Posted on 03/31/2023 10:06:41 AM PDT by george76
There are many fierce, hungry tigers living near your home and they are stalking your children. How best to protect your young ones: declaw the tigers, or equip your home with strong defenses so they cannot enter, and if they do they will be stopped dead?
This is the essential question tragically raised once again in the bloody wake of the Tennessee Christian elementary school massacre. Anti-gun media talking heads, Democrat legislators, government officials, teachers’ Union chieftain Randi Weingarten, and Democrat gun-haters in general as usual are claiming the only way to stop these horrific attacks is declaw the tigers – that is, pass more laws to restrict gun ownership. They steadfastly refuse to face the reality that a crazed shooter will always find a way to obtain a gun – in the Nashville killer’s case seven of them. When the tiger comes to the door, the only defense is making sure the animal doesn’t get inside to murder innocents.
We know how to do that; the killers have shown us. Mass murderers may be crazy, but they aren’t stupid. Just like the Nashville shooter decided not to hit a school because it had “too much security” most killers will very deliberately avoid a target where they could be killed by an armed defender before they can achieve the carnage they intend.
Similarly, the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooter who killed 12 and injured 70 in 2012 specifically said he looked for a theater with a “Gun Free Zone” sign, bypassing other movie houses closer to where he lived that lacked that sign. Nearly all massacres – whether in schools, churches, or shopping malls – have that fatal sign in common.
It’s not clear if the Covenant School had such a sign. But we do know that a shooter will likely avoid a target with security such as an armed guard, say a volunteer retired veteran, or a school resource officer working for the local police force. Or a school with armed staff who can mount immediate resistance.
...
The Nashville police have been praised because it took them only 14 minutes to respond, yet even that quick action cost six lives. During the 2018 massacre at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the killer took less than 7 minutes to murder 14 students (9 of them aged 15 and under) and three staff - seventeen souls gone altogether in mere moments.
The key to fewer dead children is faster response time by armed staff who are actually at the ready inside the school at all times.
To the horror of the gun-phobic and the gun-grabbers, that means well-trained school staff – teachers, janitors, administrators – who are carrying concealed weapons. But won’t kids wrest the guns from them and spray the classroom with hot lead? Or an annoyed teacher takes out an annoying student for cracking gum?
Well, no. Colorado is one of 32 states allowing teachers and staff to protect children with a concealed carry firearm. Laura Carno is Executive Director of FASTER Colorado, the nonprofit that trains school personnel to defend their schools. FASTER is an acronym for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response, originally begun in Ohio after the 2012 Sandy Hook, Conn., shooter murdered 20 children and six teachers. Carno brought the training to Colorado about seven years ago and the number of trained school staff has now risen to 300 people in 41 of the state’s 178 school districts.
In those seven years, there has never been an incident of accidental fire, or an intruder bent on murder entering a school with a firearm. Since about 10% of Colorado’s population are longtime concealed carry permit holders, school-based volunteers for the FASTER program which uses active-duty law enforcement trainers with SWAT experience, are plentiful. About 40% of the FASTER participants are classroom teachers, while 60% are principals, superintendents, lunch ladies, school nurses, or janitors.
In the few days since the Covenant School tragedy, Carno has heard from about 10 new Colorado school districts interested in her program. People seem to be looking beyond more gun control laws to common sense ideas that can keep children safe. “The closer an armed staffer is to the beginning of a violent event, the sooner it is stopped, and the fewer people die. Since killers don't know which staff members are armed, that itself is a huge deterrent,” Carno says. “Every time there’s one of these horrible shootings, more school board members and superintendents move to the decision that they have to do something to protect the children.” Carno approves of the School Resource Officer (SRO) concept but points out, “Armed staff is a free or low-cost addition to SRO’s because one or two SRO’s can't cover the entire school.” The FASTER program offers financial assistance.
The idea of well-trained and armed volunteer school staff is gaining traction, according to reports. After Parkland, a special Commission analyzing the slaughter recommended that every middle school and high school in Florida have an armed school resource officer and that a program allowing for trained teachers to carry concealed weapons should be greatly expanded. A similar recommendation was made in a Federal Commission on School Safety (2018) report.
In predictable contrast, the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and gun-control outfits (e.g., Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund) strongly oppose arming teachers.
These organizations are not fans of the Second Amendment. Political ideology often determines trust or distrust in firearms for school security. A Pew Research survey in 2021 found that 66% of Republicans support allowing teachers and school officials to carry guns in K-12 schools, while only 24% of Democrats approve. What a shock.
Yet a Rasmussen survey in 2022 found that by a 49% to 37% margin, Americans support armed teachers to stop school shootings; a significant jump up from their 2018 survey when Americans opposed it by 43% for to 48% against. Significantly, adults with children at home supported armed school staff by 57%.
Still, anti-gun derangement syndrome has taken firm hold of radical union boss Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. She insists her union members don’t even want the right to defend themselves, even though brave educators from Columbine to the Parkland massacre and now at Covenant have died trying to protect their kids. “Teachers don’t want to be armed; we want to teach,” she railed. “We would never have the expertise needed to be sharpshooters…” The dead, like the Head of School at Covenant, may disagree.
Never has there been a more sickening display of a union putting crass political alliances before human lives, and children's lives at that. Next election, parents must remember that the teachers’ unions are the most prolific contributors to leftist causes and Democrat candidates. Make sure you know where your school board candidates stand on protecting your kids from the ravening tigers.
The job of the police is to protect accused criminals — by taking them into custody and ensuring that they are subject to proper trials under the law.
This country was founded by men who didn’t need police to protect them … but recognized that having accused criminals tried by a jury was preferable to hunting them down and killing them with no due process.
Well she wanted to be a man so probably was taking testosterone at minimum and maybe steroids to bulk up. As we all know, testosterone and steroids both increase aggressiveness. So yeah, I'd say that's not human.
Marxist ideology coddles the weakest among us but does not encourage the weak to become strong. It encourages the weak to become weaker and more dependent...and to hate and destroy the strong.
As Nazism idolized the strong, the superman, the Übermensch, Marxism empowers the weak, the losers, the freaks.
How our society is going to fight back is a mystery at this point. But if we are to survive, we must figure out a way.
BTW, Prof Mattias Desmet of Univ of Ghent calls this brainwashing of society into a common ideology a "mass formation" (a kind of organic mass hypnosis that feeds on itself). He believes that the mass formation will either implode by being ridiculed by those outside the group or it will force a totalitarian government on the rest of us.
At this point, the mass formation shows no signs of imploding.
Armed second responders - you and your cohorts are your own first responders.
It was government and the Left that started the narrative of government employees being first responders.
I heard that the recent school shooter’s manifesto includes a description of another school she wanted to shoot up but didn’t because of security measures the school had in place. The manifesto is being suppressed because they don’t want it publicized that schools can be made safe without gun control. Just something I heard without a source.
At my community college just this week we had a student go off on several staff/faculty/administration and then make threats electronically. When these were received administration had no clue if he was on campus or not. We have NO security whatsoever-none. Rather than either do a lockdown or evacuate they quietly told maintenance to go around and lock all the doors but not to tell anyone there may be a potentially dangerous situation. Of course faculty/staff were not being told what was going on, just stay in your area. I had caught wind of this going to the restroom I was about to die to get there and told my employees if you sense anything wrong evacuate out the emergency door, don’t wait on me. I am in the restroom on the throne and I start hearing door locks pop as they are being set to the locked position. Oh well, I thought I will die on my throne!
Minutes later the police finally arrive-one officer who goes into administration building. In the meantime staff/students are slowly warning each other by phone or word of mouth and still nothing out of administration in their areas and students are arriving on campus clueless to the potential danger and can’t get in the buildings. Then 15 minutes into this maintenance who was sent to tell everyone, lockdown, stay in place-even though multiple departments had radios just for such an event. Twenty minutes later three more officers arrive and start walking around the campus after getting a photo of the suspect.
Finally after nearly twenty-five minutes administration sends a text alert to the faculty/staff/students that we are evacuating due to an unforeseen circumstance. I had three other employees in my department and when I heard through the word of mouth evacuate before the text I sent them out the emergency exit and told them get in your car and go. I left and was getting into my truck and a student just arriving came up to me and she asked why the doors were locked? I told her potential threat made, get out of here now and she walked off crying.
Turns out the police tracked the guy to still being in his home we found out later. What was the colleges response? Temporarily trespassing him from campus and no other prosecution-it wouldn’t look good for the college. Needless to say the entire campus is furious at the way everything was handled beginning to end and the complete breakdown in communications. The college safety officer was notified by a staff member who thought he might need to know—well into the entire event. We have learned NOTHING since Columbine and Virginia Tech. All through this I am thinking Lord I wish I had my pistol right now!
I worked for a company that had a contract with Hess oil company.
Hess policy said no guns on Hess leased property.
If you were found with a round in your pocket you were fired and black balled.
I went to a company safety meeting and made the mistake of asking Hess what their plan was to protect us from a threat.
They didnt have an answer.
That possibility never entered their minds
Why carry a firearm?
Because a cop is to heavy.
Just remember these educators are products of the wokeist parts of our woke colleges and universities.
Israel has compulsory universal military service. Their teachers have spent 32 months on active duty and remain in the reserves.
They also have a very different culture. You don’t see videos of students smacking teachers around coming out of Israel or free-for-all fights breaking out in Israeli classrooms, unlike here.
It’s obvious in the videos that the Nashville cops were highly trained and experienced, used to working as a team and facing mortal danger on an almost daily basis. Not so teachers.
Armed guards at schools might deter would-be school shooters or take out one that tries it faster, but I’m not sure arming teachers is the answer. Also, a lot could go wrong. Big bad students trying to get at the teacher’s gun, for one thing.
Arming teachers might work if we were Israel or Switzerland, but we’re not.
Good point.
My wife was a teacher for 32 years, after Columbine I made sure she was packing everyday she went to work.
Illegal; YES, did I give a shit, HELL NO!
That’s my WIFE were talking about here and my children went to the same school where she taught.
I’d rather we both spent time in prison than be buried because of some STUPID RULE!
ALL SCHOOLS IN MY STATE ARE “GUN FREE ZONES”!
Just STUPID!
Note that being allowed depends on VOLUNTEERING. The wokeists won't, because it involves "evil guns". So...not a problem.
It’s one thing for your wife to carry to protect herself and her children. It’s quite another to ask teachers to be combination teachers/armed security guards.
I understand your frustration, and yes, it truly is insanity, but I’m not convinced arming teachers and expecting them to act as security guards is the answer.
If you watched the video of the Nashville cops, can you imagine teachers operating like that? They simply don’t have the experience for that.
You aren't "asking" them to do anything. They would be VOLUNTEERING to do it. If I were teaching, I would volunteer in a heartbeat.
The thing is, most teachers won’t volunteer. And of those few who do, are they capable of acting as the police did in that video?
And how are the few volunteer teachers supposed to do their active shooter routine, lock classroom door, get kids against the wall on same side as door, or whatever is called for, and also go out and protect the rest of the school?
And you know this how? Interviewed any teachers? And they would not need to "be capable of acting as the police did in the video", as the circumstances would likely be much different.
By first responders I mean those on scene at the time it starts.
Not just government employees.
It doesn’t matter who they are or employed by or just by standers.
Pressuring the shooter to defend themselves or killing them stops the blood shed.
Armed defenders on the scene accomplishes it faster the someone who is coming.
Having been trained and having been a trainer of active shooter responders.
It only requires the right mind set and some skill in doing so.
I have know teachers very cable of proper response.
If only management would allow them to be trained and armed.
Yes, I know quite a few teachers. All were horrified at the idea of having to double as armed guards. How many have you interviewed?
You might imagine scenarios where the teachers would not have to operate as the Nashville police did. But that does not mean the teachers would not have to. And most teachers, especially those who teach early grades, are simply not cut out to be Annie Oakley.
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