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When Seconds Count, Police Are Just Minutes Away – and That’s Why Kids Die
Townhall ^ | Mar 30, 2023 | Joy Overbeck

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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Colorado; US: Tennessee
KEYWORDS: 2ndamendment; armedcitizen; aurora; banglist; carno; ccw; children; colorado; concealedcarry; education; faster; fastercolorado; guncontrol; guns; lauracarno; mass; massmurderers; murderers; nashville; nashvillepolice; police; randi; randiweingarten; rkba; secondamendment; security; selfdefense; teachers; theatershooter; trans; weingarten; woke
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1 posted on 03/31/2023 10:06:41 AM PDT by george76
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To: george76

Randi Weingarten Is a leftist POS. A despicable enemy of anyone who cares about the well being of children


2 posted on 03/31/2023 10:10:46 AM PDT by gibsonguy ( )
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To: MileHi; dynachrome; backspace; Balata; bboop; Ben Dover; Benito Cereno; BigEdLB; bluejean; ...

Colorado Ping ( Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from the list.)


3 posted on 03/31/2023 10:16:12 AM PDT by george76 (Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)
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To: gibsonguy
Not only is Randi Weingarten a leftist POS, but an ANTI-AMERICAN A$$HOLE who is TOTALLY CHICKEN$HIT when it comes to DEFENDING the children they're supposed to be teaching!


4 posted on 03/31/2023 10:18:01 AM PDT by VideoDoctor
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To: george76
Here's the timeline as best as I can tell. Approx 14 minutes from 911 call to death shot:
09:53am - Hale's gray Honda Fit is seen arriving at The Covenant School in Nashville.

09:54am - Hale is seen driving through the parking lot, seemingly calm. Nothing suggests anything is out of the ordinary as she finds a spot to park.

10:10am - The glass front door, which was locked, is shattered as Hale opens fire. She then steps through the debris into the empty reception of the church, which is adjacent to the school.

10:13am - Brandishing her assault rifle, Hale is seen entering a carpeted room, inside the church looking for any victims. The room is empty. The first call to 911 about shots being fired in the building came in at this time.

10:18am - Hale is seen on the same camera inside the church still looking for victims. She opens a door into the next room.

10:19am - The 28-year-old returns through the door, and aims her gun, although there is no one there. She tries another door, then returns 30 seconds later.

10:20am - Hale is now walking through a wooden-floored building labelled 'first' in the footage, past an empty reception. She stalks the corridor, then disappears from view.

10:27am - Hale is shot dead on the second floor of the school, having engaged officers who fired back, killing her.

She fires first shots at 10:10 to break through front door. Call to 911 at 10:13. Shot dead at 10:27. She fired at police when they arrived from 2nd story window - time uncertain.


5 posted on 03/31/2023 10:20:08 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
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To: george76
"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."

I wonder what an actual survey of teachers would show....

6 posted on 03/31/2023 10:20:32 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (Not Responding to Seagull Snark)
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To: george76

Hey Randi THAT is precisely WHY teachers need to be armed, when seconds count!!


7 posted on 03/31/2023 10:21:18 AM PDT by Trump Girl Kit Cat (Yosemite Sam raising hell)
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To: george76

Um, the laws of physics do apply here.

Unless there was a team of LE like the ones who took down the shooter stationed and ready to act at every potential mass shooting site, it will take them time to respond.

The call needs to be made then they have to drive to where they are going and get their gear on and ready. It takes time and so far as I can see, there is n o way we can control that yet.


8 posted on 03/31/2023 10:21:47 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: george76

When Seconds Count, Police Are Just Minutes Away


Lucky them often its not minutes, but hours, many hours


9 posted on 03/31/2023 10:26:48 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now its your turn)
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To: george76

It seems so obvious that the answer is to arm the teachers. More legally carried guns equals less gun violence. There hasn’t been a terrorist attack on an Israeli school since they armed the teachers.


10 posted on 03/31/2023 10:26:48 AM PDT by Gen.Blather (Wait! I said that out loud? )
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To: metmom

And yes, I agree that armed citizens are the best protection against people like this. And that’s because of the time it takes LE to respond.

Plus there’s always this......

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The government has no right nor authority to restrict firearm use by citizens. Matter of fact, it is specifically prohibited from doing so.

And clearly, gun control laws are not working. More laws are not going to work any better when someone chooses to ignore them, which criminals do. They already know what they are doing is illegal and they don’t care. That’s not going to change with more laws.


11 posted on 03/31/2023 10:27:19 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: metmom

Armed first responders can accomplish the same thing.


12 posted on 03/31/2023 10:27:30 AM PDT by riverrunner
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To: metmom

No mystery why homeschooling continues to rise nationwide.


13 posted on 03/31/2023 10:31:13 AM PDT by GAgal
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To: VideoDoctor

I don’t think she’s even a woman, much less a human being!


14 posted on 03/31/2023 10:32:41 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as.)
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To: GAgal

Amen!


15 posted on 03/31/2023 10:32:54 AM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as.)
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To: metmom
"...there is n o way we can control that yet."

Sure there is...allow any school staff who wishes to, and gets trained and vetted to CCW "at work".

16 posted on 03/31/2023 10:34:20 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (Not Responding to Seagull Snark)
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To: george76
In my prior life in corporate management I was involved in the company’s risk management committee where we routinely reviewed risks of all kinds — mainly financial risks to the company and physical/safety risks to our employees — and developed strategies to deal with them.

I stopped giving a damn about the committee’s work when I raised the issue of an armed intruder in the office and the company’s leadership refused to address it.

It was obvious to me that having armed personnel in the office was the best strategy to mitigate that risk.

17 posted on 03/31/2023 10:34:24 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I've just pissed in my pants and nobody can do anything about it." -- Major Fambrough)
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To: riverrunner

True.

I well recognize that.

However to criticize police for not being able to respond instantly when it is literally physically impossible to do so, is no answer. There is enough to criticize LE over these days without criticizing them for not being able to violate the laws of physics.


18 posted on 03/31/2023 10:34:31 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith….)
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To: GAgal

I just checked the stats on your comment. Yes. The number of children / Kids (K-12) has an annual increase. I did know that.


19 posted on 03/31/2023 10:35:04 AM PDT by MotorCityBuck (Keep the change, you filthy animal! )
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To: george76

why do we have

fire extinguishers

in our home - cars - schools

just common sense


20 posted on 03/31/2023 10:44:05 AM PDT by Firehath
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