Free Republic

Shep Smith just broke in and said that an active shooter situation is breaking at YET ANOTHER SCHOOL....formerly St. Patricia College in St. Louis, MO. Two people are wounded and the police are in an active shooter situation.

With the NRA’s call for an armed police officer in every school, a debate has erupted over cost of such a strategy, but there is a much more efficient and inexpensive path to secure schools. For some reason the teachers’ unions, politicians, and school administrators think that teachers are somehow less responsible, less capable, and less trainable than those who choose a career in law enforcement, and that having anyone with access to a gun in school besides a uniformed police officer would interfere with children’s ability to learn. Setting aside those confused perceptions for a moment, what about those...

INDIANAPOLIS — Republican state Sen. Jim Tomes says there may growing support for his proposal to train more school teachers in the use of firearms. Tomes, a gun-rights advocate from Wadesville, floated the idea of arming teachers in a December interview with an Indianapolis TV station when he was considering introducing legislation that would make it easier to do so. Within days of the story, he heard from teachers and retired educators in Indiana and around the country who supported the idea. “Two months ago, if we talked about this, we’d have been laughed off the face of the planet,”...

An Ohio school board has unanimously voted to place armed custodians on their k-12 campus in an effort to better protect their students from a future mass shooting. Following Wednesday's believed unprecedented 5-0 vote in the state, four male janitors were the first to volunteer to arm themselves with their own handguns on the rural Montpelier campus, the Toledo Blade reports. The vote will permit only non-teaching employees to carry the firearms on the campus, so long as they complete a weapons training course. 'It's kind of a sign of the times,' Superintendent Jamies Grime said on Friday. The move...

2 shot at California high school Published January 10, 2013 | FoxNews.com DEVELOPING: At least two people were shot at a high school in Taft, Calif., Thursday morning and the shooter was taken into custody, local reports say.

At least two people were shot at Taft High School Thursday morning. It happened at about 9 a.m. and as of 9:30, students had been evacuated to the football field and there were reports one person was in custody. Details were still sketchy at 9:45 a.m. but the Sheriff's Department has confirmed a shooter is in custody and at least two people have been wounded. Hall Ambulance dispatched three ambulances and a medevac helicopter.

The following incident happened at a high school only minutes from my home in East Tennessee. I am sure that no one outside of our immediate region has ever heard the story, because the only person who was shot-and killed-was the gunman. These types of stories don’t fit the narrative of those who want “gun-free zones” and so are ignored by the national media. In this case an armed Security Resource Officer, Carolyn Gudger, became a local hero and saved an unknown number of lives by holding the gunman at bay until backup arrived. The text below is drawn from...

School shootings have gone up dramatically since 1990. What has changed? First, the Gun Free School Zone act, sponsored by Joe Biden, went into effect, was found unconstitutional, and was then reenacted with intense lobbying by President Clinton. Schools shootings have increased at least four fold since the act was implemented, making schools a popular target full of unarmed victims for mass shooters. Second, the major media, with a clear desire to pass anti-gun legislation in a media-induced emotional frenzy, has given school shootings enormous coverage far beyond other events that are as horrific. This coverage amounts to shouting “Fire!”...

This photograph, released by the White House on Thursday, reveals the terrible moment when President Barack Obama was told the shocking news about the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. The President, who has described the day of the shootings as the ‘worst day of my presidency,’ is seen bowing his head and closing his eyes as John Brennan, his deputy national security adviser, informs him about the tragic events unfolding in Newtown, Connecticut. In the wake of the tragedy, the president has tasked his deputy Joe Biden with leading a task force to look at proposals to tighten current...

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. That statement, from NRA president Wayne LaPierre, was immediately turned into a laugh line by the press, deemed everything from “deadly spin” to “delusional” to “paranoid.” The New York Daily News proclaimed that anti-gun cranks—oops, I mean “mental health experts”—who had never met LaPierre had diagnosed him as crazy. As someone who went to journalism school and has worked in media for years, I’m used to this. Left-leaning editors and reporters declare what “everyone” knows and “everyone” thinks, while pretending to be...

A graph prepared by an author and member of the state gun rights group Georgia Carry.org notes a marked increase in active killer events in spite of federal laws intended to help curb such incidents. GCO research staffer Michael Menkus, previously brought to the attention of Gun Rights Examiner readers as the author of “Guns Good Bans Bad - An Analysis of U.S. Department of Justice 2010 Crime Statistics,” recently completed a chart that demonstrates a quadrupling of these events (see photo accompanying this column). “Along with studying how changes in carry laws change crime rates, I also study...

As a Christian, it can be difficult to reconcile all the evil that happens in the world with an all knowing, all powerful loving God who could stop it if He wants, but chooses not to do so. If our hearts break for the innocent children who were senselessly murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, how can a God who loves us not feel the same way? If any of us had known what Adam Lanza was going to do, we would have done anything in our power to stop him, so why didn't God? All too often we tend to...

The following editorial appeared in the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News on Sunday.The ideas spouted by National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre in his disturbing statement Friday morning were so bizarre, so unhinged from reality, that the organization’s leadership cannot be considered serious participants in the national discussion over gun rights. An armed guard, possibly a volunteer, in every school? Where do we even begin? This idea is an insult to Americans hoping the NRA would keep its promise to offer a “meaningful” contribution to the conversation in the wake of the slaughter of 27 people in Newtown. “The only...

As a candidate for president of the United States, it is incumbent on me to make a statement regarding the Sandy Hook massacre and to explain how my policies would help prevent other such massacres should I become president. As I discuss this sensitive topic, it is also incumbent on me to sound more rational and articulate than the incumbent. That will not be difficult.   As president, I plan to attack the issue in two ways. First, I will use the bully pulpit to influence voters and state lawmakers. Second, I will take direct action to influence the federal...

These simple common-sense steps are adapted from a post I published on my blog after the horrific Newtown, Conn., massacre. Our hearts ache, but we are not completely helpless or hopeless in the face of evil and the unknown. And we are not alone. This Christmas, cherish life, keep faith and practice self-empowerment.7. Teach our kids about the acts of heroes in times of crisis. Tell them about Newtown teacher Vicki Soto's self-sacrifice and bravery. Tell them about Clackamas mall shopper Nick Meli, a concealed-carry permit-holder whose quick action may have prevented additional deaths. Tell them about Family Research Council...

n the wake of last week's Connecticut school shooting, many in the media and on Capitol Hill blamed one powerful lobby, the gun industry, and suggested banning assault weapons would lead to safer streets. "On the first day of the new Congress, I intend to introduce a bill stopping the sale, transfer, importation and manufacturing of assault weapons," Sen. Dianne Feinstein D-Calif., said. On MSNBC, Chris Matthews said "people on the far-right, on the NRA front ... they go to bed at night ... afraid somebody's going to take that gun away from them. Normal people have other interests." On...

One week ago, a lone lunatic took the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Sadly -- yet, predictably -- before the crime scene was even secured by police, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg took to his bully pulpit to issue another in his endless demands for more stringent gun control. There is no question the Sandy Hook shooting is a tragedy of horrible dimensions. Nor is there any question the incident is another red flag that something is not right with the culture of our nation. Half of the...

It's too hard to try and make sense of a senseless event. Adam Lanza's merciless slaughter in Connecticut has forced everyone with a microphone to insist we have a "national conversation" about why this happens. But this urgent need to talk is not an excuse for a reckless discussion. Sadly, that is where we're headed, with pundits hysterical, naive or both. Predictably most in the media went straight to the Left's Alpha and Omega: blaming excessive "access" to guns. It was also an excuse to open fire on the National Rifle Association. For example, author Joyce Carol Oates spewed...

Rumors of a school shooting plot prompted three school districts to cancel Friday classes for about 20,000 students in Kootenai County. Although police have not verified a real threat of violence, the persistent rumors rattled many students and parents, and attendance has dropped all week, officials said. “The reason we’re canceling school is not because we think there is a credible threat but because the fear and the panic is just so palpable that we didn’t believe we could have a productive, calm day,” Coeur d’Alene Superintendent Hazel Bauman said. Nerves have been raw since the Connecticut school massacre one...

...The vast majority of autistic people are not violent.... But the suggestion that science has demonstrated there is no link at all between autism and aggressive violence is questionable. Google “autism” and “aggression” and you will suddenly be treated to a counter world the formal autism community claims does not exist: desperate mothers seeking help or respite from the violent behavior of large, aggressive, beloved autistic boys (and a few girls)...