http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmZiZDdhNjJlZTk2YjY4N2IzYTUxZWNjZDZhZjUxMTY=
We must find responsible, trained teachers and administrators for our High Schools and allow college students to CCW. It is the only way to end this madness.
M_P
There was an armed guard at the 1st floor main door who actually checked the bags of the Cleveland kid (Koon)…methinks he did’nt want to go to war alone and waited for backup…by that time it was over.
The shooting took place on the 4th floor.
I agree, responsible teachers with a CCW’s is a reasonable solution. Just like armed airline pilots makes sense to me. What does not make sense is waiting in a classroom like sheep for some nut case to execute you. LE can’t save them. Columbine was a disaster. We have to have the tools to protect our kids.
Teachers with CCW’s just makes more sence than a single armed security guard or law enforcement agent for an entire campus. The teachers are already there, and on the payrole. And probably have a better knowlege or he students than a guard or officer would.
I’d like to hear from our professional practical-tactical types on this subject.
Seriously. Pro and con.
First off, I am an officer with a University agency that has the largest jurisdiction land wise of any university in the nation. We even have a Lake Patrol we are that large. We are fully commissioned state officers as every other “Police” officer in the state.
While CCW for students and faculty sounds good in theory, it would only result in potential disaster should an event such as VT occur.
The program our state utilizes to teach all officers to respond to Active Shooters advocates a swift and decisive response to the incident. Combine that with the anarchy of one of these events and a armed but well intentioned student or faculty member is bound to be engaged by responding officers.
One could advocate that would mean the responding officers are being quick on the trigger, but you have an ACTIVE shooting in progress and most likely no solid information regarding suspect description so you have to act fast. A two second delay in judgement and that can and probably will mean life and death for a student or students who are still within the crime scene.
You arm faculty and students and it will only complicate things even more and possibly cost lives in such an enclosed and dynamic environment.
Disclaimer before I am pegged as The Man… I have no problems with CCW and even advocate it. But… if it will complicate my job in an already chaotic environment and in turn place that CCW holder’s life in even more danger then I will openly speak out against it.
I know my thoughts are echoed throughout my agency and the surrounding agencies we work with and would assume it is the same amongst fellow officer around the nation who work in a university environment.
Just my $0.02 based on my training.
Allow me…
There’s A Reason They Choose Schools
A familiar story.
By Timothy Wheeler
Wednesday’s shooting at yet another school has a better outcome than most in recent memory. No one died at Cleveland’s Success Tech Academy except the perpetrator. The two students and two teachers he shot are in stable condition at Cleveland hospitals.
What is depressingly similar to the mass murders at Virginia Tech and Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania and too many others was the killer’s choice of venue — that steadfastly gun-free zone, the school campus. Although murderer Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech and Asa Coon, the Cleveland shooter were both students reported to have school-related grudges, other school killers have proved to be simply taking advantage of the lack of effective security at schools. The Bailey, Colorado multiple rapes and murder of September 2006, the Nickel Mines massacre of October 2006, and Buford Furrow’s murderous August 1999 invasion of a Los Angeles Jewish day-care center were all committed by adults. They had no connection to the schools other than being drawn to the soft target a school offers such psychopaths.
This latest shooting comes only a few weeks after the American Medical Association released a theme issue of its journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness. This issue is dedicated to analyzing the April 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, in which 32 people were murdered. The authors are university officials, trauma surgeons, and legal analysts who pore over the details of the incident, looking for “warning signs” and “risk factors” for violence. They rehash all the tired rhetoric of bureaucrats and public-health wonks, including the public-health mantra of the 1990s that guns are the root cause of violence.
Sheldon Greenberg, a dean at Johns Hopkins, offers this gem: “Reinforce a ‘no weapons’ policy and, when violated, enforce it quickly, to include expulsion. Parents should be made aware of the policy. Officials should dispel the politically driven notion that armed students could eliminate an active shooter” (emphasis added). Greenberg apparently isn’t aware that at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002 another homicidal Virginia student was stopped from shooting more of his classmates when another student held him at gunpoint. The Pearl High School murderer Luke Woodham was stopped cold when vice principal Joel Myrick got his Colt .45 handgun out of his truck and pointed it at the young killer.
Virginia Tech’s 2005 no-guns-on-campus policy was an abject failure at deterring Cho Seung-Hui. Greenberg’s audacity in ignoring the obvious is typical of arrogant school officials. What the AMA journal authors studiously avoid are on one hand the repeated failures of such feel-good steps as no-gun policies, and on the other hand the demonstrated success of armed first responders. These responders would be the students themselves, such as the trained and licensed law student, or their similarly qualified teachers.
In Cleveland this week and at Virginia Tech the shooters took time to walk the halls, searching out victims in several rooms, and then shooting them. Virginia Chief Medical Examiner Marcella Fierro describes the locations of the dead in Virginia Tech’s Norris Hall. Dead victims were found in groups ranging from 1 to 13, scattered throughout 4 rooms and a stairwell. If any one of the victims had, like the Appalachian School of Law student, used armed force to stop Cho, lives could have been saved.
The people of Virginia actually had a chance to implement such a plan last year. House Bill 1572 was introduced in the legislature to extend the state’s concealed-carry provisions to college campuses. But the bill died in committee, opposed by the usual naysayers, including the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police and the university itself. Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was quoted in the Roanoke Times as saying, “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty, and visitors feel safe on our campus.”
It is encouraging that college students themselves have a much better grasp on reality than their politically correct elders. During the week of October 22-26 Students For Concealed Carry On Campus will stage a nationwide “empty holster” demonstration (peaceful, of course) in support of their cause.
School officials typically base violence-prevention policies on irrational fears more than real-world analysis of what works. But which is more horrible, the massacre that timid bureaucrats fear might happen when a few good guys (and gals) carry guns on campus, or the one that actually did happen despite Virginia Tech’s progressive violence-prevention policy? Can there really be any more debate?
AMA journal editor James J. James, M.D. offers up this nostrum:
We must meaningfully embrace all of the varied disciplines contributing to preparedness and response and be more willing to be guided and informed by the full spectrum of research methodologies, including not only the rigid application of the traditional scientific method and epidemiological and social science applications but also the incorporation of observational/empirical findings, as necessary, in the absence of more objective data.
Got that?
I prefer the remedy prescribed by self-defense guru Massad Ayoob. When good people find themselves in what he calls “the dark place,” confronted by the imminent terror of a gun-wielding homicidal maniac, the picture becomes clear. Policies won’t help. Another federal gun law won’t help. The only solution is a prepared and brave defender with the proper lifesaving tool — a gun.
— Timothy Wheeler, M.D. is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Claremont Institute.
Extrapolate that to every other cop on the beat and you have effectively banned CCW using that logic. Yeah, you’re real pro-CCW. :rolleyes:
First off, I am an officer with a University agency that has the largest jurisdiction land wise of any university in the nation. We even have a Lake Patrol we are that large. We are fully commissioned state officers as every other “Police” officer in the state.
Size doesn’t matter in this case:D
While CCW for students and faculty sounds good in theory, it would only result in potential disaster should an event such as VT occur.
What exactly would you call VT if not a disaster:confused: They were unarmed and it didn’t seem to help them much from what I could see.
The program our state utilizes to teach all officers to respond to Active Shooters advocates a swift and decisive response to the incident. Combine that with the anarchy of one of these events and a armed but well intentioned student or faculty member is bound to be engaged by responding officers.
You get paid to make shoot no-shoot decisions. Acting swiftly doesn’t mean hosing the area with suppressive fire does it? I agree that it wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do; running around with a gun like a spaz, but one motivated and trained student could have ended VT before it got where it did IMHO.
One could advocate that would mean the responding officers are being quick on the trigger, but you have an ACTIVE shooting in progress and most likely no solid information regarding suspect description so you have to act fast. A two second delay in judgement and that can and probably will mean life and death for a student or students who are still within the crime scene.
See above
You arm faculty and students and it will only complicate things even more and possibly cost lives in such an enclosed and dynamic environment.
Keeping them disarmed is already ready costing lives; it’s obviously not working.
Disclaimer before I am pegged as The Man… I have no problems with CCW and even advocate it. But… if it will complicate my job in an already chaotic environment and in turn place that CCW holder’s life in even more danger then I will openly speak out against it.
I don’t think of you as “The Man” I just think you’ve bought into a bill of goods that is obviously not working. I would suggest looking for a solution other than disarming honest folks.
I know my thoughts are echoed throughout my agency and the surrounding agencies we work with and would assume it is the same amongst fellow officer around the nation who work in a university environment.
Just my $0.02 based on my training.
Problem with those thoughts is that it’s impractical to expect police protection and been proven that waiting for the calvary gets you dead. Having a gun is no guarantee, but it sure beats standing there with your dick in your hand. There aren’t enough of you, it’s not your fault it’s just a fact of life that there are more loons, kooks, criminals and degenerates than there are cops. So please don’t take this as bashing you. I just have a differing opinion.
Not a problem Don, but place yourself in my shoes.
Get a call of shots fired at a classroom building. You arrive on scene, make entry into the facility and move toward the gun shots. You round a corner and find two subjects with weapons; one the true suspect, the other a student. Which do you engage?
Bear in mind, if you wait to long you never see your family again and you have done nothing to help the situation end.
You engage both. Nowadays criminals work in teams. A student in the building with the suspect will in turn be viewed as a suspect. Even if he doesn’t match the “description” you were given if you were given one he is there, not a law enforcement responder and has a gun. It’s just a crappy day to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
At VT, sure a student with a gun could have attempted to stop it. Then again, students were killed execution style in groups. Physically assaulting Cho would have ended it just as quick. Fifteen students physically attacking a solo armed subject; odds are they would have won and thus ended the whole thing without a gun.
And Razor… I honestly am for CCW, but I am also a realist. You put a gun in a student or teacher hand, they will come up on the losing end of the battle.
I wish that I could place some of you in that situation where you would have to make that choice. But I can’t. Plus… this is the internet, so regardless of who says what it should be looked at skeptically anyway.
All we can do is be objective to each other’s opinions and allow for what could be “lost in translation” through the text that express our opinions.
Trust me ZG, I empathize with the position you’re put in, I guess I’m just too old and ornery to A. line up for execution B. wait for the cavalry. Don’t mistake this for being willing to go to guns mano eh mano in a no win situation just for the hell of it. I’ve just made the decision to not be a victim.
FWIW, I retire from the military in the next year and I’m currently applying to a few departments. So, I guess I’ll be in your shoes then…hopefully.
At VT, sure a student with a gun could have attempted to stop it. Then again, students were killed execution style in groups. Physically assaulting Cho would have ended it just as quick. Fifteen students physically attacking a solo armed subject; odds are they would have won and thus ended the whole thing without a gun.
And Razor… I honestly am for CCW, but I am also a realist. You put a gun in a student or teacher hand, they will come up on the losing end of the battle.
So, students/teachers could have physically have overcame him but would have came out on the losing end of the battle if they had a handgun?!?
First off… congrats on nearing retirement. I was the typical 1st Termer up until I hit Corporal and realized the Corps wasn’t so bad once you picked up rank and decided I wanted to stay in and go EOD. But… an injury on my second deployment prevented that. Still miss it every day I wake up!
Best of luck on the career after retirement. It will make you wish you were still on active duty though LoL. Things are much more black and white in the military!!! Well… I guess maybe not so much anymore, but still more so than L.E. You can just act more instinctively in the military since the “black pajama’d mofos” (my SgtMaj’s favorite way to describe them lol) are less likely to sue you for your life’s worth!
Anyways, back on topic. I understand what you mean. I am the same way or else I would not have been in the Marines and continued on in uniformed and armed doing what I do. I just think that the risk have to be weighed and in what is the arguably the dynamic situation an officer can be in, it would put the innocent at an unnecessary level of enhanced risk in respect to being a non-LEO inside the active scene with a gun.
Again, congrats on the retirement and your future career endeavours.
So let me get this straight, you can be killed by a crazed gunman or you can risk being killed by a cop, right? So it is better, or in this case, more convenient for the police, if you are killed by the crazed gunman because if you have a gun a cop might have to shoot you since he can’t tell who the real gunman is? Oh, I do sincerely hope you are never called to the witness stand young man.
[Zorro]Once again we cross swords![/Zorro]
First you want to eliminate the 1st Amendment because you don’t like mouthy teenagers on Youtube, now we need to eliminate CCW because you might shoot us? Dear Lord, save us from the Kampus Kops! 
M_P
Late yesterday I asked for a practical-tactical perspective because although I have opinions on this issue, I’m not the smartest guy in the room when it comes to dealing with an active shooter.
Here’s what I mean.
My wife and I are private citizens, with two teenage spawns enrolled in public schools. Both expect to attend college. We’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure their safety and welfare.
We’re passionate supporters of the Second Amendment, the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms, and the judicious issuing of concealed-carry privileges.
We believe that an armed citizenry can be a deterrent to those who would do us harm or threaten our freedoms, and that the existence of “unarmed victim zones” – the widespread absence of an armed deterrent – contributes to violent crime.
With differing degrees of real-world experience and practical training, we take the words of Jeff Cooper to heart: “One is no more armed because he has possession of a firearm than he is a musician because he owns a piano. There is no point in having a gun if you are not capable of using it skillfully.”
We know that not everyone who owns a firearm is “capable of using it skillfully” or seeks training to make up that deficit, and that holding a concealed-carry permit is no guarantee that the permittee is trained to act or capable of performing in the face of an armed threat.
Finally, we’re mindful of the words of Wayne Woodrow Hayes: “When you throw the football, three things can happen. Two of them are bad.” In the case of armed defense, to us the “bad things” are missing the intended target or hitting an unintended target, possibilities that increase without proper training.
All that said, we’re still struggling with how we (as a society) should address the threat of armed violence in public schools and on college campuses. It’d be relatively easy for us to take the emotional-Constitutional position, but we’re sobered by the prospect of arming thousands of faculty, staff and (college) students who may or may not be (and probably aren’t) adequately trained.
We’ve also considered precisely the scenario that ZGXtreme talked about from the law-enforcement perspective:
So as much as we loathe “unarmed victim zones” and could support (with specific reservations) the presence of armed citizens as deterrent and defense, we’re still in search of the rest of the answer.
Originally Posted by ZGXtreme
I just think that the risk [sic] have to be weighed and in what is the arguably the dynamic situation an officer can be in, it would put the innocent at an unnecessary level of enhanced risk in respect to being a non-LEO inside the active scene with a gun.
Well your restatement isn’t nearly as LEO-friendly, and you’d never see it quoted that way in the media, but you’ve summarized the essence of his argument exactly.
Here in Oregon we have the Medford school teacher suing her district because their ‘no concealed carry policy’ is in violation of our state laws. The district and it’s lawyers sound very much like ZGXtreme – very reasonable, very well intentioned. A polished message intended for maximum ease of buy-in for those who are too lazy to think critically about the argument being presented.
And of course it’s all just the same BS.
I just think that the risk have to be weighed and in what is the arguably the dynamic situation an officer can be in, it would put the innocent at an unnecessary level of enhanced risk in respect to being a non-LEO inside the active scene with a gun.
I appreciate the concern for the safety of others, but the innocent were put at an unnecessary level of danger the moment they were told there would be “gun free” zones. Every school shootings that has taken place since this bit of stupidity was enacted has happened in a gun free zone. I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box, but I’d call that a clue pointing to the fact that gun free zones don’t do anything except disarm those who want to be good citizens(victims) and follow the law.
Maybe schools should issue Kevlar-lined School uniforms or backpacks with a SAPI plate built into them so our kids can attempt to protect them selves while the police are still trying to figure out WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON…
just my $.o2:rolleyes:
Lets do a little math.
How many have been killed by armed gunman inside victim disarmament zones?
How many CCWers have been mistakenly killed anywhere at anytime, not just at so-called gun free zones by police while engaging a tango? I have never heard of it.
I will bet the first example totally dwarfs the second.
The odds sure seem to favor the armed student unless someone can give me a mathematical, statistically valid argument to the contrary.
Before dismissing ZGXtreme’s points wholesale as BS, I believe it’d be fair to answer one of his questions as a practical matter:
[i]Get a call of shots fired at a classroom building. You arrive on scene, make entry into the facility and move toward the gun shots. You round a corner and find two subjects with weapons; one the true suspect, the other a student.
Which do you engage?[/i]
I’m not an LEO and never have been, nor do I presume to have a complete understanding of the profession or the tactics involved, but to me that’s a plausible scenario.
Here’s another angle, substituting an armed private citizen for the LEO:
[i]You’re walking across campus and you hear what sounds like gunshots coming from inside a classroom building. You draw your concealed handgun, shove your way into the building past fleeing occupants and move toward the gunshots. You round a corner and find two subjects with weapons; one the true suspect, the other a student.
Which do you engage?[/i]
RIF: At this point I’m neither advocating nor opposing the arming of private citizens in schools or on campuses. I’m in relentless pursuit of information from folks who are smarter than I am on the subject.