Welcome to the wild, wild West. "That's where we go riding into town and a-whapping and a-whooping every living thing that moves within an inch of its life!" (Taggart, Blazing Saddles) AKA American Schools.
There are two controlling bumper stickers here. The first is "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." The second came out of the Virginia Tech tragedy. "When seconds count, we'll be there in minutes."
So...... How do we get good guys with guns into the schools within seconds? Well, duh! They have to be there all ready.
OK but....Many people have a problem with armed personnel in schools unless they are police officers. This seems to be the only generally agreeable solution. So either cops become teachers or teachers become cops. Both are reasonable solutions, all things considered.
What about veterans? Hmmmm. Dunno about that one. My philosophy was "When in doubt, empty the clip". In fact, I think that even police training is not exactly what we are looking for. Police are trained and have policies and procedures to move cautiously and execute planned assaults. Their protective instincts are aligned toward each other, the public and finally the perps.
But teachers have a protective instinct that puts the kids first. I/We have seen this time and again. In the Moore, OK tornado, teachers put themselves between bad and kids. Over and over we see this.
So, we need to give teachers something more that locked doors and slow responses. I think a few bean bag shotguns scattered discretely and securely around a school with trained peace officer/teachers would help until the talking heads shut up long enough to let the people who know what they are doing solve the problem.
There are two controlling bumper stickers here. The first is "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." The second came out of the Virginia Tech tragedy. "When seconds count, we'll be there in minutes."
So...... How do we get good guys with guns into the schools within seconds? Well, duh! They have to be there all ready.
OK but....Many people have a problem with armed personnel in schools unless they are police officers. This seems to be the only generally agreeable solution. So either cops become teachers or teachers become cops. Both are reasonable solutions, all things considered.
What about veterans? Hmmmm. Dunno about that one. My philosophy was "When in doubt, empty the clip". In fact, I think that even police training is not exactly what we are looking for. Police are trained and have policies and procedures to move cautiously and execute planned assaults. Their protective instincts are aligned toward each other, the public and finally the perps.
But teachers have a protective instinct that puts the kids first. I/We have seen this time and again. In the Moore, OK tornado, teachers put themselves between bad and kids. Over and over we see this.
So, we need to give teachers something more that locked doors and slow responses. I think a few bean bag shotguns scattered discretely and securely around a school with trained peace officer/teachers would help until the talking heads shut up long enough to let the people who know what they are doing solve the problem.
