Posted on 12/15/2012 6:37:47 AM PST by marktwain
Imagine that you ran a school district, and some rich foundation, worried about school shootings, gave you the following offer: We’ll hire armed security guards for you, who could try to do something about the school shooter. These aren’t going to be highly trained police officers, just typical security guards, given some modest training and subjected to basic background checks. It’s not like they’re highly skilled; security guards rarely are. But they have a basic understanding of how to shoot, and when to shoot.
They wouldn’t deal with ordinary trespassing, vandalism, and the like, nor would they be at all guaranteed to be effective in the event of a school shooting (who can offer such a guarantee?). But they’d provide someone on the ground who could try to interrupt a killing spree. And the foundation is paying, so it’s virtually no cost to the district. Would you say yes?
I imagine that you probably would. You probably wouldn’t much worry, for instance, that the guard would go crazy and himself start shooting — theoretically possible, to be sure, but unlikely. You’d figure that someone who can defend the school with a gun during an attack (as opposed to the police, who will come in many precious minutes after the attack begins) is better than no-one.
Nor would you object in principles about there being a gun in school, since it’s in the right hands. Just like people who have money often to pay for armed neighborhood-wide security patrols, and don’t insist on the unarmed kind or no patrol at all, you’d probably think that this free security guard would probably be helpful.
But wait! The foundation has just learned that its investment portfolio has done very badly, and the grant doesn’t go through. But someone else suggests: Instead of hiring special-purpose security guards, why not take some of your existing employees — teachers, administrators, and the like — and offer them a deal: They’d go through some modest training and subjected to basic background checks, and in exchange they’d be given the right to carry the same guns that the security guards would have had.
Indeed, this way you could have not just one security guard but several (if several staff members sign up). And you might get people to do this even without paying them, since they might value the ability to defend themselves and to not be sitting ducks should the worst happen. (If there’s some union contract or labor law that precludes that, that can of course be changed, if people think this is a good idea.) Maybe Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who confronted the Pearl, Mississippi high school shooter with a gun, after Myrick went to the car to get it, might have participated in such a program if it had existed, and had let him keep the gun in school.
And no need to call the licenses given to those who participate in the program “concealed carry” licenses, just in case some parents and others don’t like the concept. Just call them “volunteer security guard” licenses, though you might expect that most people who sign up for this will also have licenses to concealed carry on the street. Of course, if a killer does show up, maybe some of these volunteer security guards will just cower in the corner rather than trying to defend the students, or attack the killer. But it seems more likely that someone will confront and try to stop the killer if that someone is armed then if that person is disarmed.
What’s your answer to that? Is there some reason why the armed security guard is safe and helpful, but the armed teacher, administrator, or staffer — er, the teacher with a volunteer security guard license — would be useless and a menace?
And for that reason, liberals will "see right through it," and reject it.
Decades ago, in the USA, in the country some high school boys would stow hunting rifles away in their lockers, to go hunting on the way home, and nobody thought ill of it.
I wonder if there are so many cowards in school today, both growing and grown up, that nobody would get near a g-g-gun let alone use it to bring down a rampaging loon?
Make the kids wear bullet proof vests and helmets. Lock the classroom door.
I was going to make the same comment... it makes too much sense to be accepted by liberals.
Selected teachers could have pistols in their classrooms in quick-opening pistol safes. Punch in 3 digits, grab the pistol. Ready when you need it, totally safe when you don’t.
That was as recent as 1986. I was one of those kids. We’d keep the rifles in our lockers, the ammo was in the administration office, or our parents would have it with them when they picked us up. I also recall that the first day of hunting season was a legitimate reason to call in sick. :)
It never would’ve occurred to me, or my fellow hunters, to start blowing away our schoolmates.
Governments at all levels mandate, fund and supply armed security guards at all government buildings EXCEPT schools. Why? A school building is just as much a government building as the courts, the museums, the political offices, etc., and deserve the same protection. Demand it!
Funny, the only time we got hurt was if we mis-adjusted the sling (hey, we were new at this, that's why we were in class) and our hand went numb on the foregrip.
Liberals are mainly concerned that while the government is growing by leaps and bounds, from 20% of GDP a few years ago, to upper 20’s today, and into the 40’s of GDP with 0’care fully implemented... with all this govt growth, TSA is sorely lacking. It is stagnant, with TSAers now in every airport frisking Americans, but no growth means no new passengers, means no new TSA employees. Enter the CT shooting. Liberals: “We need to expand TSA into every school in the land”. As airliner cockpit doors, classroom doors needs to be hardened. body scanners at every school entrance, with TSA supervisors and workers (union of course).
At many nursery centers/day care centers, they have a computer at the door when you walk in; you have a pin number that you punch into the computer, which unlocks the door to the center. Why don’t schools use this system vs what they use now?
The Connecticut school has a camera that takes a photo of person at door; then the office see’s the photo, unlocks the door if they can confirm identity. A shooter could have someone standing there, auth to enter the school, then walk in behind them by gun force...
PINs are easy to share. Biometrics are better, but nothing is foolproof.
The principal could put out a memo, or better yet make a minor announcement during a staff meeting, that any staffers (teachers, aides, specialists, custodians, etc.) who hold a concealed carry license are asked to meet with him or her later. The excuse (a lie) could be given that the principal wants to make sure nobody is carrying in the school, especially after the most recent tragedy.
The principal would interview each staffer closely before moving on to the next step of “deputizing” them. (I believe all school employees are required to pass criminal background checks already, at least in most states.) Having completed this process, the principal would then have a “secret” security force inside the school walls, with nobody the wiser. The principal would be well-served in not saying a word about this security measure to anybody, anywhere, except perhaps the district school superintendent.
A custodian with a .45 secured in his equipment locker would be a damn sight better than nothing if the SHTF.
Most of the leftist staffers would freak out at the thought of a g-g-gun inside the school ... except for those already familiar with handling them.
The anti gun lobby will push this in the opposite direction. Instead of arming teachers they will turn all the children into targets who have to hide in closets hoping the killer runs out of bullets before he gets to them.
... Build the walls out of at least 12" thick concrete with bars on the windows, bullet proof glass, etc. Do NOT allow them to leave for an instant, even sliding their government approved trays of vegetable sludge under the door. They should all wear uniforms with numbers on them as well, preferably orange in color, for if there was an incident, one could easily identify who is the assailant and who is the inmate student. Keep them there for a minimum sentence period of 8 hours per day, for 12 years, only to be released to the yellow cans for prisoner transport home.
Do I really need a sarcasm tag?
Something else that might help is to stop giving the shooters all of the attention they get. All that does is tell homicidal loners who have given up on life that the best way to have somebody try to understand you is shoot up a school.
I now think of schools as a factory, but as a kid I knew they were very jail like.
My kids called them cheese wagons.
One of my kids colleges maintained a gun locker in the basement of the dorms.
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