Texas school sign: Staff “armed and trained” to protect students “with deadly force if necessary”
May not be the answer to school shootings, but it may be part of the answer.
Re-upping this post, which originally ran on August 30, 2015.
From Danelle:
A little tiny school in remote west Texas.
This is posted on their high school football stadium.
Friday Night Lights indeed!
[Note: This sign is at Ft. Davis (TX) High School]
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Comments
I love my state.
Don’t miss this video of the Sheriff in Argyle
http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/19/texas-sheriff-who-allows-teachers-to-carry-firearms-leaves-msnbcs-jaw-on-the-floor/
Great lengths are taken, in the design of automobiles, to provide protection for occupants in the event of accidents. There are all sorts of security systems available for our dwellings. There are workplaces ’round the country that are very well secured and the workers there quite safe.
Why does providing a safe environment for kinds while in school seem to languish, with there being noted exceptions? Is this another case of legislator foot-dragging, allocating funding for such systems for example?
You may call it “foot dragging”, whereas I call it willful negligence!
Much prefer your naming of the matter than mine. Indeed, “willful negligence.”
Why stop there? The school uniform should include a bullet resistant vest and a helmet with a face shield. The entire school property should be ringed by and electrified razor wire fence Outside of that fence should be a blast wall. No car should be allowed to approach the building. School buses need armed guards.
But what we need most to do is end regulations on water and air.
Let’s start with what really needs to be done to secure schools.
First, you need to restrict and control access. This is easily done by limiting points of ingress and egress to the school buildings and part of the campus. Normal inhabitants of the building need to present their school ID and old style airport scanning procedures should be followed. Part of this access control would include a perimeter barrier, a wall is nice, surrounding the buildings and athletic fields. parking lots can be either established outside the perimeter barrier and monitored visually.
Next you need a trained, dedicated security force on-site. This force could be augmented by trained teaching and administrative staff, if desirable.
Armed guards on school busses can be done, if desirable. Many school; buses carry an aid as well as the driver to monitor students.
Do all of these things and you do not need bullet resistant vests for the chil’ren.
“But what we need most…”
No, what we need most is to eliminate commies like yellowsnake that create the problems to start with.
I cannot envision any real flesh and blood human being who actually likes you and seeks out the company of an annoying adolescent like you. You are a miserable, irksome, pitiful excuse for a man. Some day you may learn to be a tolerable, and worthwhile individual. Until then, please note that nobody here finds your attempts at being the gadfly, the dissident, or whatever you are desperately trying to be, remotely interesting, challenging or substantive. You are a small, insignificant simpleton and intellectually vapid lowbrow worthy only of mockery and disdain.
If this is allowed by TX law, I would alter that sign just slightly: “… armed, trained, and legally authorized to meet threats …”
Unfortunately, this is still a situation in which officially-approved government employees are the only ones permitted to defend themselves—or anyone else—with “arms”. Teachers, police, FBI, the National Guard, whatever … all parts of officialdom.
This is not really the sort of thing of which great Bills of Rights are made.
And well trained and authorized authorites oversaw the tip given to the FBI about the shooter. Government only trusts itself. The primal concept of the founding was government fearing the people.
Okay Tom, let me explain this, again.
What we have here is school full of young children. The whole point is to protect the children from harm. So, collateral damage has to be avoided. To minimize the chance of collateral damage from those “protecting” the children, those people have to be trained to the point where they are not likely to be a threat to those that they protect. This means that basic training is necessary as well as ongoing training and the demonstration of proficiency with the weapon in high stress situations. Also, to protect the students, the administration has to control who is carrying firearms in the school. Let’s say that young Mr. Cruz is walking into a high school in Tx with his AR-15, which he may legally carry, openly, in that state. It would be irrational to assume that he was a law abiding citizen who did not have any intention of harming anyone at the school. So, the school has both the authority and the obligation to control who is armed, as well as who enters the facility. And, as the school is a part of the government, that means that the government is gets to make the rules.
Now, the wording of the 2nd Amendment causes a host of problems, since the enactment of the 14th Amendment. The 2nd clearly prohibits the federal government to regulate the ownership and possession, including public carry, of firearms and other personal weapons. This prohibition was transferred to the states by by the 14th Amendment, the ultimate example of unintended consequences. Since then, the courts have been adding exception to the 2nd Amendment, unconstitutionally.
So, you have two opposing needs at work here. One is the necessity to control the possession of firearms, and other weapons, within sensitive facilities and areas. On the other, you have a Constitutional prohibition on government regulating the ownership and possession of the same instruments.
OK, let’s hypothetical the situation: We always hear about the perils of an overzealous CCW guy, but consider the following: Say when Cruz started someone else started frantically shooting at Cruz and in all the excitement he shot a student or two before killing Cruz and say, for sake of discussion, the total body count was 10, or maybe 15. Is that not a better outcome than the 17 deaths?
Not from the standpoint of the dead and their parents. Whether child is killed by an attacker or by friendly fire, that child is just as dead. On the other hand, if you make sure that your defenders are properly trained and experienced, then you can end up with a body count of one, the attacker, and ZERO collateral damage.
CCW supporters are always trying to ignore the problems presented by a firearms carrier who has little or no training in the effective tactical use of the firearm. It always boils down to the argument that an untrained person with a firearm is better than no one with a firearm at all. But, it ignores the fact that it is a rather simple matter for a person to secure adequate training to minimize his threat to noncombatants. Now, for general exercise of a person’s 2nd Amendment rights, we do not want the “government” to set performance requirements for the general carry of defensive firearms. However, there are times when such standards should be required. Defending a school with a firearm is one such time.
Funny how we used to have students use weapons in school as recreation time and have no problems. As a 10 year old I carried my 22 into elementary school for show and tell, no problem.
In many high schools it was routine to see rifles in the back windows of students parked pickup trucks.
Were this still the case, any school shooting would result in the body count of 1 to a very few. The one being the perp and the rest being caught off guard before the reaction.
The reality is, there would be no school shootings.
Times have changed. Back when I was growing up, school yard fights were one-on-one affairs and no weapons were used. Now most fights devolve into gang fights and weapons are routinely used. If a person lost a fist fight, he did not go home, get his Maggie and return to shoot the winner. Now this is not only common place, by the shooter shoots the winner’s friends, family and innocent bystanders.
Times change.
Okay Tom, let me explain this, again.
Your attitude of smug condescension lacks merit.
My attitude has nothing to do with the validity of my argument.
Like the window sticker “This house is protected by Smith&Wesson” almost never gets robbed…..if more signs around the country were like the above, school shootings would maybe be stopped.
These idiots want to shoot, not be shot at.
Remember when conservatives encouraged liberals to put signs on their house with phrases like: “This is a gun-free home”?
The few who did immediately got robbed – the others refused to put up the signs, but kept on lecturing us about how bad guns were.
And they always choose places where they won’t shoot back – notice a pattern here, anyone?
Remember the uproar over campus carry and how it upset the professors? The dean of the Texas Tech Law School quit her job and went to a tiny law school in Illinois where such foolishness doesn’t exist. Imagine the uproar if LTC was allowed at your kid’s elementary school.
There’s a good piece out on the web today about the protocol’s Israel put in place to stop school shootings after a particularly horrible one happened there 40 years ago. (by Palestinians, natch)
It’s not that difficult, it just takes the political will to make it happen:
https://townhall.com/columnists/lawrencemeyers/2018/02/15/president-trump-have-education-department-mandate-active-shooter-protocols-n2449726
There are elements of copycat crimes in these school shootings. It happens.
All it will take is one, possibly two incidents where a shooter is stopped in his tracks by armed, trained people. That will break the cachet.
We’ll never hear about that one from the MSM.
There have already been a couple of shootings that were stopped at the onset by an armed school official. As you say, this was woefully under reported.
This problem will never be completely solved because you can’t stop insanity or rage. But the most long-lasting, most-complete answer is to change the culture.
America used to have firearms more readily available, yet fewer people got shot at schools. The only thing that’s changed in the interim is the culture.
Many, many important places – airports, courthouses, banks, etc. – are protected by armed guards – should be the same at schools.
Except “The People” are neutered into “The Sheeple” in areas they can help with.
Your child is probably safer at an NFL game than at a public school
Thereby increasing the opportunity cost. Current and future abortionists, practice your rites, somewhere else.
Arkansas school to arm teachers with concealed weapons
Arkansas school district arming more than 20 teachers, staff..
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/arkansas-school-arming-teachers-article-1.1412540
Somebody correct me if I’m wrong, but won’t Cruz be the first school shooter prosecuted since the Jonesboro Arkansas pair?
If so, I wonder what failures of the system will be revealed.
It’s what the Israelis have done. Along with training the school children to react better to a live shooter on campus.
Instead of running or hiding in fear, the students are taught what steps to take under different conditions.
Just eliminating the Gun Free Zone laws that prevent concealed carry in a school will make a difference. That coach who died was ex service man and would have loved to have had a gun to attack the shooter rather than have to use his body as a shield.
No one would require any teacher to be armed but those that wish to should be able to. That plus a Resource officer would lower the number of incidents if this became a nation wide regulation.
And that also is what’s needed. No mixed responses from state to state.
Make rule and require the states to enact legislation to accomplish these protections.
Then while that is taking effect let’s have some research done on why school shooters seem to only be white boys?
There’s got to be some reason for that. I think I know and I think the liberals have an idea also but they’re afraid that that answer will be discovered and it won’t bode well for schools or certain other political lobbyists.
Under Florida State law any school district can authorize any of its employees to carry a firearm on school grounds.
FSS790.115 (2)(a) A person shall not possess any firearm, electric weapon or device, destructive device, or other weapon as defined in s. 790.001(13), including a razor blade or box cutter, except as authorized in support of school-sanctioned activities, at a school-sponsored event or on the property of any school, school bus, or school bus stop; however, a person may carry a firearm:
1. In a case to a firearms program, class or function which has been approved in advance by the principal or chief administrative officer of the school as a program or class to which firearms could be carried;
2. In a case to a career center having a firearms training range; or
3. In a vehicle pursuant to s. 790.25(5); except that school districts may adopt written and published policies that waive the exception in this subparagraph for purposes of student and campus parking privileges.
Note the passage, “except as authorized in support of school-sanctioned activities”. This would allow a school system, or the school principle, to authorize the carry of a firearm by anyone who was providing any type of security, even if that was only as a designated responder to an armed intrusion.
What you do not want, in a sensitive facility, is unknown people wandering around with firearms and other deadly weapons. This leads to all kinds of problems.
“This leads to all kinds of problems.”
Then, how come when we had just that we had very few problems?
As I mentioned above, times change.
However, in Florida, the ban on firearms in schools has been in effect since the passage of FSS 790.115 in 1992. And, it includes exceptions for the introduction of firearms into a school for authorized target shooting purposes, and allows firearms in vehicle, IF they are secure. As to taking your .22 rifle to show and tell, in Florida it would have been illegal. In the first place, it has been a crime for a minor, under the age of 16 to be in possession of a firearm unless under the direct supervision of an adult, for several decades. And, the open carry of a repeating rifle has been against the law since before the turn of the century, except under certain circumstance, of which show and tell is not one.
Now, of course, we have students bringing firearms to school to shoot their ex-girlfriend, or a romantic rival, of a teacher whom they do not like, or for a myriad of other reasons. We have parents getting into knockdown drag-out fights with teachers, students and other parents at schools.
Times have changed. No matter how much we may wish to have them remain as we REMEMBER them to be, this is no longer reality.
It has become clear that schools have become high-value targets in our modern era. School design and security practices have lagged further behind, as terrorists and malignant sociopaths have multiplied in our society.
>> Schools should be designed or retrofitted to be high-security.
>> Controlled entry, especially for non-students.
>> Classrooms with strong lockable doors, at least two per room.
>> A system for instantaneous notice, such as a colored light system, for rapid notification of each classroom and teacher of an emergency and its nature.
>> Staff members trained in armed defense practices and carrying concealed weapons in potent calibers suitable for defense against a rifle.
>> Armed guards, preferably not in uniform, and carrying concealed (students would likely know who they are, but intruders will not).
Banks, courthouses, even commercial buildings now have strong security measures. Our greatest treasure is left unguarded.
as terrorists and malignant sociopaths have multiplied in our society.
Have they? Or has fashionable law simply made their targets more vulnerable?
there was a coach several years ago who ran to his truck to retrieve a weapon and stopped a school shooter. I think it was KY or TN.
Why do we continue to treat mass shootings as something that can be controlled? Can we control fire? Can we control the weather? Can we control earthquakes? No, but we take actions to mitigate them. In the case of fire, we have extinguishers and alarms as well as special drills for the kids to respond correctly. In the case of bad weather we have warnings ahead of time and then we have actions already set in place to deal with the aftermath. It’s the same with earthquakes. But instead of taking the same type of preventative steps with natural disasters, we act like there is only one solution. We can harden the schools without turning them into prisons. We can arm the staff just like airlines did with their cockpit crews. We can make school rooms almost impenetrable with simple swing arm metal bars. Every school can be equipped with security guards who have been thoroughly trained in the intricacies of their wards. But the left wants to take the millions of law-abiding people and tell them that because of a very small few, they have to give up their freedom. We will never stamp out evil or mental health issues. We have to act in that manner and treat them like acts that can be mitigated by action.
We can arm the staff
This is probably unnecessary. Reasoning that unarmed victims are an atrocity magnet, but targets which might—or might not—be armed are not, we would probably get much of the benefit (and essentially none of the risk) if we stopped advertising the fact that they’re unarmed.
The left does not want a solution that works. They want to take your guns and they are just using school shootings as an excuse.