have a wicked sword. Total cost: $11 and will ALWAYS be available.

    Option 5) Purchase a recurve bow, a dozen arrows, and a dozen broadheads. Quietly and quickly send arrows into students pouring out of the school’s main doors at the end of the school day. Total cost: $300 and will ALWAYS be available.

    Shall I continue? The immediate solution to ALL of these attacks (as well as attacks with firearms and attacks that I have not listed) is to have armed people in and around the school that can promptly stop such a deranged person. The long term solution is to restore responsible and loving families and to remove Progressive indoctrination at our schools.

      • Kendahl,

        I was (and still am) very reluctant to mention alternatives to firearms for the very fact that you stated.

        I also believe it is important for families and policy makers to know the truth. Otherwise, they will pour their efforts into the failure that is “gun-control” and hundreds/thousands of people will unnecessarily lose their lives.

  7. I do not consider the opinions of the emotionally compromised, and certainly not immediately after a tragedy.

  8. “You could stop the guns from getting into these children’s hands!”
    Oh please. How is he supposed to do that, hmm? How about instead of screaming and overloading the poor microphone, you go scream at the fuck-ups who spawned this waste of human DNA? They are mostly to blame, they didn’t teach their child proper values, but even then, how about you scream at the little shit who actually pulled the trigger?

    I actually stopped the video after this woman’s misdirected tirade when the reporter began crying crocodile tears, so if there’s anything else important, I missed it.

    Seriously, what the hell is Trump supposed to do? This is not his failure, this is not the failure of the NRA, this is a failure of the parents, of the school security, and of society in general. Unfortunately I’ve no idea how to fix society, but I guarantee you, armed guards would have helped. They would have stopped the threat and that little shit would have been bleeding out on the floor, unable to hurt anymore kids.

  9. Kids don’t like barbed wire fences, metal detectors, a bunch of conspicuous security guards, etc. It makes them think they are in a prison. They start to feel depressed and bitter. That might actually cause them to become school shooters.

    Some schools are just too big to secure. Kids have to come out of the buildings to do athletics. You can’t build prison walls and have armed guards in towers. Elementary schools are easier to secure, but do you want to have your kids raised in a locked down building all day? Is that even a healthy thing for a young child who should be outside playing/learning?

    You can’t really create a secure school when a kid has weekly access to it for years. They learn all the weaknesses and personnel. The only true security is covertly armed, trusted/trained individuals, who are in the school when kids are there — similar to air marshals. Arming teachers is a difficult task because most don’t want anything to do with guns and kids will figure out which teacher has a gun. Some high school kids are big, strong and violent enough to beat up a teacher.

  10. I worked for Broward Schools for a period of time. There was a huge push to get Single Point of Entry at every campus. We were making good headway on this until Runcie changed the initiative to “gender neutral “ restrooms.

  11. yeah trump could act

    guess what liberals

    he has a pen and a phone now too

    paybacks a bitch aint it

    executive order:

    suspend all federal prosecution of law abiding citizens who go armed on school grounds who are not otherwise acting in an unlawful manner

    write a letter to all governors and state attorneys general:

    provide adequate armed security in schools or suspend all blanket gun free zones in schools or be subject to the loss of federal education funding

    its so easy

    somebody has do something

    our country is now manufacturing homicidal maniacs

    until we fix that all other half measures will avail us nothing

    • John: That was my first impression, but then I remembered Congress has been working on this school violence as long as illegal immigration, drugs, oppressive taxes and useless regulations with the same ineffective results: It’s only Election Rhetoric, So it isn’t an ACT, it’s a tragic campaign!

  13. First and most importantly we have to get rid of Gun Free Zones.
    Harden the entries to all schools. Have the kidz go through a scanned entry and check in with a formal readable ID card.
    Use a scanner or card reader at the main and only usable entrance for kids to enter the building.
    2: allow all school employees who want to and pass a mandatory check upon employment. To carry a concealed weapon. From the janitor to any of the teachers who wish to and have taken some sort of testing by the Police.
    Give your kidz a fighting chance at the very least. This is a start to be done at the very least.
    As it stands now in most schools kidz are sitting ducks waiting to be shot at.

  14. Fl GOP says skools remain “gun free”. End of story. No one points this out. They control state government. They have for decades.

  17. Public Schools, Grades K-12, are not going away for political and practical reasons. We provide Public Officials with armed, effective security, but put our children in Campuses that are like the proverbial fish barrel, then are all shocked and dismayed when some f-tard shoots them. It is time to harden school campuses and provide effective, armed security better than that provided to the do-nothing politicians and bureaucrats that have allowed this intolerable situation to develop in the first place. Gun regulation will never help because it is not what’s in the killer’s hand, but what is in his heart and mind that matters. We cannot know what he will do for certain, but we can provide effective security for our children that will stop his violent assault more times than not.
    Any and all other “discussions” at this point in time are irrelevant. We need to do what we know will work and what we can do successfully NOW. There is no excuse and we will not succeed before another bunch of children is killed. The only remaining question is how many more school children will die before we do what any reasonable, caring person would have done years ago.

  18. multi-culturalism and “diversity” seems to have a plus…
    when the bogus “Port Arthur massacre” occurred in Tasmania in April 1996, Australia was, pretty much a mono-ethnic, mono-racial country… it was almost ⅞ European-origins;
    in fact: most of that ⅞ … prblby abt ¾ overall total ppltn …. was of Anglo-Celtic origins;
    plus: Australia had a small population (it still does) …. not much more than 20mlln people in a continent the size of the US;
    it also had a small, tightly controlled media and, pretty much, a bi-partisan political system where the two major political parties had little if any major disagreements over significant-type issues… and….the overwhelming majority of people supported either one or the other of these two political parties….in fact: they were compelled to b’cs of the compulsory voting system;
    as can be deduced from all of the abv, it would not be hard to see how, in those pre-Interwebs/pre-Android days, most of the population could be got to agree on an incident in an isolated part of the country that was ‘played out’ in the tightly controlled Australian media as, pretty much, a national disaster…..
    its not hard to see how the majority of the Australian ppltn, ‘back-in-the-day’, could be got to “sing off the same song-sheet”, as it were…
    ipso facto, and given that Australia had no powerful pro-gun org’ like the NRA and no hard-and-fast Constitutional guarantee to keep and bear arms (although an historical /traditional-type ‘right’ did exist) …it is, again, not hard to see how a bunch of bogus ‘gun laws’ (effectively dis-arming the entire country) were rushed through the Australian Parliament with undue and unseemly haste……
    especially seeing as how Australia had just ‘elected’ a gun-grabbing politician (John Howard) as the national leader/Prime Minister by a very convincing, land-slide majority….
    after which: it was a fait accompli …….

    luckily for youse Yanks, no such “perfect storm” conditions exist in the US…
    there are, quite simply, too many ‘stake-holders’ ….. and too many different voices singing too many different ‘tunes’ ….
    Trump will not act… he simply doesn’t have the moral authority to so act ….
    Neither did Obama…..

    so….these faux gun-grabbing “victims” can continue to screech all they like…
    the US will not get AUstralian-style gun laws….not unless these leftists and liberals are prepared to fight a civil war first…. which, i’m guessing, they are NOT

    • Yes your right on that statement. As recent surveys show only 37 per cent of the population even owns guns anymore. Hunting is seen by the general population as a throw back to the days of the blood thirsty Neanderthals as well. Face book seems to come alive with outrage whenever a picture of a hunter is shown with a dead trophy animal and a rifle in his hand and a smile on the hunter’s face who is viewed as an uneducated back woods hill-jack that is still wants to live in the past and murder the Indian population with a coon skin cap on.

      The population of the U.S. is an aging one that guarantees that a revolution has about as much chance of happening as a snow ball surviving more than an instant in hell. Only Nations with large populations of young people are ripe for revolution as witnessed even in the U.S. in the 1960’s.

  19. Lions at every gate. And tip the scales with unknown numbers of armed school personnel. Translates to jobs for Americans. Safety for children.

  20. I think random school personnel should be allowed to carry concealed that want to do it and are willing to undergo proper training. There should be a sign at each entrance that warns everyone entering that some school personnel MAY be armed.

    People might be surprised as to who would volunteer to carry concealed. I have several female relatives that have taught school for decades. They look like the typical gentle school teacher but they carry a small handgun with them everywhere outside of the school.

  21. My masterplane for more safety

    1.) Repeal the gun free school zone act
    2.) Repeal other “no gun zones” as corps land, post office, aimtracks and greyhound buses
    3.) Passe the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act white mininium age at 18 for an ccw
    4.) Force states to allow any public place so long the weapon is concealed (should include knifes too and no mag ban)
    5.) Remove aow, sbr/sbs, big bore destructive device and suppressor from nfa + 922 and sporting purposes for importation
    6.) Repeal the 1 Year Felony/2 Year Misdeamor Flatrate Ban on federal level ! State choose for violence felons and make it illegal on federal level to ban non violence felons from gun ownership !
    7.) Repeal the Federal Switchblade “Ban” / Restrictions
    8.) Repeal Hughes Adment

  22. 9.) No limits on hollowpoints, “cop killer” / teflon coated bulllets”, flechete and other armo

  23. The real truth is that in civilized countries like Japan this tragedy would never have happened. In Japan in order to get a firearms i.d. card the police interview your doctor and your neighbors and their professional vetting system would also have detected the killers prior mental health problems as well. Contrast this to our own totally incompetent FBI that was warned twice about this nut case and they sat on their hands drinking coffee and ready porn magazines rather than go out and pick this nut case up for questioning.

    The NRA is also to blame as they have consistently pandered not to the majority of their members but to the minority of their hard core base who believe in no gun laws regardless of high the dead body count gets.

    Safe storage laws would have prevented the majority of school shootings (not this one) because if guns were locked up then the distraught kid could not take his daddy’s assault rifle and commit mass killings. This is not rocket science and as previously noted every other civilized country has safe storage laws to prevent theft, accidental child shootings and kids committing mass shootings.

    Vetting of all gun purchases again would prevent lunatics and criminals from buying guns with no paper work at gun shows or from private sales which are legal in the majority of states. We already have the Brady Bill in place it would not cost very little to simply implement it for all gun sales.

    Because the NRA has prevented all of this from happening we as gun owners stand to lose everything and the corrupt Supreme Court along with the back stabbing corrupt Conservative Justices last summer reversed the Scalia decision due to public pressure and by letting the lower courts ban or restrict the right to own semi-auto weapons in Maryland and the other states like California now have the green light to start confiscating them and that is exactly what California now is about to do with no worry about the courts stopping it as they know now that the Scalia decision and the Second Amendment is now totally trashed and is ancient history and that now they can ban anything and everything they want to.

    Its the end of gun ownership in the U.S. as when the Dem’s regain control of Congress and the Presidency its a no brainier on what they are going to do and gun owners have no one to blame but themselves and the nut cases at the NRA as they all fought well established gun control measures that other counties put in placed decades ago that have prevented such school shootings from happening. Britain had just one School shooting in the 1980’s and they put an end to such horror as well as Australia and Germany as well. They and other countries dealt with the problem they did not wish that it just would not go away. Of course the Republicans wish it would but sooner than later they too will have to do something about it.

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