No, as tragic as it is I won’t call the mass murder at the Nashville school a tragedy. Atrocity is a better term. The intentional murder of the helpless, particularly children, is nothing less than a God-damned atrocity. (And I use that term advisedly: refer to the Sixth Commandment.)
We are hearing people blame the transgender movement. I disagree. We are hearing “it must be those awful psychotropic drugs again.” Actually, in cases where those medications have been involved, the real problem is generally whatever required professionals to prescribe psych meds in the first place. And of course, we’re hearing “ban AR15s,” as if suicidal/homicidal murderers wouldn’t find a way to access all the deadly force they needed to carry out their evil deeds.
We don’t know all we need to know yet, of course, but current reports are that six innocents were shot within a time of fourteen minutes between the first 9-1-1 call and the moment when the courageous cops not only ran to the sound of the guns, but silenced them. The last of the criminal gunfire appears to have been the murderer shooting at arriving police from inside the building. True to form, when Good Guys With Guns get on the scene, the slaughter of the innocent ceases.
Six deaths within that time-frame is not a lot. Given the helpless nature of the victims, a single-shot shotgun could have delivered the same or greater death count. Hell, in theory, the killer could have done it with a single-shot muzzle-loading flintlock musket of Revolutionary War vintage. From what I heard on the bodycam video of the responding heroes, the killer’s last shots were fired at a pace I’ve seen exceeded with 1866 Old West lever action rifles.
Nashville Metro is one of the best trained law enforcement agencies in the nation, but they cannot change the time/space continuum. Scotty can’t beam them down to the shooting scene instantly from the Starship Enterprise.I am told that Tennessee law makes it illegal for school personnel to be armed, no matter how trained and competent and willing to fight for the children they might be. If one of the first adults to face the deadly intruder had been armed and knew how to use a gun, it might well have been over in fourteen seconds, not fourteen minutes, and the only corpse would have been that of the lost soul who came there to die anyway.
Any armed faculty or staff member who had caught the attacker hunkered down, guns pointed backwards, crawling through the hole in the glass door through which she entered the building, would have been in a perfect situation to end things before they really got going, using anything from a Civil War revolver up.
At that point, even a fireman’s axe could have ended it!
It is commendable but tragic that the school personnel chose to confront the murderer while unarmed. It is even more tragic if it is true they were legally prohibited from being armed in the first place. The police chief stated that the murderer had chosen a different location for their crime (more victims?) but changed their plans due to the presence of armed security on site.
The contrast between the body cam footage from Uvalde and Nashville was striking. In the former, officers made any and every excuse to keep from confronting the threat and in the latter, officers literally ran to the sound of gunshots and ended the threat. Kudos to all involved in Nashville.
The Left will use this incident to call for more gun bans and “Trans” rights, while those using logic will see that an efficient, forceful police response saved lives and that the presence of even one trained and armed person in that school could have saved all lives.
These perverted psychopathic f…s that feel the need to take multiple innocents with them when they choose to end their miserable lives need to be put down like the mad dogs they are.
When it comes to educators, a lot of times they aren’t disarmed by law, but by district policy. As in, if they’re licensed they could legally carry on school campuses, but the district’s “no guns” policy is part of their employment agreement. If the gun is noticed and reported, the teacher wouldn’t be arrested, but their employment would be terminated, effective immediately.
That’s how it was in my home state and town for many years. By law, CHL holders could carry concealed in public schools. But teachers couldn’t go armed, not by law, but by the districts’ employment policies. (And the teachers’ unions are very Leftist and vehemently anti-gun, so they’d offer no defense or assistance if a teacher were fired for violating that policy.)
Ditto for government employees working in public buildings, too. Licensees who aren’t employees are legally allowed to carry, but per official policy employees cannot have their guns, even if licensed. (And the public workers’ unions are no better than the teachers’ unions on this issue.)
Archer,
Does anyone know where Right-wingers work? Since the Left dominates education, entertainment, government and medicine, and has recently begun to dominate both the military and the business worlds, where are the Right-wingers? Oh, they must be the workers, and the Leftists must be in management, right? Please tell me I am wrong.
I would love to work with Right-wingers. Then I could be myself at work, and not have to stifle my speech. (Actually, I meet Right-wingers all the time, but we speak quietly to each other, if at all.)
@Roger Willco: In my experience and based on folks I know personally, any profession that relies on practical knowledge, fact, and is based in reality, will tend to have more conservatives.
Blue-collar trades (farmers, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, etc.). Among white-collar professions, IT workers as a whole tend to be a mix of both sides, but drilling down, software developers trend a bit more left, while network analysts and cybersecurity specialists in particular lean more right than most.
As a rule of thumb, if a profession has to deal with reality and people as they are — and leaves little time for fanciful pie-in-the-sky wishes of how things should be — it will attract fewer liberals and more conservatives. (What that says about each side’s grip on reality is left as an exercise for the reader.)
But that’s just my experience. YMMV.
No armed trained and competent staff allowed in schools? Shame on Tennessee.
Yes.Someone needs to tell the government of Tennessee to look into their neighbour’snprogramme (Ohio) called Faster Saves Lives. It does. And it costs txpayers NOTHING. I’m sure the good folks in Ohio who developed the programme would be eager to come help Tennessee make certin this NEVER can happen again in that state.
You are absolutely correct. The Ohio Faster program has train businesses and churches as well as school personnel, and not just from Ohio. It has been a model for other states and organizations as well.
Tionico,
I just did a little research on Faster Saves Lives. Looks excellent. I assume many teachers would not want the responsibility of protecting their own lives and the lives of their students with those terrible, icky, icky guns. However, that is OK, because the ones who do want to be trained can get the training, and they will become the sheepdogs who protect the sheep.
So, those who don’t want to fight will not be pressured to, and they can help with the first aid. Everyone is free to choose their role, and there is no cost to the taxpayers. Truly, a brilliant solution.
Massad, this is absolutely on spot. There is either a reluctance for people to fight back when forced to, along with a subliminal repetitious mantra that all guns are evil, and of course people that have zero social conscience and take actions in places where forceful use of defensive means is prohibited. By the way, what a pleasure and honor it was meeting and talking to you.
Well put as always. Thank you, Mass for your perspective.
As usual, well said.
Thank you.
I have been retired from teaching for several years now, so I think it safe to confess that I was never far from a firearm (always absolutely secured) from about the second Bush Administration until the day I retired. I assumed that I would be fired and probably desertified and black listed were I ever to save the lives of children or colleagues with it, but I would not live ever after in regret that I had allowed such wickedness to go unchallenged on my watch. I would not be surprised to learn that others have done or may be doing the same thing, especially in this day of media glorification of school terrorism with firearms.
“We are hearing people blame the transgender movement. I disagree.” Mas, you are misguided if you think the “transgender movement” doesn’t bear responsibility. These are mentally deranged, psychotic individuals who are in denial of biological and scientific reality, yet they are treated as a special, “oppressed” class by the lunatics that control the narrative. They should be adjudicated as mentally incompetent by any rational society, because they clearly are mentally incompetent, just like the guy who thinks he’s Napoleon, or the murderer who thinks a dog is telling him to kill people (son of Sam). Combine this with the idiotic law in Tennessee that prevents schools from having armed security onsite, and you have a formula for just such an atrocity. My wife teaches at a private school here in Texas and multiple staff members are always armed and have received excellent active shooter training. That is half the battle, but the other half is to challenge these idiots who encourage this gender confusion insanity, make this garbage illegal and prosecute these doctors & pseudo-professionals who promote this delusion and hold them responsible. These doctors and psychologists are making a killing at enabling these deluded nut jobs and they need to incur civil and criminal liability.
Concur.
Jerry,
I hope to learn more about the killer’s motive if and when the manifesto is released. She attended that school. Was she mad at Christianity because she is trans, or for some other reason?
I was confused by the police chief. He said Audrey was a trans woman. A trans woman is a biological man. But her name is Audrey, and her mother claims to have lost her daughter. My guess is that Audrey was a woman who was attempting to become a man, which is scientifically impossible. If she is a biological woman, that is a rarity for this type of criminal act.
Also, on a minor note, I see that six victims were killed, but no one was injured. While reading statistics from battles, the usual outcome is about twice as many wounded as killed. So, this incident seems to be an outlier.
I am glad to know Mas will enlighten us when he gets all the facts.
Did not note the source but I did come across a report ealrier today about the confusion over the realidentity of the shooter. The background reveals the person is female per her birth certificate and early school enrollment (long before the insanity/confusion became “a thing’). Details about how and why shehad been pretending to be male of late, nor what steps she had been persuig to strengthen this fantasy.
I really wish they’d drop the fraudulant and confusing “transitioned/ing” nonsense and refer to them by their biological sex and some reference to cnfusion or fantsy or pretending.
WHY she had a mad-on at the world because SHE was confused I cannot grasp. I know if I had awakened this morning and decided I was an eight hundred pound gorilla then decided I was going to go next door, throw my “eight hundred pound” self at his heavy steel front door to break in and eat everything in his pantry, but instead got gob-smacked by sad heavy steel door, knocjed back onto his concrete sidewalk and gone unconscious from the hard landing, on WHAT BASIS could I justify getting mad at HIM for my destruction? It was the direct causative and proximal result of MY delusion not his or anyone else’s.
But this mental case of a girl decided SOMEONE had to pay for HER delusional charade.
I just MIGHT support her claim to the “right” to her own delusion… but in NO WAY will I ever support her assumed “justification” to end the lives of others who fail or refuse to support her delusion.
Her fight is against the God who made her… every cell female.
Jerry,
I would encourage you to learn more about transgender people before you label them “mentally deranged, psychopathic individuals”. There is not a single major medical, psychological or psychiatric organization (genuine ones, not ones that selectively interpret or ignore widely accepted data and studies) that would agree with you. I am not transgender, but I happen to work with someone who is, and he has more integrity than almost anyone I know. I’d go to the wall for him.
Art Braunschweiger,
One very good example of a transgender person who still commands respect would be Bruce/Kaitlyn Jenner. When he/she talks about politics, he/she makes a lot of sense. I am not a scientist, but it appears that people can be very smart in one area of life, while being very dumb in another area of life. Wasn’t Oppenheimer brilliant to work on the Manhattan Project, and yet he was a Communist? Vo Nguyen Giap successfully fought against the Japanese, the French, us and the Chinese. Yet, after so many victories, he made Vietnam poor by embracing Communism rather than Capitalism. Dumb move.
I must agree with Jerry, and so does science. Every cell in a woman has female DNA. Every cell in a man has male DNA. The two sexes cannot transform from one to the other. Transgender people may be smart, nice, wonderful, decent people, but they are masquerading, not transforming.
No one has an obligation to conform to what anyone else thinks of as “normal”. The obligation is not to harm others except in self defense. Audrey Hale’s moral failure was the second, not the first. Those who would force others into a particular way of life remind me of ISIS and the Taliban. That’s what they do. Fortunately, we have the Second Amendment which guarantees us the tools we need to fight back.
Hear hear Mas!
I would add one thing. The parents of the shooter KNEW that she should not have weapons and they said as much in the post-event interview to MNPD. They told MNPD that they coerced their child to sell the “one” firearm that they knew she had. Why didn’t the parents, at that time, contact the relevant authorities and say: “We would like to get our child on a national gun ban list to prevent her from being able to purchase any more weapons?” I’m seeing anti-gun troll after troll after troll posting that we need “expanded background checks,” when in reality, the background checks we have now would have prevented this tragedy, had the parents notified law enforcement of their child’s medical treatment for an emotional disorder.
To be put on the list of prohibited persons, the victim of a mental illness must be forced into treatment against his will by a court. A mentally ill person who volunteers for treatment does not go on the list. The Nashville murderer was able to buy guns because he/she (take your pick) passed NICS every time.
A review of Form 4473 question 21F reveals you’re correct. “Adjudicated” being the operative word. I was under the impression that the parents could go before a Judge and simply say: “We think she needs to be on a national gun ban list in the NICS system. I suppose there’s more to it than that.
@Mike Perry: “Adjudicated” is one thing: a hearing is held before a judge, evidence presented, and usually the subject can present a defense or counter-argument.
But to be added to the “prohibited persons” NICS list simply on someone else’s say-so — even a parent’s — represents everything evil, immoral, and unconstitutional about “red flag laws”, and precisely why they must be fought tooth and nail at every turn.
I posted the pertinent part on my FB, MAYBE somebody will figure it out. Thanks Mas
I ended your quote with – Why don’t we allow trained teachers to be armed? The perpetrator went somewhere else first but it was too well protected. How long will it take to figure this out? Take a lesson from Israeli teachers, they are trained and armed.
Tom Williams,
Right you are. It was on this forum, just months ago, that I learned Israel solved this problem in 1974. Liberal American educators are too ideologically rigid to implement this solution, even if it has proven to save lives for 49 years.
Tje State of Ohio solved this problem the same way just after the Sandy Hook massacre. FASTER Saves Lives. 100% effective in the ten plus years its been in place. NOT ONE INCIDENT. And it cost the people of Ohio NOTHING.
Amen! Well stated.
Amen, brother.
The heroic actions of these Nashville officers helped restore some of my faith in LE after the Uvalde fiasco. Thank God for these brave men who looked evil in the eye and said “not on my watch.”
Thanks Mas. On the spot!!
Schools should have secured entry control points (ECP’s) with trained, armed security personnel manning these ECP’s. Many government facilities have heavy security, schools deserve nothing less. This isn’t complicated.
Several thoughts:
1) It appears that the custodian, Mike Hill, was killed in the initial burst of gunfire when the mass murderer shot out the school doors. Therefore, unless he was the one armed, and in a position to return fire, it is likely that he would have been killed in any case. I doubt that, even if armed, he would have anticipated the sudden burst of fire, from outside, through the doors.
2) I first because aware of this shooting via reports over my car radio. You should have heard the glee with which our local media reported it. Finally, a big story that would put Nashville in the National News! Our local reporters were truly “dancing in the blood” of the victims. “If it bleeds, it leads” was absolutely true for our local media propagandists. They were soooo happy!
3) The media proved their ignorance about firearms in their initial reporting. The weapons were variously described as “Assault Weapons” (despite UP guidance not to do that), AR-style rifles, and AR rifle, AR pistol, and handgun (the police, no less), with Biden briefly calling them AK’s! When the photographs and videos were released, it cleared up the confusion. One rifle was of the AR pattern. The other rifle was a Kel-tec Sub-2000 pistol caliber carbine. The handgun was a S&W EZ -9 semi-automatic.
4) The firearms-prohibitionists are desperately trying to downplay the transgender angle, and keep the focus on the firearms, so as to push for weapon bans. The manifesto written by this mass-murderer is being suppressed and hidden by the Government actors and the media. No doubt, it is being suppressed because its publication would undercut the preferred narrative of the firearms-prohibitionists and the American Left in general.
In other words, it is business as usual. Nothing every changes. With the American Left, it is ideology first. The narrative over everything else. Truth or logic does not even enter into the picture. Just whip up blind emotion and then ban, ban, ban!
We have seen this play staged a thousand times before. Slightly different circumstances but always the same pile of stinking horse manure!
Not only were the Nashville PD officers well trained, they were committed to their oaths to serve and protect, no matter the cost to themselves.
Wow, I didn’t know Tennessee forbids trained & armed staff. Shame on whoever is responsible for that. That, in effect, mandates kids & others are subject to whatever the violent suspect chooses to do. In this day and age. Just wow….
Unfortunately the school did not elect to utilize armed staff, retired Leo, or Military. As they are a Private institution they could have had armed staff on site with out any legal concerns.
I am livid and can only offer prayers for those that were involved. Unfortunately Evil in this world is real
Unfortunate, since it’s a Christian school, that many Christians have the fallacious belief that their faith requires pacifism and forgoes weapons and violence.
There’s nothing in the Bible saying that if someone is trying to kill you, you should let them. “Turn the other cheek” is in reference to small attacks, not life-threatening ones. And in Luke 22 Christ Himself told His disciples that if a man had no sword, he should sell his cloak and buy one. (The disciples then did a check and found that they had two swords altogether, and Christ said, “It is enough.” Taken as a whole, my interpretation is that not all — not necessarily even most — Christians are called to be armed, but if one is, he/she is to have access to arms, even if it means divesting of other “needs” to make it happen.)
But a lot of Christians (too many) don’t see that, and a lot of educators don’t see that. It stands to reason, then, that Christian educators are even more likely to overlook it.
Archer,
I agree with you. The Old Testament is no stranger to violence, both wicked and righteous. The New Testament seems pacifist, because Christ did not want His disciples to advance the Kingdom by the sword, but by preaching. Like you said, Christians should turn the other cheek to insults, not to murder. Also, in the future, the Book of Revelation, has Christ returning to Old Testament ways. Look at how He is portrayed in Revelation chapter 19 verses 11–21. He is a Warrior.
Many American Christians believe God protects them from evil. He does, but he uses policemen and soldiers to do it. How come God doesn’t protect Christians in other places, like China and Africa, from evil?
@Roger Willco: Matthew West is a Christian singer, and he released a song some years ago called “Do Something”. It opens with him remarking on the evils in the world, and then comes the key lyric, right before the chorus [emphasis added]:
I shook my fist at Heaven,
I said, “God, why don’t you do something?”
He said, “I did. I created you!”
I read a review blog post soon after its release disagreeing with the song, saying God certainly can fix it all, and so it’s not our place to put ourselves in that position. I think that writer missed the entire point of both the song and Scripture. Yes, absolutely God could fix it, but if that was His plan, why are we even here?
Mas. this is my understanding of TN Law regarding Private Schools and this was a private school. If this has changed, I’m not aware of it. I copied this down sometime back and
I don’t remember the source.
Dano
In 2016 Tennessee passed two new statutes with bi-partisan support that addressed the issue of whether Tennessee’s private schools, both K-12 and “higher education”, could establish their own policies with respect to whether and to what extent civilian possession of firearms would be prohibited on their campuses. These laws are codified at Tennessee Code Annotated Sections 49-50-803 and 49-7-161.
For approximately seven years now, Tennessee’s private schools have had the discretion given to them by the State Legislature (which raises a question under the 2nd Amendment of whether the state even had the authority to ban guns on school grounds) to craft policies that would enable schools that are clearly the targets of attempted mass killings to better be able to protect the lives of students, staff and visitors.
With respect to private K-12 schools, Tennessee Code Annotated Section 49-50-803 provides that the “the board or governing entity of each private K-12 school, or the chief administrative officer if the school does not have a board or governing entity, may establish a handgun carry policy for any property on which the school is located that is owned or operated by the school and for any building or structure located on the school property.” Thus, the school may create pretty much any policy that it wants. A school could allow any some staff, any staff, volunteers, parents, guests, etc., to carry a handgun on campus, open or concealed. There are only two limits on the school’s discretion. First, the policy can only allow handguns – no longarms. Second, to the extent that the policy allows handguns on school property, the individual allowed to carry a handgun must have the Tennessee “enhanced” handgun carry permit.
With respect to private schools of higher education, Tennessee Code Annotated Section 49-7-161 provides substantially the same authority to the individual or entity that governs the school. It also has the same to two limits on the school’s discretion as exist with respect to K-12 institutions. First, the policy can only allow handguns – no longarms. Second, to the extent that the policy allows handguns on school property, the individual allowed to carry a handgun must have the Tennessee “enhanced” handgun carry permit.
Aside from these two options, private and, for that matter, public schools have a third option. The schools can likely establish themselves as “proprietary security” organizations under Tennessee’s armed guard statutes. That would allow the school administration to qualify the school as a “proprietary security” organization and would allow the school to designate one or more individuals, normally staff, to be training and certified as “armed security officers” under Tennessee law. That process would require those individuals to have periodic armed security training and recertifications. It would also allow them to be certified to carry shotguns (but not rifles) under the armed guard certification.
While these three options appear on their face to be limited to handguns (and for armed security shotguns), it is important to note that there are a number of firearms that are lawfully classified as “handguns” but which have the ability to shoot rifle calibers such as the AR-15 pistol or the AK style pistols.
Turns out that this private school may have put in place armed security if it jumped through all the hoops. Details here:
https://tennesseefirearms.com/2023/03/tennessees-private-schools-have-authority-to-establish-firearms-friendly-policies/
With respect to private K-12 schools, Tennessee Code Annotated Section 49-50-803 provides that the “the board or governing entity of each private K-12 school, or the chief administrative officer if the school does not have a board or governing entity, may establish a handgun carry policy for any property on which the school is located that is owned or operated by the school and for any building or structure located on the school property.” Thus, the school may create pretty much any policy that it wants. A school could allow any some staff, any staff, volunteers, parents, guests, etc., to carry a handgun on campus, open or concealed. There are only two limits on the school’s discretion. First, the policy can only allow handguns – no longarms. Second, to the extent that the policy allows handguns on school property, the individual allowed to carry a handgun must have the Tennessee “enhanced” handgun carry permit.
Another lesson from this is what a proper police response looks like. Compare and contrast with Uvalde.
And Broward County, Florida. Don’t forget the botched police response to the shooting that gave us David “Camera” Hogg, Emma Gonzalez, and March For Our Lives (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bloomberg’s Everytown).
Kudos to MNPD on their response. Totally professional and their level of training showed. Great building clearing discipline. Excellent comms. Civilians can train to that level and many do. Mas teaches but there are other institutions that do as well and I thank God one is close to me in the Pacific NW. Instead of buying the newest offerings from the major firearms manufacturers, I invest in ammunition and training. I pray I will never have to use it, but I’m glad I have it if I ever do.
If you visit most elementary classrooms, you see a roomful of curious kids … opening doors, opening drawers, looking behind shelves, … Trying to find a place where a gun would be readily accessible to the teacher but totally inaccessible to the students would be challenging. (Minnesota tried to push a law this year requiring safe storage in the home, and the sheriffs and citizens in opposition said such a thing was impossible because … among other things … it would prevent access to the firearm in an emergency.)
Lee, the general policy is that school employees authorized to be armed keep a handgun securely and discreetly concealed on their physical person.
The only way to turn this around, is to make all schools, day care centers, and any other “soft targets” hardened – you know just like Congressional buildings, court houses, etc. are. Our elected officials are better protectfed than our children..Seems wrong to me.
With respect to the “proprietary security” scenario, they’d be responsible for establishing training and other policies, liability attaches and the insurance rates would probably be prohibitive. This is ignoring the general fear/hatred of the concept of armed security in schools and many other entities like hospitals. Not to mention the rampant avoidance of any degree of
responsibility.
They could avoid all that with “School Resource Officers” or whatever cozy title would be preferred. It still leaves them with the self conceptualized problem of the “armed thug” on site.
I agree that the police response was great, and probably as fast as it could have been.
However, when bullets are flying 14 minutes is an eternity. IMHO armed faculty is the answer.
“Nashville Metro is one of the best trained law enforcement agencies in the nation, but they cannot change the time/space continuum.”
This. Even when the police respond in an exemplary fashion as was the case here, they are still likely to be too late. Don’t have complete information on timeline yet but someone above said that the custodian was killed by the first burst. That is probably what triggered the 911 call which started the police moving. There was some indication that most of the students were forted up in locked rooms when the police arrived. If so, that piece of the security worked long enough for the police to get there. The child victims were all 3rd graders which raises the question of did the creature get to one class while the lockdown was being activated. Perhaps the teacher also. Was the principal trying to organize the lockdown or confront the killer. Either way, a hero.
Still, in spite of effective and heroic response, we have six dead. The response needs to be heroic, effective and IMMEDIATE. Hence, armed teachers and staff as Mas said.
Richard,
You are correct, of course. In Israel, if I remember correctly, they have at least one barrier outside the school. In other words, a perimeter, or maybe more than one. Wouldn’t it be ideal to shoot the killers before they can even enter the school?
Preventing entry to the school should be Plan A. Confronting a killer inside the school should be Plan B.
Barriers are useful for buying time but they don’t prevent incursion by a determined enemy. It seems that they did have locked doors which the killer shot her way through.
Richard,
Yeah, locked doors MADE OF GLASS! I could take a hammer, and with a gloved hand, bash out the glass, then press the bar latch and let myself in. That glass shattered so easily I thought she was shooting it with buckshot, not tiny .556 mm rounds.
The perimeter barriers should be manned by armed guards. Then they could shoot the attackers when they see them approaching with long guns. At that point, the only way to attack the school would be from within, by a goblin carrying concealed. That mutant would be stopped at a checkpoint, hopefully.
The defense I envision would be too expensive. It would turn the schools into forts. Ohio’s Faster Saves Lives is the practical and economical way to go.
It’s nice to live in a bubble in the wealthier areas of the USA, until a predator shows up and bursts that bubble. Then it is like a fox in a henhouse, and the hens are trapped inside the henhouse, so the fox has an easy time slaughtering the hens.
I’m glad to see the police immodestly went to find the mass murderer … with ‘shoot on sight’ and ‘shoot to kill’ orders (I am sure they didn’t say it that way but that was the policy.)
You cannot wait even an instant when children are involved. The monster must be stopped immediately.
But as for the schools… I am a sub teacher at a parochial school. Doors are electronically locked and the administrators have to unlock it before you can enter the hallways or the administrators offices. I am issued a key and electronic lock pass when I teach. They do have cameras in the hallways. And we go under training to spot those students with problems and the appropriate staff are made aware of that.
A teacher or two MAY BE armed (This is TEXAS) but I am not aware who or where or what the setup is… and I should not be as I am not permanent staff. I am NOT armed at that school.
Deaf Smith,
You should be armed. Your life is important, too. Also, you may be the first one to confront and neutralize the goblin. You are in Texas, not New Jersey, New York, California, Illinois, Maryland or Hawaii.
I disdain both the police officers AND the parents of that school in Uvalde, Texas. They make Texans look bad. Maybe they were born in the Northeast and moved to Texas. May their consciences torture them because both the police and the parents took no action while children were being massacred . . . . . . . . in Texas!!!
Mr. Smith, you should be officially designated a permanent school staff member as a sub, as difficult a job as any, especially if you can shoot as well as I think you do. Every adult who carries a firearm on campus should be trained in proactive shooting, and evaluated. The need for armed guards in society is hardly new. More acknowledgement of the need for armed prevention from lunatic homicide is needed. Let our school guards be prepared to shoot accurately at least as far as any open distance exists within a school. In TN, at least, that apparently implies carrying at least some handguns sighted and barreled adequately for “long shots,” with triggers that enable such shooting. I shudder when watching many videos of gun battles where authorities “spray-and-pray” inaccurate mag-dump pistol fusillades at a distance. It looks to me that rushing the Safe-Action-style trigger press, especially under stress, is a special cause of inaccuracy. Has everyone seen a video where the late Jeff Cooper demonstrates how to control the break on the trigger of a 1911? Similar timely relaxation and contraction of the shooting muscles can help with managing the break of “Safe-Action” triggers, but I wonder if the tuned single-action is not just often superior. For a long-range shootout and barred from carrying a rifle in a school, I would want a most effective handgun platform and caliber. I could simply go with my long-barreled steady Ruger Blackhawk in .45 Colt, with some fast hollow point handloads, and count on an early, flattening good hit on an Actively Stupid Shooter (ASS). Superb at least until needing to reload one shell at a time. Something like a flat-shooting long-slide .357 Sig 1911 with a red dot sight might be preferable. Needing armed security in schools, as well as in the rest of society, while being uncomfortable to some people, is really nothing new. Banning firearms is historically a far worse alternative. It has encouraged exploitation of individuals, strengthened hypocritical armed groups of thugs, and shortly been followed by wars and mass genocide. May God save us all from the hungry wolf of socialism that wears the fleece hoodie of “peaceful” Utopia, while consuming the wealth of nations.
@Roger and Steve: While I agree with you that Mr. Smith’s life is just as valuable as any teacher or student permanently at a school, I can also see some wisdom in not carrying while acting as a substitute teacher.
If the armed teachers know each other, and know each other to be armed, being a relative “stranger with a gun” during a violent event could end poorly for Mr. Smith. Even with the best of intentions on all sides, in a high-stress event an armed defender could end up pulling the trigger on the any person they see who is: a. armed, b. not known, and c. not in uniform.
I’m not sure my personal calculus would come to his conclusion, but I can see several reasons for it.
Archer,
The danger you mention, not being able to differentiate a criminal shooter from an armed defender, definitely needs to be considered and addressed. As we know, uniformed policemen sometimes mistake plain clothes policemen for criminals.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, and the Constitution in general, will get more support from Mr. Donald Trump than any currently known serious Democrat Presidential candidate. It is important for supporters of the Republican conservative Mr. Trump that he retain his rights as a free American, able to travel safely at will throughout all the American States and possessions, and elsewhere. I would like the SCOTUS, or some other high jurisdictional authority, possibly from the State of Florida, to declare Mr. Trump to be voluntarily, and under his own free will, under EXCLUSIVE protective custody of the United States Secret Service and USSS-appointed assigns until the advertised extradition of Mr. Trump by the Manhattan DA Mr. Bragg is first reviewed for legality by all higher, appropriately disinterested courts. Otherwise we should arrest somebody for dereliction of duty. Nobody, especially Mr. Trump, should ever be arrested and detained under any kind of phony accusation. All of us are next up on charges if Mr. Bragg’s baloney flies. Mr. Bragg is clearly committing the same kind of alleged offense with which he is falsely charging Mr. Trump. Mr. Bragg has no true or disinterested relevant prima facie argument of criminal guilt on the part of Mr. Trump. Frivolous criminal charges are among the worst kinds of malfeasance. Mr. Bragg needs to drop any dubious charges against Mr. Trump, or resign from office immediately to avoid being “hanged by his own petard,” unless he prefers to have himself charged and arrested for “election interference.” Now may be the time for the Republican Party, and possibly the State of Florida, to sue the State of New York to enforce relevant anti-crime laws and practices. IMHO, any citizen of New York State could possibly arrest Mr. Bragg today for election interference, as well as for accepting funds from ultimately criminal sources. Now THAT would be an interesting investigation! Let us at least get the lead (Pb) out (while keeping our powder dry under the Constitution) and do SOMETHING effective, appropriate, and immediate in favor of Mr. Donald Trump. Please watch Fox News instead of the mucky Media Mob. I am not saying that Fox is perfect, but who is best? And let us all hang together, or we will all surely receive terminal suspensions of one kind or another. Thank you!
“…any citizen of New York State could possibly arrest Mr. Bragg today for election interference…”
Election interference is exactly the plan that Mr. Bragg, and his democrat masters, are executing. The democrats have always seen Donald Trump as a weak Republican candidate. They LIKE running against HIM! Back in 2016, they used their propaganda arm (the Anit-American Media) to provide Mr. Trump with over $2 billion of free media. This was, in effect, a huge campaign contribution made, by the democrat party, to Mr. Trump. See this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html
Why did they do this? It was because they viewed Mr. Trump as the weakest Republican candidate in the field and they wanted him to be the nominee to run against Hillary Clinton. They poured on the free media to get him the Republican nomination then they “turned on a dime” and started the smear campaign (including ramping up the “Russian Hoax”) to tear him down for the general election. To their dismay, Mr. Trump turn out stronger than they thought, and he won despite all their maneuvers.
The result was their long smear campaign against President Trump while he was in office. After many years of character assassination, against Mr. Trump, they have infected a significant portion of the population with “Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)”. Given all their background investment in TDS, they want to run against Mr. Trump again in 2024. The situation is similar to 2016. Hillary had a lot of “baggage” and so does Biden. They want a Republican candidate, like Trump, with baggage of his own, to run against.
The whole point of this indictment is not to convict Mr. Trump and put him in jail. The charges are a joke! They won’t stand up to a trial. No, the purpose of indicting Trump is to FORCE the Republican base to rally around him and to get him nominated as the Republican Candidate for President in 2024. They would much rather run against Trump, again, than against someone like Ron DeSantis. They figure that TDS will keep the race close, even against Biden, and they can cheat their way to victory again in a close race. Basically, they figure they can repeat their 2020 election grab (again) in 2024 if Trump is (again) the Republican candidate.
Therefore, the ENTIRE PURPOSE of these stupid charges, against Trump, is to create a rally effect to get him the Republican nomination next year. They don’t seriously intend to convict him. They don’t have “the goods” to do that! What they want is to defeat him again with their patented election technique of “Smear and Cheat”. They figure that Mr. Trump is their ideal target for that technique. They got him nominated back in 2016. They will work to get him nominated again in 2024. The only difference is their approach. Before, they gave him billions of free media support. This time, they are making him a martyr so that the Republican base will rally to him.
The democrat party is both EVIL and SMART. Don’t ever doubt it!
Part of a message from the President of the Virginia Citizens Defense League today in re school shootings. BTW, if you live in Virginia, join.
“In comparison to the school shootings in states which have created so called “gun free zones,” Utah has never had a mass shooting in a school. What do they do so differently, you might ask?
In Utah, any person with a state concealed firearm permit can carry their loaded handgun in schools. When potential assailants don’t know who, or how many of the adults in a school are armed, it becomes a dangerous venue for them to attack. Armed with concealed firearms that they know how to use, visiting parents, contractors, deliverymen, custodians, educators, and IT or administrative staff make the children in the school safe.
Utah sheriff’s departments even operate an academy to prepare teachers to respond to threats, which includes weapons familiarization and shooting skills. Not the oft repeated nonsense of “arming teachers,” as if just anyone is going to be handed unsolicited guns or forced into doing something that they are uncomfortable with. Instead the sheriff’s departments are simply offering additional voluntary training to citizens who are already carrying a firearm for self-defense.”
Both a tragic and preventable crime. The keys to stopping this threat are 3 fold. First, have a threat management program in place to ID and stop the threat before a violent crime occurs. This revolves around, “If you See Something, Say Something.” Forewarned is forearmed!
Second, harden the target. Entry through a plate glass door or window is easy. Just a matter of seconds. The use of a strong security film such as the S-800 made by 3-M Company would have provided more time to react and prevent the crime.
Thirdly, allow for armed and trained staff as well as security guards/SRO’s on campus. Having arrested thousands of criminals during my 40 years as a cop, this saying still holds true, “When you need a Cop in seconds, they are minutes away”. We are by nature, a reactionary response force. There will never be enough of us to stop all the violent crime. That must be done by trained and armed civilians.
Sr. Instructor Roy Adams,
Agreed. One more thing I want to stress. There are misinformed people who believe school shootings can be prevented. This is wishful thinking. School shootings by determined killers cannot be prevented, but they can be shortened. Cutting school shootings short, by having armed adults present, will result in fewer victims being killed or wounded.
How to deal with school shootings? Consider the atrocity conducted at the school in Maalot Israel.
All the hoopla aside, the Israelis decided to train and arm EVERY adult in their schools. Result: no more school shootings that I’ve heard .
Rabbi, agree mostly. Don’t discount the meds. https://ssristories.org/
I would like ALL teachers to have training like that of the Ohio Faster program ~ dissenters could still choose not to actually carry. (I think they should also have basic Trauma training.)
Much like the requirement to for Everyman to be part of the militia 200 years ago, this would at least make every staff member aware of what is happening, how to respond, and perhaps how to help save the kids even if the staffer chooses not to carry. It might also afford someone who chose not to carry to reassess in the midst of an event and take a more aggressive/defensive stance.
And who knows, some of those dissenters might eventually begin to see the benefit after they have been more exposed to it. I believe many people take a gut-reaction/distaste to defensive firearms without even knowing what that defensive training does.
I also believe Faster-style training would condition the entire staff to be more aware of pre-event safety concerns and recognize “bad stuff happening” in order to respond more quickly when an attack begins.
I’ve often pointed out to friends who don’t understand my interest in defensive training, that the most often used benefit is the ability to recognize danger and AVOID IT, and in fact NOT having to “go to the gun” for defense except as a last resort.
WARNING: Tennessee is attempting to pass “red flag” laws.
https://redstate.com/benkew/2023/04/12/tennessee-gov-bill-lee-orders-red-flag-laws-in-all-but-name-n730256
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