We know, you weren’t surprised that Michael Bloomberg didn’t have much good to say about the NRA’s proposal for putting armed guards in America’s schools. Who would be? If the country’s preeminent gun rights organization said their favorite flavor of ice cream is chocolate, he’d immediately call a press conference and accuse them of being reckless and dangerously out of step with the vast majority of Americans who like vanilla. And then he’d issue an executive order banning chocolate ice cream in the five boroughs. So after Wayne LaPierre laid out the plan for the National School Shield Program Friday, Bloomy called it “a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America.” But here’s a new year’s bummer for the diminutive dictatorial mayor: Staten Island parents agree with Wayne. D’oh! . . .

In fact, as nypost.com reports, the idea has so much support, they’re about to put it to an advisory vote in January.

The city should use roving patrols of armed air-marshal-like agents to keep schools safe in the wake of the Connecticut massacre, parents say. A proposal to hire 300 to 500 retired police officers — who already have permits to carry concealed weapons — is being introduced for a vote at next month’s Staten Island school-board meeting.

Mindful of the kiddies’ sensibilities, they’ll keep the guards in plain clothes so as not to spook anyone. This is still New York after all.

Keeping the armed guards undercover would keep schools safe without turning them into police states, supporters say.“It wouldn’t necessarily be that alarming to the students, because now it would be an armed guard they don’t really know has a firearm,” said Mike Reilly, a retired NYPD cop who sits on the Staten Island education council. “That’s the key behind the program.”

An armed presence in schools to respond to a Sandy Hook-like situation? We’re on board.

“It’s not possible to be 100 percent safe, but our schools could be safer,” said council president Sam Pirozzolo. “All we’re looking to do is add a layer [of protection] that might slow somebody down a bit.”

Or kill a killer before he can kill still more. You got a problem wit dat, Mike?

(h/t Allen V.)

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65 COMMENTS

    • Both ex-NYPD cops I’ve talked to (admittedly, not a huge sample) said the first thing they did after leaving the force was to switch their personal weapons to Glocks with standard trigger pulls. One of the cops (a woman, btw) commented that her primary concern with use-of-force during her time with NYPD was psych trauma from accidentally shooting some shmuck standing next to a perp because of the insane trigger pull on her Glock.

      This from a patrol veteran with a bunch of violent-felon arrests and two totaled-in-action patrol vehicles (that I heard of) in her career jacket…

    • It will not matter. I believe 2013 is the end of his 2009 term. While a law was passed so that he could have a 3rd term, my understanding is he will not be legally able to have a 4th term, but dumber things have happened. He won his last term by less than 4%. He has pissed off enough people that he would have no chance for another term.

  7. It seems that he is a little out of touch with his voting base lately, doesn’t it? First soda, now this? Crash and burn mikey

  8. Nobody cares what some other school district is doing in the next county or 2,000 miles away. All parents care about is that their kids are safe and secure and they don’t care how it’s done.

    This will catch on. Which is better than LaPierre’s lame idea of needing an act of Congress. Who wants local security to be spearheaded by the Federal Government? That’s what police are for. And armed citizens.

  9. “Keeping the armed guards undercover would keep schools safe without turning them into police states, supporters say.”

    My biggest issue with insisting on undercover instead of uniformed police is that kids really need to learn respect for LEOs, and by introducing an LEO in a school, you have an excellent educational opportunity. Just watch any episode of “Beyond Scared Straight” and you see countless kids who view cops as the enemy, not ones who “serve and protect”. OK, so it’s a TV show, and I concede that corruption abounds everywhere, but still, people go to such great lengths and pains to coddle and protect their children that they end up insulating them from realities. When I was a kid growing up in the 70’s, a Police Officer was one who you looked up to, and even considered a role model. Today, police are demonized more than they should be, IMHO.

    • Yes, and for the most part, the street cops where I grew up in Brooklyn cared about us neighborhood kids. They did not seek to make arrests at every turn and in every situation. They did their job but they were immediate members of the community at the same time. But back then there was no “stop and frisk”, at least not as department policy.

      They got respect because they were respectable.

    • There was also Barbara Boxer’s idea of national guard troops as well.
      Now the whole police state thing withstanding…
      Having good people in uniform isn’t a bad thing as far as role models are concerned. Certainly whether LEO’s or military they can be used as outreach too, it would be used for helping kids who need it, bullying issues, all sorts of stuff. I get the whole armed guards military encampment statements, but if who ever is chosen, having a good role model, and gasp he has a gun too isn’t a bad thing.

    • I agree. This isn’t too bad an idea. While I can understand wanting to stay discreet, I cant see why a uniform would really hurt anything. A PO would always stop by my middle school (note: this was several years ago when I attended middle school) at least once a day. If he was there during lunch he would often eat with us and chat with the kids. He was a deputy with the county IIRC.

      • Except, they won’t be. Funnily enough, it didn’t work too well at Columbine. Nor did the private security team at Virginia Tech. Or, to be honest, the MILITARY BASE at Fort Hood.

        Instead, they’re just one step closer to a firefight. You want children to be safe?

        KEEP THEM AWAY FROM GUNS.

        This may involve banning them. This is a small sacrifice for gun-addicted adults to bear. Grow up, get over yourself, and start thinking of the children.

        Like, ACTUALLY thinking about the children.

        • Columbine, VaTech, Ft. Hood. What’s the common denominator? All “gun-free” zones. Yes, even Ft. Hood where servicemen and women were and are prohibited from carrying weapons while on base. Think of the children. And the adults.

        • @ Dan. I have heard people saying there were in fact armed private security at Columbine, but their orders were to pull back and wait for the cops. That doctrine was changed to direct engagement following the incident.
          VA Tech also had it’s own police force, but it is unclear as to how they reacted. It sounds like they didn’t which is part of the reason there were demands for the resignation of the police chief there. The time in which they responded, and also the time it took to get word out, was over two hours, again we saw a change in doctrine.
          However you are correct in that both were gun free zones in the sense that faculty and students can not carry. So when seconds count the good guys are only minutes, or hours away..
          So in short it is important to protect our kids. I for one would have no problem with role models in uniforms carrying real M-16s around to make sure they are safe. I know many may disagree with me, but if it is my kid or some other nut case hell bent on my child’s death, I don’t care how it gets done. If there is a positive role model to go with it, that is an added bonus.

        • You, um, you’re joking, right? No, really. It’s time to be serious. Stop it. You’re not serious. Really.

        • As a student, honestly I would rather be shot, or shot at than blown up, ’cause that’s what they’ll go for when they can’t get guns. Doesn’t take a genius to learn how to make explosives with information from the internet. One stop at anarchistcookbook.com is good enough to give any sociopath the knowledge he needs to not need a gun.

    • Yep, your schools are becomIng prisons just see how happy and safe the kids in Newtown where, since it wasn’t a prison.

  12. Wow, you people really are impressively myopic.

    Yes, why don’t we have plain-clothes men walking around our school with concealed weapons, ready to combat other plain-clothes men walking around with concealed weapons..?

    What could go wrong?

    FLAME DELETED Your gun fetish endangers all of us, and still you think that more guns is the answer.

    • Your anti gun fetish endangers us all, lodutz. There’s 300+ million guns out there in private hands. Are you going to wave your magic fairy wand and turn them into flowers? The genie is out of the bottle and the only way to achieve safety is for people to assume responsibilty for their own self protection.

      Budgets are being cut and cops are getting fewer on the streets. Stick your head in the sand and ignore your own safety, just don’t try to compromise mine.

      • Judging from the avatar this guy is from Britain, so either he’s a transplant longing for the knife fights of home, or he still lives in the UK and has no place discussing what rights we should have in the US.

      • +1 Requiring law abiding citizens to relinquish their firearms ala Lodatz just leaves them defenseless against those who choose not to obey a mandate. Can’t get the genie back in the bottle. Let Lodatz rely on the timeliness of his/her local PD, and wish him luck…….the rest of us will just stick to our guns.

    • There are about the same number of guns as there are cars in the US. However, gun deaths (excluding suicides) are about 1/4 that of automotive deaths. I don’t see anyone screaming about the danger that cars cause. I tell you what: If you are willing to give up your car and the freedom to travel, I will give up my guns. Fair enough?

    • Since Israel enacted armed teachers and faculty they have had not a single incident. Certainly this can help lend precedent to the idea that it might just work no?
      As far as Fort Hood, it was a gun free zone, which is pathetic. If you are a solder and you have been issued a weapon it stays on you are all times period. The only time it was ever more than two feet from me was when I was in the shower (insert crude comment on my looks here).
      But seriously it never left my side in 4 years, except if I was trading it in for a bigger better model.

      • Unfortunately San, in the American military there are lots of times where weapons are issued but the ammo is not. Especially at stateside bases like Ft. Hood.

        • Yup which is complete lunacy!!!!
          Even guys on bases like oh Afghanistan! I used to hang with the Marines detail in Tel Aviv, great guys…

    • And the first to resort to an ad hominem attack. The frustration you’re feeling that led to the personal attack is your rational mind telling your emotional mind you just lost the argument.

    • Your concern about CC holders is touching. Its much better to just have kids get killed & blame guns isn’t it. Every CC holder knows one of the dangers is a fellow CC holder, we account for that. More guns? Are you going on LENO? There were 0 guns at Sandy not counting the perp, so yes “more” guns are the answer, thank you very much, Randy

    • @Lodatz,
      So you are advocating the gun free zones remain in place, the children and others be unprotected and at the mercy of any would be psychopath to take them out just as he see’s fit??
      Are you going to be the one who has to inform the families that a loved one has died because you don’t want anyone to be able to protect them??
      Even the most idealic ban of guns will not stop a mass murderer!!
      If we ban everything that can be used to cause the death of one or more people at one time you and all of us would be walking, have no heat or air in our homes and we would all be vegans!!
      Having had to tell a soldiers parents that their son died in the service of his country is something I never want to do again.
      BTW: are you even a US citizen or just an out of country busybody who thinks Utopia is real and just around the corner?? Utopia only exists a: between your ears and b: in fairy tales.
      Wake up and look at reality!!

    • No one here has ever shot up a school or committed any other crimes with a firearm. Please redirect your anger at the people who do committ crimes and stop fixating on law-abiding (and law enforcing as many police are here too) citizens.

      Our rights and way of life are not the threat, and are not up for negotiation.

    • I think the Democrats have missed the point that their recent electoral successes are due to historically oppressed minorities who do not typically have high opinions of the ability of police to provide for their security (no offense to the good officers here). Fear of the old-boy wing of the GOP drove voters to the Democrats, and I think fear of being disarmed and made dependent on the blue version of the old-boy network will drive those voters right back out.

    • ‘More guns’ is NOT the answer, and never was; ‘More guns in the hands of honest citizens’ IS the answer, when the question is ‘How do we stop violent criminals from using guns to massacre the innocents?’

    • The only problem with that argument is that you can’t isolate your children from the world forever. Some day he/she will have to make it (live or die) in this cruel, cruel world. It would be better if he/she knew how to handle himself out there, so he/she could stay out of trouble.
      Public school provides the real world, real life experiences that a young adult needs to survive and make it in this world.

  15. “The public has finally come to the conclusion that we are gonna do this whether you like it or not”. Spoken like a true dictator. It’s time for some common sense gov control.

  16. Actors are openly discussing the excess amount of violent films and not (at least openly) defending the violence.
    Parents are increasingly openly complaining about the violence in video games.
    Schools are increasing their security measures one way or another.
    The mass media continues to dump on the NRA.

  17. I am quite happy they are taking steps without waiting for the government. It shows that the local community is taking responsibility.

  18. “Mindful of the kiddies’ sensibilities, they’ll keep the guards in plain clothes so as not to spook anyone. This is still New York after all.”

    Let the bad guys know that there is armed security around, but don’t paint a bulls-eye on their backs. Works for me – preserve some element of surprise for the guard.

    • If the would-be shooter is a kid (or kids, plural) it’s a safe bet they will know who the guards are. Similarly, the 99% of the kids who are not miscreants will likely be reassured when the recognize the sheepdogs for who they are.

      Kids are smarter and more observant than many adults give them credit for. This absolutely includes spotting cops in plain clothes.

  19. Most schools & school districs in America cannot afford one armed guard or cop. Something would have to get cut fot that to happen. Most of Americas schools are not going to be armed – money & logistics are against it.

    • Which is why the schools need armed parent volunteers. Any armed prescense on school grounds will serve as a deterrent to the spree killers.

  20. That guy is an idiot. He’s so confident in his “knowledge” he refuses to actually learn about this subject before he lectures about it and comes across looking like the narcissist fool he is. Who elected such a bozo?

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