I don't know where you got your info, but you are wrong. The reason the police didn't charge into Columbine was due to archaic protocol developed for barricaded hostage situations. In those instances, the protocol was to surround and contain and call in the SWAT team.
Problem is, Columbine wasn't a barricaded hostage situation, it was an "active shooter" situation.
Police were not adequately trained at the time for such scenarios.
Today, almost all law enforcement agencies have developed new protocol for "active shootings" the new protocol is first two officers on scene go straight to the threat. No more surround and contain, no more waiting for backup.
This has been the standard since Columbine.
The problem is response time. It's just a fact of life that most active shooter situations are over in a couple of minutes. It usually takes the officers longer to arrive. Hence, the importance of armed citizens.
The Virginia Tech Shooting is another example. There, the Police did exactly what they were trained to do when Cho started his rampage in Norris Hall. They tried to go straight to the threat. However, Cho had locked the doors from the inside with Chains. It took them a bit to breach the door and make entry.
What a lot of people don't know about VT, is that Cho had another bag full of magazines and ammo on the Fourth Floor of Norris Hall. He was found dead on the Third Floor of a self inflicted gunshot. He killed himself when the Police breached the chains and began coming up the stairs to where he was shooting.
Had the police still been using the old pre-columbine surround and contain tactics, Cho would have finished killing people on the third floor, walked up to the fourth floor and started killing more people there.
Police training has improved, the problem that remains is response time. That will always be present.
Freedomwarrior998,
Well, my example of Columbine was not wrong. However, if the police have updated their tactics to actually go in then I applaud them for it. I did not know that and you do not hear about it. You are correct that still does not change the fact that we need armed citizens to thwart these maniacs due to police response times.
One last thing, by saying this I am not anti-cop. I am merely stating facts regarding police. It is true also that their job is not to necessarily stop crime but to process the crime scene and investigate it. There is a Supreme Court case ( I can’t remember the name of it ) that basically says that cops are not duty bound to protect you. In other words, though I’m sure a lot of cops would protect citizens, it’s not in their job description and we as citizens cannot count on it. We have to count on ourselves.
If you are a police officer, don’t take this the wrong way.