The atrocity at the Connecticut elementary school will not be the last such horror, nor was it the first or even the worst.  Go back to the year 1764, in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania.  The first: during Pontiac’s Rebellion in the wake of the French and Indian War, four “warriors” entered a schoolhouse and slaughtered the headmaster and some ten children.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_Rebellion_school_massacre . The worst: in 1927, a crazed monster beat his wife to death, then triggered a bombing in an elementary school in Bath, Michigan, killing some 38 kids and several adults. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster .

I’ll repeat what I said in the Wall Street Journal op-ed section and on the Today show in 1999, after the Columbine High School atrocity: if we simply prepared teachers to handle this type of crisis the way we teach them to handle fires and medical emergencies, the death toll would drop dramatically.  We don’t hear of mass deaths of children in school fires these days: fire drills have long since been commonplace, led by trained school staff, not to mention sprinkler systems and smoke alarms and strategically placed fire extinguishers that can nip a blaze in the bud while firefighters are en route.  In the past, if someone “dropped dead,” people would cry and wring their hands and wail, “When will the ambulance get here?” Today, almost every responsible adult knows CPR; most schools have easily-operated Automatic Electronic Defibrillators readily accessible; and a heart attack victim’s chance of surviving until the paramedics arrive to take over is now far greater.

The same principle works for defending against mass murders…it just doesn’t work HERE, because it is politically incorrect to employ it HERE.  After the Ma’alot massacre in 1974, Israel instituted a policy in which volunteer school personnel, parents, and grandparents received special training from the civil guard, and were seeded throughout the schools armed with discreetly concealed 9mm semiautomatic pistols.  Since that time, there has been no successful mass murder at an Israeli school, and every attempt at such has been quickly shortstopped by the good guys’ gunfire, with minimal casualties among the innocent.  Similar programs are in place in Peru and the Phillippines, with similarly successful results.

Some people see the logic in the Israeli approach. Dave Workman does, as seen here: http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-wants-action-regardless-of-politics-after-gun-free-school-zone-tragedy?cid=db_articles .  Ann Coulter does, as seen here: http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/newtown-school-shootings-ann-coulter-makes-her-case-concealed-carry-laws-69361 .

Unfortunately, in this country, logic has been buried under political correctness.  Those in power whose ego is invested in brie et Chablis values that include scorn for the peasantry they accuse of “clinging to guns and Bibles” will never see that logic.  Children will continue to die in gun-free zones  hunting preserves for psychopathic murderers, and the cowardly murderers will continue to surrender or kill themselves as soon as armed good guys show up…far too late.

1 COMMENT

  2. Mas – a profound sense of sadness at this tragedy. Your blog is timely.

    Our family lost a child to murder. The circumstances were not the same – he was on a camping trip in one of our beautiful wildlife areas 17 years ago. The shooter was caught, tried, sentenced to life without parole, and as long as we live, we will never get over the loss. We have managed to have him kept in prison and hope to do so until we cannot take another breath. The judicial system worked flawlessly for us.

    The parents and family members of the murdered children, as well as the families of those teachers and administrators that were lost, should be uppermost in our thoughs and prayers. They, and their community, deserves every bit of support that can be musterd to help them.

    The national media will continue to make this a media circus. The President has throw down the gauntlet of firearms control, which will then take on a life of its own. For those of us who have firearms and use them with utmost care and responsibility, we will bear the brunt of an unbelieveable attack to regulate and/or ban these items, Second Amendment rights notwithstanding, or so it appears.

    I work at an all boys high school, and as watchful as we are, this sort of thing is not too far from our minds every day. We believe in an open school, not a fortress, where many educational and sporting events are held daily when school is open, as well as when school is not in session.

    Yes, we are vulnerable, and yes we train for intruders as best we can. Persons who have mental or flawed personallity issues can and may find a way to attack. I pray to God, this never happes to us.

    Please continue to be an advocate for a precious right, and use your skills to help where you can.

    Kind regards,

    Stephen Crider

  3. Thank you Mas, for a perfectly written piece. I have believed for years that the Gun Free School Zones Act, signed by usually reliable Ronald Reagan, oddly enough, would lead to something like this.This tragedy,to me, looks a lot like the one in MS some years ago where a school official with a pistol legally kept in his vehicle was able to access it and stopped the killing. That psychopath had also killed a parent, taken several firearms, and attacked the school. This one could have been contained rapidly if such a person had been present, shame belongs on those that brought that GFSZA into law. I recognize that it would unrealistic to expect every teacher in the country to start carrying a sidearm. But we could, and should, bring in a program, possibly modelled on our own Armed Flight Deck Officers program for airline crews, into place. The record overseas is clear, we need to do it here.

  4. According to a report at nbcnews.com Adam Lanza, who murdered twenty children and six adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School yesterday, had tried to buy a rifle at a Dick’s Sporting Good store on Tuesday. “Adam Lanza, 20, went to a Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Danbury, Conn., on Tuesday to buy the weapon, but was turned down because he didn’t want to undergo a background check or abide by the state’s waiting period for gun sales, the officials said.” Wait, what? We’re so confused. We thought, based on the incessant on-air emoting of of the usual anti-2A talking heads that we need more laws to prevent someone like Lanza from buying a gun. More laws that would — in the vast majority of cases — make it harder for law-abiding citizens to buy firearms. See, we’d heard that “the reality is that in the United States of America in 2012, it’s easier in many states to rent an automobile — to buy an automatic weapon than it is to rent an automobile. It’s more demanding.” Apparently we were misinformed.

  5. Have you wondered why, in such a target rich environment as a suburban shopping mall two weeks before Christmas, the shooter at the Clackamas Town Center only managed to kill two people before dousing his own lights? Part of the reason was a dodgy gun. But as is being reported by kgw.com, part was also due to the fact that, gun-free zone or not, Jacob Roberts was confronted by Nick Meli who was armed and has a concealed carry permit. No, he didn’t fire because of he feared hitting an innocent person behind Roberts if he missed. But Roberts knew Meli was there: “I know after he saw me, I think the last shot he fired was the one he used on himself.” David Frum was unavailable for comment.

  8. Mas, I believe this is one of your best articles ever. My first time posting in 5 years lets you know I felt moved. After talking about how my nieces would fare in such an event, my sister said she is all for an Israeli style school security. By the way Combat Shooting just arrived via amazon as an early Christmas present! Keep up the great work. Shalom.

  10. I’m just spitballing here, but why don’t we have built in to every classroom an underground cellar that has a bulletproof door so when they hear gunshots, they can all go in and lock the shooter out?

  12. Maybe we should try to define the phrase “anti-gun nuts”…

    Would it be someone who refuses to cite Indian Wars from 300 years ago, or Palastinian terrorists attacking a town in Israel 40 years ago as justification for having twice the guns per person than the next highest gun-ownership country in the world, the highest murder by gun by 800% over the next highest country in world, and the highest gun manufacturing in the past decade than any time in our country’s history?

    Or, maybe, if your Brother had put a bullet in his head while in a drunken stupor, you might feel a bit differently, I don’t know.

    What I do know is this: For grown men with guns, you guys sure scare easily.

  13. Training teachers and school administrators to be “undercover armed security”??? Right!… Are you going to train theater ushers too? And the sales people at Mall kiosks? And, coaches at the park? And, city workers to guard the streets? And, and, and… And, you think these people will do this for free, for nothing? Oh, you’ll have to pay them! And, exactly how will we protect ourselves and our country from this new UNSWORN, trained and will-armed “security” force? With more guns?

    Larry Schuler, Master Sergeant (Retired), U.S. Air Force
    Disabled American Veteran, Vietnam Era
    Former NRA Marksman, Expert Qualified M-16 & 9mm Beretta
    Cedar Park, Texas

  14. Full Disclosure: I posted this earlier on another web forum. I felt it appropriate to re-post here.

    *****************************************

    The Connecticut Tragedy has people terrified, grief-stricken and demanding more laws/regulation/security/police etc.

    Here’s some things to chew on:

    The shooter, Lanza, broke about 20 felony-level state laws during the incident. Obviously he wasn’t too concerned about the laws. Evil is like that.

    Initial reports indicate the school had a lock-down plan for active shooters. Believe it not, the plan worked; and 20 children still died. If it hadn’t been for the bravery and forethought of the staff, the casualty rate could have been much worse. The key here is that Good can do everything right; but Evil only has to get lucky once. Evil is like that.

    Davi Barker posted an interesting statistic: More people die waiting for the police to respond to a rampage shooting than civilians responding immediately to a rampage shooting. He found 93 cases that he winnowed down to 30 incidents in which police or civilians stopped the shooter.

    In incidents where the police did the stopping, an average of 14.3 people died. In incidents where civilians stopped the shooting, an average of 2.3 people died. Even more interesting is that most of the civilians were unarmed when they attacked the shooter.

    Here’s his web posting:
    http://dailyanarchist.com/2012/07/31/auditing-shooting-rampage-statistics/

    I looked at his methodology and I didn’t see any anomalies or bias.

    What I find very interesting is his findings highlight what many of us in the ‘business’ know instinctively: The SOONER you stop the incident, the LESS casualties you sustain.

    Another item from his study is that only ONE civilian died while trying to stop a rampage shooting. Most civilians were also UNARMED.

    To me, the implication is very clear: We don’t need more laws, security or police. We need more Heroes and Heroines willing to run towards the gunfire. We need sound training to keep innocents out of harm’s way. We need to give our Heroes and Heroines the tools they need to stop these killers; and that includes firearms.

    Evil already has a plan for our Society; but Evil doesn’t have a plan to stop Heroes and Heroines. The numbers prove this.

    What are YOU going to do, Mr. and Ms. Civilian?

  15. this is trimming a weed and not uprooting it.
    Yes, it is an atrocity and this illness of a broken down society must be nipped at the bud. I have lived and gone to 10 different elementary schools growing up in the French system and then in the British system overseas in many different countries. My parents purposely did not want my siblings and i to attend any school in the USA sadly. i think it was more the fear of drugs. But the formation of some children is awful- i remember being slammed against a fence by a 1st grader. While there a lot of children bought up with integrity and moral values, an older kid who has either history of violence usually has it build up over time, and laisser-faire parents incapable of seeking counseling out of denial perhaps or just plain stupid parents who let them do all the kids want. I think family values, and having both parents work does not help. At least one parent should be a stay home parent and raise children setting limits. No tv. only weekends, no soft drinks, only weekends, point out early on e.g. hurting an animal is WRONG so things don’t escalate. Making them participate in group sports, even martial arts to channel energy correctly and discipline. Instill Taoist, Buddhist, or Confucian values of NON-Violence Both in SPEECH (non-violent communication), Teach meditation from 5 years old :meditate in minutes their age, YOGA for PTSD,ADHD is a moving meditation for more restless children which has shown to have medically numerous benefits. And like thanksgiving – one every day. Family sits at the table, shares their day, how they feel, what they learned. It’s from the moment a child is born that strong values are gently inculcated over time. Let’s please focus on cause and not put a band-aid over a gaping wound.
    I was a military medic. Today i no longer believe violence solves problem from what horrors i’ve seen. W exception of spies and small group of marines, or green berets to handle major criminals without declaring war i’m still ok with that. No need to have ppl die uncessarily. Tasers, i’m ok w that for self defense. A taser is not a weapon and more states should approve it.

    Bottom line is VALUES. I lived in Japan and never locked my house, left key in car ignition. etc… if someone lost a wallet- no one took money. Out of loss of face, they’d commit suicide over it. Totally different culture. Their jails? Trust me is no place one would want to be- underfed. only bread and water. I taught gym at one, where yakuza ppl and other criminals were. Here ppl if they have $$$ they buy their way out of murder even. it’s unbelievable. $ should not substitute for a crime. Then we have a bunch of minor crimes -poor ppl in jail. Instead of using assets correctly.
    It’ll never be a perfect world, but maybe if we looked at cultures with very low crime who don’t resort to lashings like singapore, cultures where people are raised which high ethical values, we could glean something from them.

    Still waters run deep

    i reiterate: debride the wound, find the cause, and treat.

    putting band-aids and building walls after walls, making all of us paranoid, living in houses with bars like prisoners bc of a small percentage of fools is not a way of life to me. Next thing will be like Brazil with electrified gates listening to machine guns every night while living in our “gated” communites.

    The mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy. Taming the monkey mind is key to obtaining Universal Peace.

    xoxo

    P.S. I love you all. And I have been away from computer 24 in observance of my condolence for the families and friends of the innocent children and teachers involved. We are interdependent.

  16. I was a school resource officer for 5 years. After Collumbine, police departments around the country had no problem finding money for SROs. But as time goes by and people start feeling more secure, they get into the mind set that “It won’t happen here.” Then as time from an incident becomes longer, it becomes a budgetary discussion. Cuts start being made and then the thought from the administrator is, I can hire an officer or a math teacher. When it gets to that point, The school is in the business of educating, not policing.
    The SRO program is more then an armed guard located in a school. They provide mentoring, education and security. They also provide students with another positive role model which is seen on a daily basis. This along with the active shooter training to be able to deal with a bad guy wishing to do our children harm.
    I watched the news and commentary today and heard the outcries from people to posting officers in every school. Sadly the farther away from this incident in time we go, the less likely those same people will be as vocal to keep officers in every school, when they find out about the finacial cost of that program.
    We should give the math teacher the active shooter training.

  17. Thanks for telling the unvarnished truth. My wife and I are 62 year old Bible and gun people. We would have gladly laid down our lives trying to protect those kids. We mourn the loss of these innocent lives. We mourn the loss of what made Americans different. Thanks again for being an eloquent voice for what is apparently a dying breed.

  18. Mas,
    We say we should do this or we should do that and it ends there. The only way we can do anything is to hit the school system in the pocketbooks. Homeschooling is a way of doing that. If enough of us do something to that effect they would have to do something about it. Do we sit back saying how awful this was and wait until it happens in our town or do we stand up for our kids? What are you gonna do?

  19. Mas,
    I am a teacher in a district with over 35000 students. I have brought attention to the issues you write about at my school. I have asked my district for some kind of training to deal with an active killer scenario. I have personally experienced four full lock downs within a two year time frame due to armed violence on the school grounds. All this, yet nothing has been done. It has been years since we have participated in a lockdown drill, but we rehearse fire drills monthly. This morning I decided to stop asking administrators to address the issue of school security, and began addressing them with my fellow teachers. If the schools want to take a reactionary approach, then it is up the teachers to act on behalf of their students. Every teacher should know first aide, CPR, and classroom defense and protection. Every teacher should practice lockdowns within their own classroom, even if the district doesn’t demand regular drills.

  20. To Gringito: You asked about the arming of schoolteachers in Peru. It was apparently done primarily in the rural areas, as part of the comites de autodefensa (committees for self-defense) and rondas campesinas programs, in response to terrorist attacks on village schools and teachers by Shining Path guerrillas. The first pilot project I’m aware of dates back to the ’70s, with the program become more widespread in the ’80s and accelerated under President Alberto Fujimori in the ’90s. You’ll find more about it in counter-terrorist literature than you will at educational association seminars.

    To Larry Schuler: You posted in part “…if your brother had put a bullet in his head while in a drunken stupor…” Sir, if that happened to you and your family, you have my condolences. But do you think Prohibition would have kept that from happening? If not, why would a gun ban have been more effective? And if so, do you advocate a return to Prohibition as well as more restrictive firearms laws?

  21. I’m shocked people still rely on gun free zones and signs to protect anything, especially something as important as our children. Maybe this tragedy will be a wake-up call, but I doubt it.

    And I’m afraid it’s not over yet. Anyone on the edge may well take the ‘end of the world’ thing as an excuse to go out with a bang. Watch out for yourselves and your families this week, people.

  22. I just retired this year, there is a high school and an elementary school within 3 miles, I’ve had a carry permit for 9 years, had to use it once. I would gladly make myself available to volunteer in either of these schools.

    The irony of all this is, that the politicians and I imagine their children all have “their” protection supplied to them, by our tax dollars of course. I would like to hear their double talk, when asked the question, “are their and their children’s lives worth more than our and our children’s lives?” EVERYONE, deserves and is entitled to a fighting chance!

    Just a passing thought. In the shock of events such as this, there should be a MEDIA FREE ZONE, so that some of the people dealing with God knows what of their loved ones can escape the mics & cameras being shoved in their faces!

  23. The responsibility for these murders is Lanza’s but the media have to be seen as culpable also. Any borderline psychotic who wants to be the biggest mass murderer on record knows he will have his 15 minutes of fame in death. My local station sent their anchors there, despite this having nothing to do with my local news. Sticking a microphone into the face of a 6 y.o. until you get that moment when they break down is reprehensible but the specialty of so-called journalists. Ethics is in short supply in journalism, business, and law schools, I’m afraid. These frenzied interviews fit in with their continuing murders, rapes, and fires that seems to be called “news” for the last decade. Furthermore, these people are not shooters, the people on this thread are shooters. Lanza is a murderer or a killer and calling him a shooter is inaccurate but also meets the medias need of labeling armed citizens as potential lunatics.

  24. Since 9-11 in Airliners both Captain and First Officer are carrying concealed, and there are plain clothed Air Marshals in the Cabin carrying concealed. How many hi-jackings have there been since 9-11?

  25. Mas you are so correct, had someone been armed and trained this monster would have been stopped . dont blame the gun blame the sociaty that creats the shooter.

  26. Why were mental patients let out of mental hospitals in the 1970s? Because communists want to spread chaos across America. Chaos requires a “big government” solution. Communists are also behind the racial and gender and class tensions in this country. Divide and conquer.

    Why do we need any schools before the college level? Why can’t parents and grandparents teach their own children? Don’t you think most parents could teach their children better than the government schools? They can hire tutors for the subjects which they feel unqualified to teach.

    Fight crime —– shoot back.

  27. The following quote has been attributed to Morgan Freeman, but even Snopes can’t verify it. Either way, it pretty much sums up my thoughts on this weekend.

    You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here’s why.

    It’s because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single victim of Columbine? Disturbed people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he’ll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

    CNN’s article says that if the body count “holds up”, this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the killer’s face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the killer’s identity? None that I’ve seen yet. Because they don’t sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you’ve just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

    You can help by forgetting you ever read this man’s name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news.

  28. Very nice article Mas.
    The “Enhanced Victimhood Zones” need to go away.

    You are correct on the Peruvian issue which began with simple 12 ga. single shots and by the 80’s had graduated to AK’s in some areas.
    The Senderistas were particularly bad, and financing their operations with narcotics, much like the FARC in Columbia.

  29. And what is the root source of this malaise of political correctness? At the moment it is Kenny MacAskill, Justice Secretary for Scotland. He has announced that a consultation on how a new licensing regime for air weapons will work. “We are not consulting on the principle of licensing – this will happen.” Says the man who released the convicted mass murderer Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.

    To honour a political promise made in 2005 MacAskill is more than willing to criminalize the owners of half a million unlicensed “firearms.” By lumping air guns in with firearms Britain has long manipulated gun crime statistics to suit their agenda.

    The BBC says, “The number of offences in Scotland involving firearms has more than halved since 2006-07, according to official figures.

    “Scotland’s police forces recorded 514 incidents in 2011-12, a 21% fall on the previous year and a fall of more than 50% on 2006-07.

    “This year’s figures are the lowest total recorded in Scotland in 34 years.

    “Air weapons accounted for 38% of all offences – 195 out of 514 – compared with 36%, 234 offences, in 2010-11.

    Like Margaret Thatcher’s ‘poll tax’, trialled in Scotland before attempting to implement it in the whole of the UK Scotland is again the whipping boy for totalitarian policy.

    MacAskill has the further audacity to claim, “We are not banning air weapons outright but there has to be a legitimate use for them.” And who gets to decide what is legitimate use? The Justice Secretary through the new single Scottish Police Force. This is the same kind of doublespeak which set the stage for The Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 which outlawed handguns.

    22 Hamline L. Rev. 399-465 (1999) explains how we came to this sorry state. I use ’22 Hamline L. Rev. 399-465 (1999)’ because Google has been putting their thumb on the scale when searching for OKSLIP.

  30. Thank you, Mas, for a thought provoking article.

    I’m willing to bet that the brave Principal who tried to stop the degenerate would have willingly used a firearm to prevent the murder of innocent children and staff at her school!

  31. Thank You for taking the time to put this data up. It has been terribly heartbreaking to watch the news again re: another school masacre on innocent victoms. Who were (unarmed to protect themselves from a crazed evil villan/terrorist). I feel a very strong push is needed to train our schools how to (Protect, defend & counterattack) against the shooter because less lives would be taken. I know there are many scenerios on how to (kill) anyone. We ALL know that a gun is (only) a tool. Just like kitchen knives, fires, bombs, fertilizers, poisons, ropes & even your bare hands….However, I strongly believe that if our schools were equipped with a metal detecter, hired personal security AND our teachers were armed & trained to stand in defense against this type of evil..more innocent lives would be spared. It is not about politics to me..it is about (freedom to be trained properly & equipped properly to protect & defend against the armed enemy as best as possible.) True survival!! Evil will never end. Therefore, we as a people, need DO what is neccessary for survival. Fight back in a legal manner called (self defense with whatever means is neccessary!) It is against the law to murder, but it is NOT against the law to protect & defend ourselves!) Criminals are criminals..They have NO regard for laws! As a mother, this is something I never imagined would get this bad for our schools. But I would gladly feel comfortable knowing that my children had better odds in their favor if their school was both trained & equipped to defend itself from these types of deadly masacres. Both my husband & I are also Bible gun owners too & we too would have laid down our lives to DO what we could to help save innocent unarmmed lives as well ( even if it meant we had to kill the terrorist). Our family is just hurting/frusterated that this could have been possibly a better outcome if our schools were truly equipped better. So sad! Our hearts & prayers go out to all the families & responders that has permanently been scarred by this tragedy.

  32. Unfortunately we live in a society where feelings are believed to trump logic and reason.

    We have here an individual who killed his own mother and killed children, and yet our “leaders” babble about inanimate objects.

    Semi-automatic firearms have existed for more than 100 years, so that hasn’t changed. Firearms are not easier to get; prior to the Gun Control Act of 1968 you could order guns through the mail, no questions asked. The Sears catalog had guns. So we urgently need to think about what has changed in our society rather than passing gun control laws to vent emotions.

  33. @Larry Schuler:
    “Are you going to train theater ushers too? And the sales people at Mall kiosks? And, coaches at the park? And, city workers to guard the streets?…”

    No, that won’t be necessary. Schools are a special case; access to them is limited to a particular set of adults, and they contain a concentration of a particularly vulnerable and valuable part of society.

    For the other places, simply not interfering with the right of citizens to defend themselves will suffice.

  34. Mas, I agree with you on this article and have been saying this for years. After every school shooting this point has been mentioned and quickly dismissed. Now we have an anti gun President who would rather punish the good guys for the criminal behavior of violent people who take advantage of the “GUN FREE ZONES”. This is the same reason that monster picked that theater in Aurora, Co because concealed carry was banned in that establishment.

    Security as a whole in this country needs to be overhauled beginning with our nations malls. It is time for the business associations to seriously consider arming the guards in malls, movie theaters… Next with the few exceptions such as court houses, police stations, the gun free zones should be eliminated.
    Unfortunately unarmed guards are a thing of the past and cannot offer the level of security as trained armed guards.

  35. You are 100% right Mas, I am a security officer at a facility that house’s 110-115 Children age,s 8 to 18 and they are troubled children assigned or placed there, I work the night shift as they do not have security during the day, there are two school’s a high school and a junior high the younger children go off campus, all the children are back on campus and in bed by 2100, they are there for mental reason’s and most of it caused by abusive parents or they have just been negected. I have been notified in the past, more than once that a parent just out of jail is going to come and get the child no matter what it takes and thank God they did not follow through but one of these days I have a feeling it will happen and they will be armed.

    Of course I am not allowed to carry a weapon (rules you know) and my orders are to report to the police if I see this person on campus, they do give photo’s so I can identify the individual however not easy to do in the dark unless I can get close enough and by that time it will be too late for me but it is not me that concerns me it is the children and the staff in the buildings that are left without true security, by the time the police arrive it would be to late, God when are we going to get some common since in this country, I have had 13 years of service in the military (infantry) and two years of combat I know how to use a weapon and have had numerous weeks of training, all you can do is pray that nothing happens.

    I know if they take our weapons the cartels will be up here with more than we can handle and the radicals from across the bond will be here in high numbers, God bless us all if that happens we will need it.

  36. re: “After the Ma’alot massacre in 1974, Israel instituted a policy in which volunteer school personnel, parents, and grandparents received special training from the civil guard, and were seeded throughout the schools armed with discreetly concealed 9mm semiautomatic pistols.”

    Please provide a citation as I could not find it mentioned online.

    Thanks,

  37. We also need to rethink lockdown as the only solution. Here is a link to an article suggesting teaching your kids to escape may be far better. Not only are schools easy victim zones, but once the bad guy is in, a classroom of cowering victims is just an atrocity waiting for the shooter to arrive. The article has several other sensible suggestions as well. http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/03/a-parents-guide-to-surviing-school-rampage-shootings-by-greg-ellifritz.html

  39. Mas, that was the most perfectly stated analysis of why we continue to have these tragedies that I have ever read. Congratulations for having the courage to tell the truth, and thank you for the history of similar events in pre-1999 times. A special thanks for showing that elsewhere (Israel for example) armed teachers keeps the slaughters to a minimum, and discourages repeat (copy cat) performances. Great job! Why can’t 50% of our country see the logic you have shown?

  40. I have been watching the news frenzy this morning and the usual tripe about blaming firearms. Our own Sen. Durban and Sen. Lieberman were on with their solutions to the problem. One solution was to recognize mentally impaired people earlier and getting them the help they need. Here in our area of IL the politicians have closed our state supported mental health clinic due to funding. Seriously cut state pensions, ha, not in your life. Just close down the mental health institutions and send the patients packing.
    I think there is a series of contributing reasons why something like this happens. I know, I know you’ll think I’m just using this dreadful shooting to further my agenda. Believe want you want. Abortion is a travesty upon mankind and cheapens life; if life becomes cheaper then violence upon children becomes easier. Violent video games, especially for children desensitizes children to violence. Children have minds that are still developing and blowing people apart in these games tends to blend reality with fantasy. Sure not all children are affected, but those that are had other factors such as single parenting, being bullied etc. and children grow up to be adults. Violent movies are another issue allied with the video games. Putting different rating systems in place for movies, as has been suggested, is just a Band-Aid. The children will still find a way to watch them. When I was a kid we had violent movies and television series on TV. But nothing like the blood, guts and gore of today’s movies and now they want to bring us 3D.
    We have armed guards and police in some of our local schools, usually high schools. They are there to keep the gang violence to a dull roar. Putting armed guardians in all our schools, as Mas has suggested, (personally, I like the AR platform with a short barrel and red dot sight with frangible ammo for obvious reasons), is a good start, but we have to get to the root of the problem.

  41. “Beneath the expressions of grief, sorrow and disbelief over the Connecticut school massacre lies an uneasy truth in Washington: over the last few years the Obama administration and Congress quietly let federal funding for several key school security programs lapse in the name of budget savings.”
    The SAME Pols who CUT this funding are now Screaming to ‘RESTRICT’, ‘BAN’ and ‘CONFISCATE’ GUNS.
    http://www.washingtonguardian.com/washingtons-school-security-failure

  42. Several Democratic lawmakers called for a new push for U.S. gun restrictions on Sunday, including a ban on military-style assault weapons, in the wake of the Connecticut massacre in which 20 children and six adults were gunned down in a school.

    Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, the author of an assault-weapons ban that lapsed in 2004, said she would introduce new legislation this week. Senator Dick Durbin, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat, said lawmakers would hold hearings on gun control, and several others said they would devote new attention to the long-ignored issue.

    “I think we could be at a tipping point … where we might get something done,” Senator Charles Schumer, another top Senate Democrat, said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

    Any effort to restrict access to high-powered weapons is likely to face fierce opposition from many Republicans in Congress who say restrictions violate the U.S. Constitution’s right to bear arms.

    Gun control has been a low priority for most U.S. politicians due to the widespread popularity of guns in America and the clout of the pro-gun National Rifle Association. Most Republicans and many Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are firm allies of the group.

    Opinion polls have found Americans to be divided on the issue even after other high-profile shooting incidents.

    U.S. lawmakers have not approved a major new gun law since 1994.

    Feinstein said her planned legislation would outlaw the high-capacity magazines and military-style assault rifles that have factored in many recent mass shootings, including Friday’s massacre in Newtown, Connecticut. People who own such weapons now would not be required to give them up, Feinstein said.

    She said she would introduce her bill in the Democratic-controlled Senate soon, and a companion bill would be introduced in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

    Connecticut’s Democratic governor and two senators, one a Democrat and one an independent, voiced support for an assault-weapons ban or restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

  48. I have been thinking the same things that Massad has so eloquently discussed. I would like to see better security is schools without making them any more prison-like than they already are. We need educators and parents willing to volunteer to provide security and we need to end this pretense that there is something inherently bad about responsible adults having the means to protect the children in their care. There is really no other solution to mass shootings other than facing down those who would attempt to victimize the innocent. If I must, I would even face danger unarmed because it is still better to be there and be in a position to react in order to save lives. Whatever it takes–but no more abrogration of our rights is acceptable. We cannot hope to stop the problem of violence by creating more victims, and that is all that gun control ever accomplishes.

  49. It be wise if goverment follow you on this issue Mas. But all they want do pass more gun control living in land denial that creep did this did not buy his guns killed owen mother with her owen guns went on homicidal rampage with them. Back round check would been useless becuase guns where in his mother name wich he killed. Mother had cleaner criminal recod than virgin sent she bought guns they would check out her son back round . The state this happens have lots gun control measures prevent this creep from buy gun doing this . Who say creep would kill or stolen some body else guns try this with there guns.

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