By: Mike McDaniel
The Sandy Hook Elementary School attack has indeed changed America, but not the way anti-freedom advocates hoped (my three-part series on that attack is available here, here and here). After the abject failure of Mr. Obama’s post Newtown gun-control initiative, a new reality began to emerge, one I’ve been advocating for years: arming school staff. To be sure, this is a new movement and as such, it’s subject to confusion and half measures. After all, there is no truer expression of the truism that a camel is a horse designed by a committee than watching government at work . . .
“The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education, in Ohio, has unanimously voted to let school custodians carry handguns, the Toledo Blade reports.
This will be the first school district in Ohio to have armed personnel, according to the Blade.
Four custodians will be trained to carry handguns around the county’s K-12 campus.
School board president Larry Martin told the Blade said the district began considering the measure six months ago but that the recent shooting in Newtown, Conn., gave the initiative a new sense of urgency.
‘Our main goal is to offer safety for our students while they are in the classrooms and in the building,’ Martin said. ‘We have to do something and this seems like the most logical, reasonable course to go with.”
An Indiana school board has voted 7-0 to allow school administrators and school board members who undergo specific training and uses specific equipment to carry firearms inside campus buildings. It’s a heck of a win for the data-driven approach to combating school violence:
“Administrators and school board members with the North White School Corporation can carry guns inside campus buildings beginning in July.
The North White Board of Trustees voted unanimously, 7-0, to approve the new policy on Monday. According to North White School Board President Shannon Mattix, the policy states guns may be carried inside campus buildings while school is in session and at school events.
Participants must pass two annual training sessions, one six hour basic firearm training session, and up to 40 hours of crisis management and defensive tactics training. Those carrying guns are required to go through a psychological evaluation at least once a year.
Other policy requirements include the firearm must be concealed, semi-automatic, held in a Level Two or Three holster, and carried not stored in the building.”
At least these school officials are thinking. Unfortunately, they don’t know what they don’t know. The Missouri Legislature is a bit more ambitious:
“The legislature in the Show Me state has loaded up the agenda with a new proposal which, if passed, would give potential evil-doers something to think about before they attempt an attack on a public school. If signed into law, the new bill would see some of the teachers in Missouri schools fully firearms trained and packing in the classroom. [skip]
School officials would receive the same firearm training as law enforcement officers. Additionally, weapons would have to be kept on the individual’s person at all times.”
THE MODEL:
While all should welcome the shift toward reality these initiatives represent, it’s time to introduce a practical model. That model must not be based on “data.” This is the current idiotic fad infecting American education. If this or that initiative is “research based,” it is presumed to be far superior to anything decades of experience and sharp intellects could produce, and producing data is an integral part of that “research.” Unfortunately, much of what passes for research in education suffers from every research fallacy one might imagine: small populations, experimenter bias, poor experimental design, and more. Much of it is driven by the “publish or perish” mandate, and more by plainly commercial interests. I don’t begrudge anyone the ability to make an honest dollar on their ideas and labor, but a very great deal of mediocre material is being kept afloat on the “researched based” life preserver.
In this particular debate, too many have no idea of the primary principle, or all too often, ignore it: the sole justification for armed school staff is to deter attacks on schools, and when an attack occurs, to minimize injury and loss of life. All others policies must flow from this.
It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that this is also the primary justification for the carrying of personal firearms, concealed or openly carried. Of course, this is a fundamental, natural right, which must apply wherever one happens to be. Are lives of less value on school property than on the sidewalk in front of the school? It is undeniably true that the odds are very good that one’s children will never be involved in an armed attack at their school, but it is also true that some will and there is nothing protecting anyone’s children from being on the wrong side of the odds, particularly if their school is a “gun-free” zone.
When school boards and legislatures become involved, even with the best of intentions, all manner of camels are created. Thus will four custodians be allowed to carry handguns. Four. In an entire K-12 school district. Thus will school board members be allowed to carried concealed handguns on school grounds and at school events. Not only that, they must carry a specific type of handgun in specific types of holsters, must undergo periodic psychological testing, and multiple, annual trainings.
Keeping the primary principle in mind, let’s explore a model policy and the reasons for each part of it.
Time and Distance: These are the two primary tactical issues involved. Taking Sandy Hook as our guide, we can be reasonably sure that once an attack starts, it will take no less than ten minutes for the police to arrive and enter a school. It took about 15 minutes at Sandy Hook, but the killer shot himself some five minutes earlier. How then, may attacks be deterred, and when deterrence fails, how may lives be saved?
The only possible policy is arming all willing school staff. This means teachers, principals, administrators, and any other adult working in the school. Obviously no one should be forced to be armed against their will. Natural selection should be allowed to take its course.
When an attack occurs, the numbers of wounded and dead will be limited only by how quickly armed good guys can respond and stop the attack. Armed police officers on campus are rare, and usually limited only to larger junior and senior high schools, and then, there are usually only single officers, people who can’t be everywhere at once and are often not on campus, particularly during extracurricular activities. Teachers and other staff members, on the other hand, are always present, including at every extracurricular activity.
The more limited the number of good guys, the higher the body count when an attack occurs. Four janitors in an entire school district? Even if an attacker knew of them, this would be most unlikely to deter an attack. Janitors are arguably even less likely to be in the right place when at attack occurs than armed teachers. Armed school board members? As any teacher knows, such people are rarely on campus during any school day. There is no deterrent effect there either. As with so much of what passes for effective public policy these days, it’s a feel-good measure.
Strength in Numbers: One of the primary reasons school attacks occur is they are victim disarmament zones where killers can be certain they’ll have adequate time to kill as many as they please and they’ll face no effective resistance. Single security guards or police officers increase the odds of early defeat only slightly. But a killer planning an attack facing an unknown number of defenders is facing a very different equation. The more armed good guys present, the greater the probability the attack will never take place, and if it does, that the attacker won’t succeed.
The Deterrence of Publicity: This is a vital facet of any defensive plan. Any school district authorizing armed staff must publicize that fact, repeatedly, while also withholding the names of those people, and also withholding how many are carrying on each campus. Any training should also be publicized. “Gun Free” zone signs must be replaced with prominent “Armed Staff Present At All Times” signs.
The value of concealed carry is that all criminals have to assume that anyone might be armed at any time. The same will apply to armed schools. Anyone considering an attack will never know how many armed defenders he’ll face, but will have to assume there will be many in every school. Obviously the more armed staff members in every school, the better.
Qualifications: One sure sign that the first principle is escaping legislators or school board members is the idea that anyone carrying a handgun in a school must be trained to the same level as a police officer. Basic police officers undergo a year of training, and frequent updates, because their jobs are far more complex than merely shooting. In fact, most officers will complete a career without shooting anyone. School staff need to know only a few, simple concepts: state law relating to the use of force, particularly deadly force, basic tactics and how to shoot straight.
School staff will not be law enforcement officers any more than any citizen with a concealed carry license. They will carry a handgun for one purpose: to stop an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death to themselves or others. Other than that, their concealed handgun will remain ever concealed.
There is a ready, capable pool: concealed carry license holders. Most citizens don’t realize that many police officers are not good shots; many citizens surpass them in shooting knowledge and ability and even in tactical knowledge and ability. This is not to suggest that more advanced training shouldn’t be offered—it should. However, one can delay or completely prevent staff members from carrying handguns with unnecessary or excessive training requirements. Millions of Americans carry concealed weapons every day without harming themselves or others. Teachers can manage the same.
Teachers already go through identical records checks including fingerprinting and photographs, and if they have a concealed carry license, in most states they’ve already had training and shot a qualification for score.
Guns and Gear: The less restrictive the better. Whatever is carried must be concealed under whatever clothing the person chooses to wear. Generally,.380 ACP to .45 ACP cartridges, revolvers or semiautos, and any holster that will allow concealment would work. Holsters with various security devices are unnecessary for concealed carry and many actively interfere with concealment and make weapon presentation unnecessarily slow and difficult, even dangerous.
A S&W Bodyguard .380 pistol and one spare magazine will fit in the space the same size as a common man’s wallet. Many other effective handguns will do the same, or in a space only slightly larger. Obviously, some people will be able to carry larger handguns than others. But the goal is to have a significant number of people present, people comfortable and competent with their handgun/holster choices. That’s fulfillment of the primary principle.
Laser sights? Of course. Lasers enable faster and more accurate shots on target. Indoors, visible laser range is extended over bright daylight conditions.
Methods: Everyone involved must carry their handgun, concealed, on their person at all times. What good is a gun locked in a desk or central armory when a teacher is confronted by an armed attacker in a hallway, the library, or at the bus pickup area, or at the football stadium? This kind of mindless control violates the primary principle and common sense.
Some suggest that armed teachers, in the event of an attack, should not seek out the shooter and stop him, but must lock their students in their classroom and hunker down, using their weapon only if the shooter breaks into their room. Again, this ignores the primary principle. What of unarmed teachers and their students? Should a killer have free reign to attack wherever he will, stopped only if he happens to choose a classroom with an armed teacher? What of students and teachers caught in a hallway?
Obviously, the more tightly large numbers of teachers and students are huddled in small spaces, the easier it is for shooters to kill large numbers when those small spaces are breached. If armed teachers are not actively seeking and shooting an attacker, they are ignoring the primary principle. In a gunfight the first thing one must do is effectively and accurately shoot and stop the attacker. All else is secondary and doesn’t matter until the sound of the final gunshot fades away and the smoke dissipates.
But how can those teachers abandon their students? They’re not. By locking them in a classroom–remember that’s the primary “safety” idea taught by many co-called “experts”–and proactively doing their best to stop the shooter(s), they’re not only protecting their small group of students, but all of the students and adults in the school.
Final Thoughts: In dealing with issues of public policy, it is all too easy to get caught up in irrelevant details. One doesn’t need to be told to turn on the light switch when entering a darkened classroom. In the same way, within rational parameters, teachers–college educated citizens–can choose effective handguns they can carry concealed every day. The odds are they will never need those handguns and not a single child or parent will ever know they were carrying one.
There will be those tempted to forecast all manner of doom, just as they did when state after state adopted must issue concealed carry laws. None of the horrors predicted by anti-freedom advocates came to pass, and in the few states that allow educators to carry concealed weapons, the same has been true.
That this model policy will cost little or nothing also recommends it. Concealed carry licensing costs, already bourn by the individual, will cost schools nothing at all. Schools need not spend a dollar to provide training, and it is already widely provided around the nation by the NRA and others. Surely, schools can, if they wish, import more specifically designed professional trainers and conduct shooting drills on their premises with AirSoft guns or similar devices for relatively little cost.
Millions of citizens already carry concealed weapons every day. Many of them successfully protect their own lives and the lives of others. Some of them are already teachers. Does crossing a school property line suddenly render them unqualified to do what they do everywhere lese?
As more and more states adopt policies that will actually deter and stop attackers rather than make legislators and school boards feel good, few things are more important than remembering the primary principle, and designing all policies to ensure that when an attack occurs–and it could occur anywhere, today–there are more than enough armed good guys to stop the bad guys.
Mike’s Home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.
That this model policy will cost little or nothing also recommends it.
Yes, but there will be little support for this policy unless someone is able to line his pockets with public money.
If faculty and staff are expected to be armed guards don’t do it on the farking cheap and down low.
Pay for their training.
Pay for their armed security guard certification.
Pay for their weapons.
Pay for their ammunition.
Make the requirement explicit in hiring.
Give them combat pay.
Otherwise you’re just a cheap cold-hearted bastard who wants people who aren’t qualified to throw their lives away so you can make a statement.
Pretty much how I feel about it.
Pay for training at the very least, and make it voluntary w/ added pay. Don’t just tell some poor schlub of a janitor that “oh, btw, you’re now also an armed guard, have fun.”
It wouldn’t be “oh btw you are now an armed guard” it would be “oh, your request to participate in the school armed security program has been approved. your class starts sunday morning at 9 in the auditorium”
These details matter and I cant understand all the assertions that people are going to be forced to be armed!
Imo we need BOTH the right to carry on campus nation wide and concerted efforts by individual schools and districts to developed an armed staff presence in every school using what ever process of regulation is best suited according to the people on the ground the school board and the parents.
Finacially incentivising carry is a bad policy. You do not want people who carry just to get a bump in pay. You need people who believe in what they are doing, and do it on principle. Otherwise you will have people who say they carry and don’t most of the time, or people who do but have no intention of actually confronting an attacker (first principles, first).
I agree with paying for their training -better yet, take advantage of Front Sight and their repeated offer to take and school staff from a district that will allow carry, to their site in Nevada and give them training superior to LEO, free.
As for calling them “security guards” with a certificate to go along with it, stuff it. You don’t need to have a government approval or job and a badge. Unless you’re paying for their private security operator’s licensing and bonding and insurance etc, no. They’re just citizens being allowed to stand on their two hind legs and fight back if necessary.
I don’t get the obsession with wanting armed teachers. Some of the teachers I have encountered have been the most incompetent people you would ever want to meet, and arming them in a school would be a terrible idea.
I would, however, support actual, armed, trained, screend security guards in schools.
So on the basis of a few duds you’ve known, the entire broad category of “school staff” are incompetent?
What about a goverbnment job and badge suddnly confers nerves of steel and the patience, restraint and judgement of a saint?
Does a certificate from some non-degree school for security guards and a shiny piece to attach to themselves make them better than ANYBODY who’s not gone through the business of getting the badge, even if they’ve got equal or better training?
By all means, suggest training standards, but don’t say that poor dumb civilians can never be responsible or safe.
Don’t you know anything about America?! We don’t PAY teachers! They don’t do anything useful, like trade stocks, throw balls, or sell drugs. People who protect us, our homes, our children, and our laws, aren’t important like celebrities, drug wholesalers, and stock brokers. GOSH!
See list of highest paying industries in America: http://www.careerinfonet.org/industry/ind_highest_paying.aspx?nodeid=49
Notice that teachers, security, military, police, fire fighters, or other civil or social worker don’t make the top 50. Number 50 is Drug Wholesalers who make an average of $100K/year. In my state average teacher salary is $25K/year. Something to think about, $25K/year is the price we are paying to protect children’s lives.
Enough of teachers crying about what they make; they choose to go into that field. Also, many teachers don’t even deserve what they currently make, let alone more.
Passing out standardized tests and giving kids busywork 80% of the time != teaching.
Teaching a standardized test is not their choice, its mandated… On the Federal level. Thank you No Child Left Behind. If you want to blame standardized testing I am right there with you. But, please point the finger where it belongs. Maybe if being a teacher was a paying job we would have more teachers interested in doing more then passing out and collecting thousands of worksheets a day. Im sorry to hear you don’t care but if there is one thing in this country I DO want to spend money on, its Education.
Maybe if we did spend more money on education we wouldn’t have problems with shootings, crime, and thus we wouldn’t need to spend as much money on prisons and law enforcement, AND by extension Gun control. Wouldn’t it be a crazy world if everyone in America was a well educated, contributing taxpayer, and responsible gun owner? Ah, how nice it is to dream.
The probable is you are equating that more money automatically means better education. Obviously, funding fluctuates according to what state or locality you are in, but that needs to be solved through individual school choice or vouchers, rather than a top down Federal approach where money is filtered through all levels of Bureaucracy instead of the classroom. Also, not to minimize teacher’s contribution, but much of my sympathy is diminished by their forced Union cronyism. Also, their income is determined by the school district they work in. Where I went to high school, a teacher can anywhere from 48k to 98k, and I can only imagine what benefits are with three months off.
Nice article. I’m sorry though, it could have used a little proofreading before publishing. I’d like to refer more people to this site to read the articles, but when simple grammar mistakes could be corrected and aren’t, the authority of the author can come into question.
It irks me too, and I have less than stellar grammar my self. But I write it off as evidence that ttag is a fast acting remarkably honest outlet for some of the things that concern me. I think about the improvements that a dedicated proof reader and fact checker would make but feel the glossy product might com across as more pretentious or even fabricated.
There is a foundation in Ohio called Buckeye Firearms that sponsors educators to go through firearm trainings. Not sure how ttag likes external links but I believe the site is BuckeyeFirearms dot org.
Does Buckeye Firearms also cover the costs of their personal liability insurance?
No, the type of people who decide to be armed to protect children either pony up for their own or accept the risk.
If you want a release from liability NYC and LA are always accepting new drones. Trade in your concerns about being responsible for your actions for a non secured promise of safety.
It won’t “cost little or nothing”, not by a long shot. And that’s why I say the author and the fools who came up with this are just cheap bastards.
The liability costs will be sky-high. If the staff are required to carry guns and act as security guards they are being hired as armed guards, and the school’s insurance costs will be sky-high. And since they’re officially guards they’ll have to go through the whole expensive training, certification and periodic re-certification process.
If they aren’t hired as guards they will sitting their with their bare arses hanging out in the breeze financially. If anything goes wrong it will be the teachers, not the school, which will be liable for any accidents, negligence or whatever else can and will go wrong. The school will deny any connection saying “We just said they CAN. We’re not paying them to be armed,” and some 70 year old English teacher will be financially ruined while the owners get the benefits of strutting around and appearing tough.
Of course, a decent lawyer could argue that arming the teachers was school policy and a real if not explicitly contractual condition of employment. The school’s insurance policy will refuse to pay when it hits the fan. The school AND the employee(s) in question will be sued into oblivion with the first unfortunate incident. The fact that, once again, they weren’t certified as armed security guards and didn’t have the specific tactical training necessary to deal with active shooters in a crowded environment will make it even more expensive.
The fantasy is nice. But don’t for a moment pretend that carrying it out won’t take money.
Are you illiterate? I only ask because there was never ever anywhere in this article nor in any district rule book even the slightest inclination of anyone ever EVER being required to carry….ever. As for your theory on liability… you are also not a fan of history, how long ago was it that we were ALL allowed to carry firearms on school property legally? Not very. As for your noble concerns for the teachers financial welfare… would you suggest like others have disarming everyone? Certainly if you are concerned for a teachers welfare after defending a school from an attacker you must be equally concerned for his fate after doing the same at his home or in a public place right? Apparently these people can not be trusted with their own well being… its remarkable we allow them to be alone with our kids.
Financial liability can be a powerful influence on our behavior. That is why state laws grant immunity to red cross, cpr trained citizens who act, in good faith, to save lives. CCW permit holders who act, in good faith, to save children’s lives should also have immunity under state law.
Arming all teachers? Yeah, no. The need to arm and lock down schools like your in some sort of Somali warzone signifies something has gone wrong in our entire society. Maybe all children should be required to wear level III trauma plates just to be safe?
The children of our government officials get armed guards at school, including the President’s and Federal Senators’. Just saying.
At no point was the suggestion made that ALL teachers be armed. Reading Comprehension 101. Dig it.
Ys, it sucks that today we need to think about nutcases going on suicidal/homicidal rampages in schools.
To just deny it and go on as if in a fantasy world where everyone is just nice to each other because it’s distasteful to think that we need armed presences to defend schools, is worse than stupid, worse than useless.
You think if we just concentrate really hard and wish fervently, we can un-invent the concept of driving a projectile through a tube via expanding combustion gasses?
Go ahead and wish, and let the grown-ups talk about real-world issues that we’re facing RIGHT NOW.
Wghen you come up wit ideas to thurn society around so we don’t ahve sick loser loners, and do it by next week -by which time we could have a few trained armed people in schools, and within a few mohths a few in every large and most small schools, then you’ll get the nobel prize for the next couple of deades running.
Have you any suggestions for what to do about that issue of mental sickness in society ruled by war-mongering industrialists and financiers NOW? To utterly eliminate the problem partially exacerbated by our schools being advertized as disarmed victim soft target zones as they are now?
Any sligthtest hint of a civilization-revolutionizing paradigm shift that could be as effective as quickly NOW as allowing willing and able school staff to be armed?
I hope you’ll stand aside and allow someone trying to do something useful now, while you ruminate over how to change society overnight.
“Ys, it sucks that today we need to think about nutcases going on suicidal/homicidal rampages in schools.”
Yeah, it’s a fk’n epidemic! What, almost one a year?
My wife is a teacher at a small private school. She also has her carry permit. She’s already made up her mind that if a bad guy with a gun comes into the school, she’s placing herself between him and the students and doing whatever she can to stop him. She would prefer to be doing so with a gun in her hand.
“she’s placing herself between him and the students and doing whatever she can to stop him”.
You said “preferably with a gun in her hand”‘ otherwise, she can’t do a damn thing to stop him, no matter how heroic you think she sounds.
My point was not to make my wife sound heroic as she dies unarmed in a hailstorm of bullets. My point was to validate the premise of the article: that teachers with concealed carry permits should be allowed to carry in order to protect their students. There are teachers who take seriously the responsibility placed on them by the parents of the students who are put under the care of the school for several hours each day. They would like to have all the tools available to them to effectively carry out their responsibilities. Based on what all I’ve read from Mr. McDaniel, I believe he takes his role as a teacher at his school seriously as well and would do what he could to protect his students from harm.
Gee I remember being in school & generally being real UNIMPRESSED with the custodians. These people need to step up with some motivated folk to protect their kids. Every high school where I live has at least one armed guard in attendance.
Wearing one of those nifty ‘shoot me first’ uniforms I assume? Or if not a shoot me first uniform perhaps a ‘start on the other side of this extensive building complex instead’ uniform. An armed guard (especially only one) is worse than useless. Its like playing a videogame where the game highlights the enemy for you with a nifty little icon or blip on the radar. As a deterrent an armed guard isn’t, as a stopper of tragedies an armed guard isn’t good enough.
When they see “school custodians”, everyone thinks of barely literate, overweight lazy unkempt janitors…
Ironic to hear such disdain for custodians, from someone named Frazer.
http://www.universaluclick.com/comics/frazz
When I was in school, our custodians were probably the FIRST staff members I would want responding to a shooter. Most of them were veterans, and generally tough guys with the mindset of “see problem. deal with problem.” Plus unlike the teachers, they were generally roaming around the school throughout the day and would probably be better able to “move to the sound of the guns.”
I’m childfree, so I’ve dodged this ideological bullet, but just out of curiosity, what would happen if a concerned parent went to the “gun-free” school and said, “I’m taking my kids out of your school because you refuse to provide for their safety?” If I had kids, I wouldn’t let the government get within arm’s length of them. What kind of hoops do people have to jump through just to home-school?
Not many a far as I know. Im not opposed to home schooling and don’t buy the socializing BS opponents spout but the fact is as low as public school standards are standards for home schooling seems even lower. But that’s only a problem if you assume people only perform to the minimum mandated by the government 🙂
@Richard: please don’t cloud a reasonable debate with misrepresentations. No one ever suggested “locking down” schools in addition to armed teachers. In fact in principal this idea is completely opposed to the recent rash of pointless lockdowns. The arming of staff in no way even suggests lock down like conditions or war/terrorist zones like you assume. No more than me being armed in exactly the same capacity makes my neighborhood like a war zone. Your melodrama ignores over two centuries of American history where being armed in public schools (along with nearly every other public area) was normal and legal. Are you suggesting that somehow we suffered through decade after decade of third world like terror before the great George Bush sr passed his no guns around schools law? I think not. As you would know if you read the story the guns would be hidden un seen and un obtrusive until the very rare circumstance they may be needed. For all you know teachers are carrying right now in a school near you! In that case the entire building bust be terrified and not even know it!
It is not reasonable to expect school administrators and staff to embrace a simple, effective and cheap model for protecting children, if it involves firearms. These are the people who think it is appropriate to discipline young children for chewing pop-tarts the wrong way. I worked in the field of early intervention/early childhood special education for ten years at two universities and a private non-profit. By and large, the educators I had daily contact with did not value common sense solutions to any problem. Issues were addressed by thorough discussion and promulgation of new rules, causal relationships were never a factor in any decision. If we are serious about protecting children while they are in school, the solutions will have to be imposed. State laws allowing ccw permit holders to be on school grounds is a worthy goal. The real solution lies with local school board elections. Members of school boards who refuse to act responsibly to protect our children must be voted out. Replacing them with citizens who will mandate school district policies that keep children safe is a good solution.
A principal and I discussed arming staff. He pointed out the likely hood of our insurance being cancelled.
The odds of dropped weapons, lost weapons, kids getting their hands on them and ADs is higher then stoping a school shooter. Plus there are over 100,000 schools running 180 plus days per year. Dispite the media focus school shootings are rare.
To me a fix might be to have weapons in gun safes, with trained staff having access. Just my $.02
In a free society, teacher carry would be optional, just like any other carry is supposed to be under RKBA. But I’d say that any teacher who wants to should be allowed to train up and tool up, just like any other normal adult. I wouldn’t want mandatory training, I don’t want mandatory anything, but I’d have no problem with recommending it. Somebody could even come up with a specialized “Teacher Carry” class, to account for the little darlings and all that.
I never said the guards had uniforms drew…just an ASSumption on your part.
I would like to offer an idea or two on this subject. Let me start with a couple of quotes:
“In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
January 20, 1981: From Reagan’s Inaugural Address.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.”
― Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Over 90% of what our govt. does is unconstitutional. So the question really might be: Why do we let the govt. control the education of our children? And, therefore, have control of the minds and bodies our children and their safety? Again, why does the govt. run the educational system? They aren’t very good at it. Are they? Home school and private school is the answer to the problem of school shootings. Send them to private school that takes security seriously or better yet, home school. Not only will they be better protected, they will actually learn what they should without all the distractions and govt. agendas. You won’t have to debrief them every day as to why the things they are being taught are anti-family, anti-American, and anti-Christian. At home you can have whatever security you deem appropriate and can involve your more mature children in the solution as well. Instead of their last moments being forced to cower in a classroom with no exits or try to fight without firearms, why not teach them to shoot and, if necessary, defend the home?
Cordially,
David
Given that most of these big horrific attacks are done for effect rather than to target specific individuals, they can be correctly described as non-political domestic terrorism.
If we are hardening some schools, then based on experience with other terrorists we can expect either an escalation in mechanism or displacement onto softer targets. This might turn out to be other schools or areas where children congregate, like parks or playgrounds.
Professionals who counsel potential targets often advise counter-surveillance, i.e., being on the look out for terrorists who are scoping out their target.
In a school this means creating an appropriate relationship between staff and students so that students will feel safe reporting rumors, threats or strange behavior. Both the safety of the reporter and the potential threat need to be guaranteed, i.e., that it’s not purely punitive or worse, unfair. (Think of how you feel in line at the airport)
It also means having the entire staff alert to strangers on campus, both during *and* after school hours.
This is the kind of crap that embarrasses the shooting community, and has the non-shooting community believing we are Neanderthals with guns:
“That model must not be based on “data.” This is the current idiotic fad infecting American education. If this or that initiative is “research based,” it is presumed to be far superior to anything decades of experience and sharp intellects could produce, and producing data is an integral part of that “research.” ”
If you can’t see the deep, deep flaws in the quoted statement, you are part of the problem. Please do not reproduce nor post on the topic of guns. Thanks!
Here’s another lovely nugget:
“Laser sights? Of course. Lasers enable faster and more accurate shots on target.”
If I needed proof of idiocy, I sure have it now. Come on out to the USPSA National Championships this September, where the fastest of the fast are competing. Check out the Open class shooters, who can use any gizmo in the world they want. Let me know how many of them have lasers on their guns. Oooops, this might be a conclusion based on “data”, and I know that scares the dogma right out of the OP!! Lasers are slower than many available options, and make for poor shooters that are totally dependent on a gimmick for even a low level of shooting. If the OP had ever fired a gun, the OP might be aware of this.
What does the second letter in TTAG stand for? Tripe?
I boggled at that aversion to “data” as well. We have lots of data telling us this is the right direction. That data needs to be presented in a cogent fashion to get it through the heads of hoplophobes, or to shut them up by rational people as the idealogues they are.
The wording in the picture just jars with me. “Staff are armed” looks so much better IMO, and implies more than one.
Funny that people are objecting to this on the basis of the individual and the school’s liability costs for allowing staff to be rmed.
I want to see more lawsuits against places that forbid lawful carry, but don’t provide complete safety & security.
What’s some school district going to do against a few hundred lawsuits the next time some nut gets past one armed rent-a-cop and shoots the place up?
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