Short Takes – Protecting Our Schools

Opinion

As expected, the school shooting outrage in Florida will soon run its course. Why? Because the Democrats immediately politicized it by blaming the NRA and organizing anti-gun rally’s around cooperative high schoolers, many still traumatized by the drama they just experienced. Their purpose, once again, is to set the anti-gun agenda they believe will garner them more local Congressional representatives elected to congress by an outraged populous.

 

Polarizing the issue as the Democrats have done, ended any hope for an intelligent discussion. In affect, democrats want the issue but they will fight any logical solution to solving it. Without a gun, that boy could have as easily run the students down with a vehicle. Then, you wouldn’t hear democrats scream “blame the UAW, ban all cars.” If you get the chance, ask your Democrat candidate for congress: “Do you support the Constitution?” A simple, logical question. If they say “yes!” then ask them “why are they running as a Democrat?” Make ‘em answer!

 

The anti gunners blame the 2nd Amendment and its supporters for America’’s violence problems with guns. The Constitution, because the founders could not possibly have foreseen it, does not answer the problems of young teen age boy’s, drug induced in schools because they are boisterous young teenage boy’s, doing violence with guns.

 

Like the Florida shooter, these drugged up young me are “getting lost in the rabbit hole of mental illness,” in and out of government social service counseling activities, staffed by people who are convinced they are doing good but weighed down by sheer volume of referred cases, so that no one gets a solution to their problems. We cannot continue to simply treat the symptoms after the offense, “tsk, tsk” the problem until it goes away or until it blows up in their faces, like the Florida tragedy. Everybody who needed to know, knew the potential danger.

 

The Democrats focus on the 2nd amendment because it is the only block to their goal of the  totalitarianism they want for America. They can never succeed so long as Americans are armed, protected by the 2nd Amendment and willing to defend themselves from an out of control government.

 

Is there a solution to hardening schools from outside attack? Yes but it costs. The most effective security for stationary targets requires at least three concentric lines of outer defense extending thousands of yards. But a school wouldn’t expect to receive incoming artillery or mortar fire so the distant threat doesn’t really exist except it be the unknown, individual threat, like Cruz, that must be discovered and neutralized at that outer range. Police intelligence.

 

Neutralizing Cruz could have been a perfect exercise in local police efficiency fulfilling the long distance threat portion of the outer circle defense plan. Where was the weakness in the Florida incident? It was a failure to communicate, by the FBI, that did have the information necessary to neutralize the threat, but didn’t act on it.

 

It is here where the defended target, the school, needs to have daily updated Intel reports from the local sheriff or police dept. on potential threats. It should be an inexpensive daily habit of communication. In larger cities, these exist. NYPD for example rivals the CIA  and the FBI in overseas intel collection. Their sole purpose, to protect NYC.

 

The second inner defense ring, and still thinking about schools, is a prepared readiness reaction team of trained police, think SWAT, ready to respond to a threat by hardening the target with their in view presence and/or detectives searching out the threat. The cost for a continual police presence is prohibitive but, a proper response plan will fulfill that gap and could even cover several schools in any given urban area.

 

The inner most target, the school itself, is the last line of defense. Schools, especially large ones, should have choke point entries manned by officers capable and trained to shoot and neutralize a threat. The day of the old retired policeman hired as an armed security guard and friendly with the children, is over. Armed teachers are not the answer either without them being willing to undergo a weeks worth of eight hour a day firearms training and quarterly re-quals. 

 

Prison guards, not jailers, are perfectly trained for this purpose. That is the minimum level of training that should be required for school hardening that I would recommend.

 

The argument against that is that administrators “don’t want to turn their schools into prisons.” The logical response is, “do they want to turn them into graveyards?” Florida, Columbine and Sandy Hook, Aurora, among others, stand as a sad stark reminders of that level of thinking.

 

Finally, the security at target should be totally separate from school administrators interference and interactions with faculty and students. Armed police should not patrol hallways. Once a school gets used to the outside omnipresent security, silent but visible, then the educational atmosphere of freedom and safety returns, the civilian culture of anxiety dissipates and the security issues fades away, Basically, they feel protected.

 

Quickly, concern dissipates and nobody cares anymore. It’s that nobody cares anymore idea that is an eventual result after every such tragedy. With a trained security force, unrelated to the school administration, schools can return to their main function, education. Who really remembers Sandy Hook or Columbine any more? Long and all but forgotten.

 

Remember, freedom is the goal, the Constitution is the way. Now, go get ‘em!

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