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Nice "why gun free zones don't work" write-up.

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NE Bull:
A three part series
Part 1:
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/314926.php

The Deadly Political Correctness of Gun-Free School Zones
by Mike McDaniel. 



Terrorists attempting attacks on American soil have, of late, had a run of bad luck.  An underwear bomber succeeds mainly in torching his “junk” on an airliner; a car bomber is thwarted by an alert citizen in Times Square; would-be bombers are stung by the FBI in Dallas and Baltimore, and no doubt, other plots have been thwarted in earlier stages of execution, plots about which most will never know so that the methods and sources of our police and intelligence agencies might be protected, unless Julian Assange, the New York Times or similar internet/media vermin get their paws on the information.

But such good fortune has not been universal.  During the seven years of the Bush Administration following 9-11, there were no successful terrorist attacks on American soil. 
In the first two years of the Obama Administration, hope and change have produced multiple successful attacks, including the Fort Hood attack, which cost 12 deaths and 31 injured. Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut), commenting on the report on that act of domestic terrorism, observed that it was not only preventable, but was the result of a climate of political correctness. It is that particular kind of attack that is likely to be the wave of the future.  Due to misplaced, misinformed good intentions and political correctness run amok, America is particularly vulnerable.

  Consider the case of obscure Florida minister Terry Jones, leader of a small flock, who burned a Koran in early April, 2011.  Around the world, a few days later, Afghan President Hamid Karzai decried the burning and his citizens went berserk, attacking a UN compound and killing seven UN workers, as many as five fellow Afghan Muslims, and injuring 20 or more.
 
In response, Senator Lindsay Graham was upset that he could not punish the pastor or anyone who would burn a Koran.  President Obama likewise “deplored” the Koran burning, but also got around to expressing his disapproval of those who killed innocents.   While the Florida paster is certainly unwise, and book burning is the act of a Luddite, the politically correct response, by an American senator and the President--among many others--should give us all pause.  There is no moral equivalence between burning a book and the brutal murder of innocents, none. It is particularly ironic that one of those killed was a 33 year old Swede who, according to media accounts, “worked for human rights.”  That the default position of so many of our civic “leaders” is to blame anyone but those responsible for inhuman crimes is a symptom of a dangerous strain of emotionalism and illogic abroad in contemporary America, of political correctness elevated above all else.

Many Americans give lip service to the idea that everything changed on September 11, 2001. 

For our schools, however, that process of change began on April 20, 1999 at Columbine High School in Colorado. Unfortunately, far too many, and particularly educators, have learned the wrong lessons.

School shootings and terrorist attacks on schools are notorious primarily because they are relatively rare.  Students are, statistically, more likely to be killed in an automobile accident, struck by lightning or hit by a meteor than to be involved in a Columbine, Virginia Tech or Beslan-like attack.  That is the good news.

The bad news is that intelligence agencies have, for some time, been developing information that indicates that terrorists intend to strike soft targets in America in the same ways that they have struck soft targets in other nations. And even if such intelligence did not exist, it wouldn’t take Nostradamus to forecast the likelihood of such attacks. Terrorists know that it will be difficult to again turn an American airliner into a flying bomb, and so they have resorted to tactics such as suicide bombers wearing binary liquid or semi-liquid explosives.  The recent Russian sale to Venezuela of advanced, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles has opened up another possible avenue of attack, particularly since intelligence is also indicating that terrorists have been--and almost certainly are--entering America over our porous southern border.  Of course, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano continues to claim that the situation on the border is better than ever.  Thus, under the Obama Administration, is the future apparently to be won.

Mass, coordinated attacks originating from abroad are always possible, but perhaps the greatest current danger comes from homegrown jihadists who do not have consistent ties to foreign terror masters. Such neophyte jihadists have, to date, often made mistakes that have allowed law enforcement to intercept them, but as has already been noted, not every one of them has been so careless, and many will not be so careless in the future.

An allied danger is the disaffected citizen who, for whatever reason, decides to attack innocents and go out in a blaze of deranged glory, the Virginia Tech killer--who would certainly have liked me to mention his name--being only one example.  For such killers, attacking undefended, soft targets like shopping malls, churches, theaters and schools will almost certainly become much more attractive.  Unlike plots involving substantial amounts of explosives, or other military ordinance, such attacks require nothing more than a few pockets-full of ammunition and commonly available, non-military (not fully-automatic) firearms, and if the plots involve only one or two killers, particularly if they are closed-mouthed, they are virtually impossible to intercept and prevent.

Due to an unfortunate and outdated mix of social, academic and legal factors, schools are uniquely vulnerable to attack.  The feel-good trend of the 80s and 90s to declare school zones “gun free,” to “make a statement,” may have impressed those who believe that statement making is a good in and of itself and would doubtless have unjustifiably raised their self-esteem to stratospheric heights.  However such high-minded statement making has not served to provoke good will in those who have attacked schools or who are currently looking for a soft target. 

For most schools that have considered the possibility of such attacks (most have not), response to an armed attack amounts to little more than locking classroom doors, and reminiscent of early Cold War duck-and-cover drills, overturning and hiding behind desks, relying on 3/4” particle board desktops for protection from bullets and bombs. Doors and desks don’t provide effective protection from either.  Only coldly sober, rational tactical thinking, planning and action can prevent or ameliorate terrorist attacks.  Hiding, particularly hiding poorly, provides no real protection.  Unfortunately, tactical thinking remains off the radar of most educators, and only recently has any tactical thinking gone into the construction of school facilities.

Attacks by “active shooters,” whether Islamist terrorists or non-ideological, domestic juveniles or adults, have many elements in common.  All have missions in mind, and for most, survival is decidedly secondary.  Most expect to die, either through suicide or by means of the police (forcing the police to shoot them, AKA “suicide by cop”). Both types have no interest in negotiation, and on the rare occasions when they speak to the police at all, it is merely a means of obtaining greater publicity or playing for more time to rape, torture and kill helpless victims.  Both care about police intervention only because the police might interfere with their plans.  The police, who behave in legally proscribed and predictable ways, do not deter their attacks, and unlike common criminals, they have no reluctance in killing police officers.   They plan their attacks with the goal of causing the maximum damage--usually in loss of innocent lives-- in the shortest time, which tends to produce the most and most lasting publicity and/or the greatest glory for their cause and themselves in whatever hellish afterlife they covet. 

At the Virginia Tech attack in April of 2007, the killer, pausing after two initial murders, prepared and mailed a package of video, writings and photographs to NBC, which copied everything before bothering to call the police to turn over the originals, and blitzed the airwaves for days with the killer’s lunatic pronouncements.  In short, the media gave him exactly what he wanted.  In arrogantly and mindlessly defending their actions, NBC made clear to any and all future killers that their insane manifestos would receive a similarly warm welcome from the media.  This was not lost on those considering similar atrocities.
LESSONS:  All active shooter threats, regardless of ideology or motivation, are equally dangerous.  It must now be assumed that those attacking schools will not behave as common criminals, won’t play by the rules of the criminal justice system, do not intend to survive and will kill as many innocents as possible as quickly as possible.  Negotiation is likely futile.  The press will be on the side of the terrorists in their publicity seeking desires.

The Columbine killers tried to kill as many teachers and students (15) as possible before they were stopped. Considering the time afforded them by the police, it is amazing that hundreds weren’t killed.  The police were ineffective because they relied upon an outdated response model that assumed that the attackers were common criminals, wanted to negotiate, and that time was on the side of the police.  A school liaison officer did trade a few rounds of gunfire with the shooters, but quickly withdrew, doing as he had been taught: contain and control, let the professionals--Special Weapons and Tactics--handle it.  By the time a SWAT team assembled, organized and entered the building, the murderers had already killed their classmates and themselves, and a wounded teacher who might have been saved slowly bled to death over the course of many hours. The Columbine killers brought a crude propane tank bomb, hoping to set off an explosion that would kill scores, but were not able to cause a detonation. 

The Virginia Tech killer, who chained shut doors to keep victims in and the police out, also had more than enough time to kill 32 innocents before killing himself.  He was armed only with two common handguns.  The response of the police at Virginia Tech was many times faster than the Columbine response, yet they had no role in stopping the murderer, and their faster response mattered little to the victims or their families.  In fact, the number of cases where the police have had any actual role in stopping an active shooter are vanishingly small.
LESSONS:  In order to save lives, attackers must be immediately engaged and neutralized.

 Time is not on the side of the authorities and is absolutely not on the side of the victims.  By the time a SWAT team--even if one is available--can be mobilized, arrive and formulate a plan, their only useful task will be in helping to remove the dead.

The 9-11 terrorists had no short-term goals save killing as many Americans as possible.  There were no demands, no negotiations, nothing to contain or control.  It was the passengers of Flight 93, the airliner the terrorists intended to crash into the White House or Congress, alerted by cell phone to the terrorist’s intentions, who changed the response model independently of the authorities.  Crying “let’s roll,” they overwhelmed the terrorists, forcing the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field, far short of the terrorist’s target.  Terrorists now know that American airline passengers will not meekly wait for the authorities to save them.

  As positive as this development is, it tends to focus terrorists on softer targets.

Few are as soft as schools, as the world learned at Beslan, Russia during several days that began on September 01, 2004 when Islamic terrorists blew up a school, killing more than three hundred and wounding hundreds more as the culmination of three days of rape, torture and murder.  This tactic should not have been a surprise, and would not have been a surprise had the mainstream media honestly done its job in the past.  Israel has suffered the threat and reality of terrorist attacks on schools for decades.  These attacks have been, at best, underreported in the American media, but one particular aspect of these attacks, and the most effective response to them--in Israel and potentially in America--has been ignored, even suppressed by the MSM: the use of firearms by school staff to deter and stop school attacks.
LESSON:  Terrorists have been attacking schools and students, throughout the world, for decades.  Domestic active shooters have been doing the same in America for decades.  The threat is real and is already present.  What is new is the potential for an escalation in the number of attacks and in their deadliness.

Living with terrorism in a way that is, for the moment, foreign to Americans, the Israelis have adopted practical responses to terror.  For decades, Israeli teachers have been armed, even with true assault rifles (there is no such thing as an “assault weapon,” which is an anti-gun/MSM invention) and submachine guns, changing soft targets to hard targets, deterring attacks and preventing or minimizing the loss of life when attacks occur.  As a result, school attacks are rare.

A January 25, 2008 attack on an Israeli High School by two armed terrorists ended with only slight wounds to the two school counselors who used their handguns to quickly kill the terrorists.  That’s right: two armed school counselors protected their own lives and the lives of their students.  They were not police officers, commandos or action heros, but school counselors.  This story received scant attention in the American press, which continues to downplay or ignore Israeli, and many similar American, success stories, and routinely ignores the one to two million (or more) times each year that honest citizens use firearms to stop criminal assault, usually without firing a shot.

In Pearl, Mississippi on October 01, 1997, a crazed adolescent armed with a rifle shot nine students, killing two and wounding seven.  Who has heard of Assistant Principal Joel Myrick who stopped the rampage, saving untold lives?  Virtually no one, because he used a gun to overcome the shooter.  Myrick ran a quarter of a mile to his car, which was parked off school property to comply with the federal law then in force (but since overturned) prohibiting firearms within 1000 feet of a school.  Retrieving his handgun, he ran back to the school and confronted the shooter, disarming him and holding him for police.  Media accounts, when they mentioned Myrick, virtually all failed to mention the presence and role of his handgun.
On January 16, 2002 at the Appalachian Law School in Grundy, Virginia, a crazed student went on a shooting rampage, killing three and wounding three. He was stopped by two fellow students, Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges, who ran to their cars to retrieve their handguns.  At gunpoint, they ended his killing and held him for police. 

Dr. John Lott, in his book “The Bias Against Guns,” recounts how he conducted a Lexis/Nexus search of the news stories surrounding this event.  Of 208 news stories throughout the nation in the week following the attack, only four mentioned that the attack was stopped with the use of firearms.  Only two reported that Gross and Bridges actually pointed their guns at the shooter.  In his book, “Arrogance,” former CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg wrote of his surprise, upon reading Lott’s research into the incident, that the MSM would leave out such a noteworthy and essential detail.  Conducting his own research, he discovered that Lott was correct.  Goldberg wrote: “Only a tiny handful of reporters in the entire country were willing to report an essential part of the story: that it wasn’t just the killer who used a gun on campus that day, but two of the rescuers too.”

Considering media treatment of the issue, it is hardly surprising that so many Americans buy into the false and deadly promise of safety of the “gun-free school zone.”  It is unsurprising that most Americans do not recognize the very real threat of school attacks by terrorists. In the two most deadly American school attacks--Columbine and Virginia Tech--the police had no role in ending the killing, another fact which has gone unmentioned by the media.  For school attacks, this is overwhelmingly the rule, not the exception.

LESSON:  If the goal is saving lives--and where school children are involved, what more important goal exists?--force must be met, immediately, with equal or greater counter-force.

 The police virtually never arrive in time to make a difference.

Please keep in mind that I am not denigrating the police.  I was a police officer for nearly two decades.  That is why I understand the reality of police response time.  The police love to catch dangerous criminals in the act.  It’s what they live for, but in the real world, unlike television, catching bad guys in the act, or preventing their crimes, is uncommon precisely because most bad guys take pains to avoid being caught and because there are, relative to the size of any community, few police officers.

In installments two and three of this three-part series, I’ll elaborate on the difficulties the police face in responding to active shooters, and on the realities of time and distance that frustrate their response.  I’ll also propose a means to harden schools, and address the arguments against that proposal.
 
 by Mike McDaniel.   April 18, 2011 05:34 PM

Reprinted with the permission of the author

Ronvandyn:
An excellent read, thanks for the link.  I look forward to the next installment.

Ron

HuskerXDM:
I find it disturbing that society is willing to sacrifice a few members just to feel comfortable...so we can't let adults that hold a CCW permit carry in a school and yet we can predict with almost 100% certainty that there will be more school attacks.  Some are willing to gamble that it won't be 'our' school. 

The author is right about schools not thinking tactically... when my elementary school has a 'Code Red' we gather together behind an area protected by drywall.  Virtually every teacher at my school believes our job is to stay put and wait for the police.

bkoenig:
That was an incredibly well written essay.  Unfortunately, it uses common sense and logic to make its point, and we all know those two virtues have no place in today's debates about gun safety.   ::)

HuskerXDM, that's the difference between someone who has been indoctrinated their whole life to let someone else protect and care for them and someone who has recognized that they are responsible for their own safety.  Self reliance is not taught in our society anymore, whether you're talking about self protection or knowing how to change your own oil.  Kids are trained to let someone else do the dirty work of life while they concentrate on their PS3 and iPod.  Until that attitude changes society as a whole will continue to think that gun free zones work and the best response is to hide & wait for the police.

NE Bull:
The Deadly Political Correctness of Gun-Free School Zones Part II

by Mike McDaniel.

http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/315189.php



 


The first installment of this series (available here) outlined a dangerous and very real issue facing American schools today: The likelihood of attacks by active shooters, whether disaffected or deranged citizens, or Islamic terrorists, foreign or domestic.  This article will deal primarily with ways with which the problem may be successfully dealt, and with commonly raised objections to the only truly effective way to protect our children if a worst-case scenario occurs.

QUESTIONS, ANSWERS AND SOLUTIONS:

There is one simple update in school policy that can change American schools, as has been the case in Israel, from soft to hard--or at least harder--targets: allow teachers and other school staff to carry concealed handguns.  This policy can be implemented at no cost to schools and mechanisms, both legal and practical, are already in place. Only two American states completely prohibit the carrying of concealed handguns, though it is likely, circa April of 2011, that this will change in Wisconsin.  The rest allow it subject to records checks, testing and licensing.  However, several states allow any law abiding citizen who is not otherwise disqualified by mental illness or past criminal status--Wyoming is the most recent--to carry a concealed handgun with no state testing or licensing.  These laws have been a uniform success in that every state that has passed a concealed carry law has seen reductions in violent crime, mass shootings, and no corresponding increase in shooting incidents.  The kinds of wild west shootouts anti-gun activists predicted would break out at the slightest provocation have simply failed to materialize.

  Those licensed to carry concealed weapons have been, unsurprisingly, uncommonly law abiding, and only a tiny percentage (commonly much less than a single percent) have had their licenses suspended, most for technical violations of the law such as unintentionally carrying a handgun into a prohibited area.  Concealed carry has been so universally successful and beneficial that no repeal legislation has been seriously considered, let alone passed.  Circa Spring, 2011, concealed carry is allowed on school grounds only in Utah and Colorado, but 13 additional states are debating the issue, including Texas, where a bill that would allow concealed carry on state college campuses is being debated.

Q:  SCHOOLS ARE GUN-FREE ZONES.  WON’T GUNS MAKE SCHOOLS MORE DANGEROUS?

Gun free zones?  Yes, but only for those who obey the law, and are, as a consequence, no threat.  The fact that schools are “gun free zones” did not stop the Columbine killers or any other maniac intent on harming school children, nor will it stop those intent on harm in the future.  The laws ensure only that schools are easy targets.  In truth, they are victim disarmament zones, special preserves where shooters can be assured that they will have ample time to kill before any police response can be organized.  A gun-free zone sign in front of a school provides only a false sense of security to parents, but is comforting indeed to killers who may be certain that their victims will be unarmed and in a very poor position to resist them.

Very few people are comfortable with the idea of prominently posting a sign in front of their home advertising the fact that they are unarmed. Yet some are delighted to see essentially the same sign in front of their children’s school.  Signs and laws confer no protection.  They suggest and provide for only the possibility of punishment after a violation of the law.  The people who threaten our children don’t play by the rules of the American criminal justice system, and boldly standing ready to prosecute school murderers who commonly kill themselves during their attacks is, at best, an exercise in futility. Only the affirmative acts of those prepared to effectively defend themselves and others offer real protection.

Q:  TEACHERS CARRYING GUNS? 

One significant reason that violent crime has uniformly declined in right to carry states is that even though only a small fraction of the population carries a concealed weapon, the likelihood is high that some honest citizen will be carrying a handgun virtually anywhere at any time.  Knowing this, criminals can never know who will be armed and must assume that everyone might be.  Therefore though only a small portion of the honest population carry concealed weapons, they provide a protective, deterrent effect for the general public far out of proportion to their numbers.

Those already licensed for concealed carry provide a ready pool for schools.  Many people assume that the police are all expert shots.  Not so.  Many police officers are required to qualify with their firearms only once a year.  The courses of fire are commonly not demanding and passing scores generous.  Many officers fire their weapons only on those occasions (and clean them less often).

Shooting skills can be learned by virtually anyone, and a great many citizens exceed the police in shooting skill.  This is not to denigrate the police in any way--they do a difficult job well--but putting on a police uniform does not endow the wearer with magical shooting powers beyond the reach of civilians.  Most teachers are women, and firearms teachers know that women often make the best students, usually lacking the preconceptions and ingrained bad habits present in many men.

Publicizing that teachers are allowed to carry, suggesting that they are carrying, but taking pains to ensure that no one knows who or how many in any given school, will confer upon all teachers, students and schools the benefit of making every school a harder target.  No one should be required to carry a firearm against their will.  Even if one school in a district has no one on campus carrying a concealed weapon, as long as the public doesn’t know that but reasonably believes that some are, the school retains the deterrent effect of appearing to be a harder target. 

If you were planning a school attack and knew that the Smallville School District allowed concealed carry on school property, even encouraged it, but the Pleasantville School district next door did not, in which school district would you be more likely to attack?  Terrorists are deterred only when they believe that their mission might be thwarted, which tends to cause them to shift to a softer target.  At the moment, virtually every American elementary and secondary school is a soft target.

Q: CAN’T WE SECURE SCHOOLS WITH METAL DETECTORS, LOCKS AND OTHER METHODS?

As I previously noted, only recently have architects begun designing schools for greater security.  However, the very nature of schools mitigates against effective security.  Particularly in secondary schools, teachers, students and others are constantly coming and going, and a large number of exterior access doors are mandated by fire codes. Metal detectors do not protect against anyone who intends to kill, and security guards are often the first killed, as was the 2005 case at Red Lake High School in North Dakota.  A 16 year-old student began his attack by killing the school’s only security guard.  The shooter killed a teacher and five students and wounded 14 others before briefly trading gunfire with the police and killing himself in one of the relatively few school attacks in which the police played at least some part in stopping the shooting.

Strong locks and substantial classroom doors are certainly a good idea, as are video systems, comprehensive intercoms and other security measures, but they are expensive and as such, are often set aside for other priorities.

 Good security design of school facilities can slow determined killers, but cannot stop them.  By all means, employ these methods, but that’s not the point.  The more capable and determined the shooter(s) the more likely it is that such passive methods will be of little or no value. The question is what works when these methods have failed, when a killer is present and ready to kill?

Q: WON’T STUDENTS STEAL TEACHER’S GUNS?  WON’T TEACHERS LOSE OR MISPLACE THEM?

Anyone carrying a firearm must carry it on their person, invisible, safe and secure from theft. Handguns can’t be locked in cabinets, left in purses or desk drawers; they are not secure and will be useless if their owner is confronted by a deadly threat while thus unarmed.  A handgun in a lockbox in a teacher’s classroom will be less than useless to the teacher confronted by a shooter in the hallways of their school. The most effective known weapons locked in an armory are useless to people under attack anywhere else, particularly if they don’t have the key. 

It is difficult or impossible to detect a concealed handgun if it has been carefully chosen and concealed.   Carrying a firearm entails the absolute responsibility to keep it from unauthorized or dangerous persons.  This is all a part of competent training, and requires changes in mindset, behavior and wardrobe.
 
Carrying a concealed weapon, on or off school grounds, is clearly not for everyone, but is not unreasonably dangerous.  By this I mean that when we leave our homes every morning, we assume a great many reasonable risks.  Driving represents one of the most real and serious risks we face every day, yet we tend to think nothing of it.  We trust average citizens each and every day with weapons far more destructive and deadly than handguns: automobiles.  Driving is the most complex, demanding task that we do every day, far more difficult than shooting, yet we require less training, background checks and testing for drivers than that required for concealed carry and think nothing of it.  Uniformed police officers who carry their weapons openly are far more likely to be the victim of an attempt to take their weapon than anyone discreetly carrying a concealed handgun in any setting.

Fortunately, there is an experience model.  In all of the years of teachers carrying concealed handguns in Utah, there has never been an instance of a student obtaining and using a firearm taken from a teacher.  While the theft of a handgun is always a possibility, all of life is a matter of balancing risks, of balancing the good against the bad.  The potentially life saving effects of concealed carry during a worst case scenario clearly outweigh, by an enormous margin, the potential negative effects of a lost or stolen weapon.

Q: WE PAY THE POLICE TO PROTECT US.  SHOULDN’T WE LEAVE IT TO PROFESSIONALS?

It’s true that police officers love to catch really bad guys, but the police have no duty to protect any individual citizen.  On June 27, 2005 the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in Castle Rock v. Gonzales.  In this case, the estranged husband of Gonzales defied a restraining order and kidnapped their three daughters, ages 7-10.  Over many hours, the police were repeatedly called, even begged to act.  Mrs. Gonzales even went to the police station in person and plead for their help, but they did nothing.  Shortly thereafter, Gonzales’ husband committed suicide by cop by firing on the police station.  His three daughters were found dead in his vehicle.  He murdered them before attacking the police station.
The court affirmed decades of lower court precedence in holding that the police have a duty only to deter and investigate crime for the public at large but not for any individual; the police could not be held liable even though they did nothing to assist Gonzales despite her repeated, obviously valid and pitiful pleas for their help.

This might seem outrageous, but it is rational and necessary.  Most people would be amazed, even shocked, to learn how few officers are patrolling their community at any time of the night or day.  It is impossible for the police to guarantee protection to any individual, and if they could be successfully sued for failing to provide such protection, what city could possibly afford a police force?  Police agencies are always understaffed.  As a consequence, they staff their shifts with the most officers when most are required: evenings in general and Friday and Saturday nights in particular.  Police agencies virtually always have the fewest officers working during weekday shifts when school is in session. 

Indeed, the police love to catch bad guys in the act, and would love nothing more than to stop school shooters, but the police are primarily reactive rather than proactive.  There aren’t many of them, and they’re not well prepared to deal--in terms of weapons, training or procedures--with actual terrorism which employs military methods, weapons, tactics and objectives.  It is true that more police agencies are changing their response models and training regarding school shootings, but we are all responsible for our own--and our families’--personal safety.  No matter how well trained and prepared responding police officers might be, the immutable issues that matter are time and distance.  Unless officers are present--within easy handgun range of the shooters--when an attack begins, many children and teachers will die before they can arrive.

Q: WHAT ABOUT SCHOOL LIAISON OFFICERS?

Some schools have armed police officers on their campuses during school hours, more have part time officers, but most have none.  School liaison officers are expensive; they are of little use to a day to day patrol force, yet their salary must come, in part or completely, out of a police budget.  Even if a school has an assigned liaison officer, the odds that the officer will be on campus when an attack occurs, or will be in the part of the building necessary to take immediate and effective action are small.  Such officers duties do not consist only of walking continuously around a school.  For most, that’s a very small part of their daily routine.  Many schools have the population of small towns, and modern schools are like mazes to those who don’t work in them daily. Those most likely to know who doesn’t belong on a campus and what is happening on a moment by moment basis are those who work there--the teachers.

Time is no longer on the side of the good guys.  When an active shooter or shooters enter a school, if they are not engaged and stopped immediately, the only factor determining the eventual death toll will be their good will or lack of marksmanship.  Many schools do not have intercom systems, so a teacher seeing an armed attacker in a hallway may have no way--other than their own cell phone, which may or may not work inside the school--to notify the office, warn other teachers, or to call the police.
 
Q: WON’T TEACHERS WITH GUNS JUST MAKE A BAD SITUATION WORSE?

Worse?  Worse than what?  Worse than active shooters intent on killing as many students and teachers as quickly as possible?  Worse than terrorists feverishly wiring explosive charges?  When an armed attack on a school occurs, “worse” has arrived.  The only issue thereafter is how deadly things will become, and if the good guys have no effective response, “deadly” will be measured by the amount of time available to the killers to run up the final body count.
 
 Unlike feel good gestures, arming teachers is one of the simplest and most effective measures that can have a positive effect if the worst case scenario occurs--ask the Israelis.  If it never occurs, the school environment remains unaffected, except for the positive benefits of deterrence.
 
 Teachers who hold concealed carry permits currently live a schizophrenic legal/professional existence.  Standing on the sidewalk in front of a school, they are trusted upstanding citizens who have willingly, and at considerable expense in time and money, submitted to rigorous vetting by the state.  Step onto school property and they instantly become potentially crazed killers, liable for firing and lengthy jail sentences.  The determining factor?  Geography.
Does the value of a teacher’s or student’s life change depending upon where he or she stands relative to a school property boundary?  Should children be under the protection of their parents who hold concealed carry licenses be deprived of that protection merely because they step on school property, crossing an invisible line?  Does a gun-free school zone sign confer magical protective properties on the real estate behind it, forcing the most deranged or homicidally determined to obey that law even as they doggedly prepare for mass murder?

 Unless this kind of magic exists, the only thing worse than an armed attack is failing to prepare for it, and therefore, having no effective response when it occurs.

Q: WON’T ARMED TEACHERS MAKE THINGS MORE DANGEROUS FOR RESPONDING POLICE OFFICERS?  WON’T THEY SHOOT ARMED TEACHERS BY MISTAKE?

Most teachers wear identification cards and look a lot more like teachers than killers.  Police officers are trained not to fire their weapons without being absolutely sure of their targets.  Every police officer knows that they are, morally and legally, absolutely responsible for every round they fire and that they will frequently be required to walk into ambiguous situations.  They train for these scenarios. Officers knowing that teachers might be armed makes friendly fire incidents less, rather than more, likely.

It is true that police officers sometimes make mistakes and injure or kill innocents.  But again, the issue is one of balance.  Should the mere possibility of mistakes prevent us from providing the best, most proven method of protecting the lives of our children at school? 

Q: SCHOOLS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE, SECURE ENVIRONMENTS FOR OUR CHILDREN.  DON’T GUNS IN SCHOOLS GIVE STUDENTS THE WRONG MESSAGE?

Indeed, schools must be safe and secure environments for our children.  Historically, this has been the case, but never has there been a clear and present--and often demonstrated--danger like that we now face.  Never has it been more vital that those responsible for the safety of children entrusted to them at school deal with that responsibility rationally and effectively.  Locks, doors, video, passive security measures are all nice to have, but the question that each and every parent must ask is: “what will you do if the worst case scenario comes to pass?  How will you protect my child?”  Unless the answer is to effectively deter attacks, and to meet deadly force with deadly force, your children are “protected” only by rhetoric, only by small, metal signs.  School shooters have not, to date, been impressed, deterred, or stopped by rhetoric or by signage.

The true gun free school zone message is that we are not responsible for our own safety and security; someone else will protect us.  It represents magical thinking: A thing is so because we say it is, because we sincerely wish it to be.  Pity the poor Virginia Tech official who, months before the shooting, after the defeat of a law that would have allowed students and faculty to carry firearms on campus, smugly proclaimed that everyone could, as a result, feel safe.  No doubt he and others felt safe for a time, but feelings and reality are often quite different, an irony that one can only hope will haunt him, and will certainly haunt the surviving relatives of the victims, for the rest of their lives.

We are all, by law and common sense, responsible for our personal security.  Refusing to take affirmative measures to protect ourselves and our charges is an abrogation of responsibility and teaches weakness, helplessness and victimhood.  We have established gun free school zone policies to lull ourselves into the belief that such “zones” are safe, to “send a message” about what we believe to be important, to advertise our belief in peace and safety and niceness.  Unfortunately, reality dictates that such signs will be obeyed only by the law abiding and that they empower, even encourage those who would harm others.  There are truly evil people abroad in the world, and any one of us may have the misfortunate to meet one of them at any time of the day or night.  Do we really want to teach students to ignore reality and rely only on feel good/feel safe measures in this, or any other situation? 
A recent focus in schools across the country is the prevention of bullying.  Programs are being developed and large amounts of money being spent.  There is little doubt that some children subjected to bullying, particularly where school authorities do nothing, commit suicide or otherwise suffer.  But if we are willing to devote so much energy and so many resources to this issue--and it is surely reasonable to take prudent steps to prevent bullying and to effectively and immediately punish it when and where it occurs--why are so many educators and others unwilling to address an even greater and more potentially deadly danger?

PARTING THOUGHTS:

As regular readers know, I am a teacher of high school English.  I’ve been fortunate to have some 15 years of experience in this wonderful and vital endeavor and have also had the pleasure of teaching college. These experiences have given me considerable insight into the culture of education.

Many educators, many of those in positions of authority in education, are liberals.  As such, their views of those who own guns tend to run the gamut from disapproval to believing them to be barely sentient lunatics ready to kill the innocent at any moment.  Some really have an irrational, visceral fear and loathing of firearms, as though inanimate objects have magical, evil powers capable of infecting those around them.  It should hardly be surprising that such people would reflexively oppose what I’m suggesting.

However, the times are changing.  Only a few years ago, before the Heller and McDonald decisions by the Supreme Court finally established the Second Amendment as a fundamental American right enforceable on state and local governments, the kinds of laws now being considered and increasingly passed would have been thought impossible.  Anti-gun forces still exist, but are more and more marginalized.  The field of education is one of their last power bases. 

In the final installment of this series, which I’ll post next Monday, I’ll lay out a very realistic scenario that may help to persuade otherwise reluctant parents and school board members.  It is my hope that America won’t have to suffer through a Beslan-like attack--or many such attacks--in an elementary school before our schools implement the only effective means of stopping those who would harm our children. Never has the danger been greater, yet never has the possibility for effective change been greater.

by Mike McDaniel.  April 24, 2011 03:08 PM

Reprinted with the permission of the author

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