"Gun Free" Schools and Terrorism

[The_Shootist]

Numbers?

I understand the scenario where the terrorists would LIKE to quickly move in 30 or so bodies well equipped into a school - but how realistic is it?

The cells that have been uncovered have all had - what? 6 members? 12 members? Now all of a sudden they rush 30 well armed gunman into a school?

I just have a hard time believing they can mass that amount of men/material ata specific point without someone - even a wary pedestrian or motorist along their route of assembly - spotting "something". It just takes that little chink in the armour to let an arrowhead through and blow the whole thing.

Whats is more likely is a group - say 4-6 scumbags - assembling and pulling a W Va Tech situation. I would suggest 1-2 reasonably armed/motivated CHL holders on/ariving at the scene quickly could screw things up for them pretty quickly.

The whole idea is to buy time - not exercise any John Wayne nonsense. Every second the terrorists are looking over their sholder / exchanging shots with a civilian is one in which they aren't shooting at kids and the security response teams come closer. Heck, a couple of minutes could bring a patrol car or two and then its probably pretty much over. The odds would just keep getting worse for the vermin in question.

If you want to be REAL macabre - what about all that handwringing that goes on about how our schools are awash in drugs/weapons. Can you totally discount the fact that a "morally challenged" student or two fishes a .380 out of his locker (or his person) once it all started going down?

Wouldn't that be ironic - fresh martyrs courtesy of some homeboy bustin' a cap in their hide

 

[Jeff White]

cnorman18 said;

I really don't get it. It's all but impossible to protect a school from a "platoon-sized force", therefore we do nothing at all?

There are other ways. Intelligence operations to find and stop the attacks before they ever get to the point where they would be launched.

Maybe we're "not talking about an active-shooter scenario", but I would think anyone paying attention would have noticed that we have had plenty of THOSE--and it clearly ought to be part of the conversation. Even a small number of armed and trained teachers and staff could have prevented at least some of the deaths in school shootings over the last decade or so.

Why should it be part of this conversation? We're talking about a terrorist attack on a school, not a lone nutcase shooting things up. Apples and oranges and what is a defense against an active shooter is no more then a distraction to a terrorist take over.

Moreover, terrorists don't ALWAYS attack in huge crowds. Small groups are much more common, if only because they are harder to spot in advance. ANY armed resistance is better than none, as the Israelis have learned the hard way.

The last school take over by a radical Islamic terrorist group was in Belsan. That's the worst case scenario that we have to plan against.

It would be all but impossible to defend a bank against a "platoon-sized force", too, but for some reason they still commonly have armed guards on the premises. Is our money more worth protecting than our kids?

I don't remember the last time I've seen an armed guard in a bank here in the midwest, except when the armored car company was making a delivery or pickup. The visible armed guard is not even much of a deterrent to the lone bank robber who most often these days never even displays a weapon and just passes a note to the teller. There aren't a lot of takeover bank robberies these days. In those banks that still have them, the armed guard is eyewash. He's there to establish a presence and maybe deter someone from a spur of the moment action. He's no way, shape or form a credible deterrent. I happen to think that our children deserve better then that.

I've got nothing against arming every staff member in the school building. But I'm not going to convince myself that it's protection against a Belsan type attack, because its not. There are some things that require other solutions.

Jeff

 

[cnorman18]

we are all Israelis now--

--we just don't know it yet.

I suspect that the U.S. is going to have to become a lot more like Israel over the next decade or so.

We'd better. And I think we will. I have great faith in the American people.

When--not "if"--the war is being fought over here on a daily basis, we'll see the pacifist weenies overwhelmed by the great mass of Americans who aren't willing to surrender and submit to Sharia law.

 

[Joe Demko]

Jeff White explained some of the realities of making a school a hard target and asked those who disagree with him to submit their idea of how things should be done. Other than some vague muttering about ethnic profiling and Israel, nothing has been put forward.
I work in the public school system. The way people complain about their taxes now, I can't imagine them funding what hardening every building and providing a full-time defense force for each would cost...but if that magically did happen, I can easily imagine many of you here blowing a gasket over the militarization of the schools. You already call them "indoctrination camps."
Guns aren't the solution to all problems. In this case, the solution, imperfect as it is, lies largely in investigative and intelligence agencies heading the terrorists off before they attack a school.

 

[chris in va]

Well, wow. All this assumption that 20 terrorists will attack an elementary school.

Bringing things down to a more realistic level, how about 1-2 guys? Surely a large number of BG's will be noticed by the .gov types before it takes place. In fact a few plots have been foiled overseas recently with more than 5 people involved.

A more believeable scenerio is the lone or semi-lone guy that simply walks into a school through the unlocked door. Now in THAT situation I may submit that someone armed in the school could considerably reduce the threat.

 

[Gaucho Gringo]

If you look historically the US has always been at war with Islam. not by our choice but by theirs. The first war we fought after getting our independence was with Muslims, the Barbary Pirates. This is the reason the US Navy was established. If they had not attacked our ships there would have been no USS Constitution. I have no respect for Islam as a religion because of it's bloodthirsty ways. It has always been a religion of warfare no two ways about it. I went to college with a bunch of Saudi students and lets say they they reinforced all my opinions of people who folllow Islam. I am sorry my opinions are not very high road but what about their's.

 

[Joe Demko]

What about theirs? You are the one in control of your opinions, not them.

No matter what somebody else does wrong, it isn't an excuse for you to do something wrong. My parents taught me that. The Sisters of Mercy taught me that. I believe that. YMMV.

 

[Jeff White]

The_Shootist said;

The cells that have been uncovered have all had - what? 6 members? 12 members? Now all of a sudden they rush 30 well armed gunman into a school?

They did at Belsan.

I just have a hard time believing they can mass that amount of men/material ata specific point without someone - even a wary pedestrian or motorist along their route of assembly - spotting "something". It just takes that little chink in the armour to let an arrowhead through and blow the whole thing.

Which is why it's pretty unlikely to happen here in the US at the present time.

Whats is more likely is a group - say 4-6 scumbags - assembling and pulling a W Va Tech situation. I would suggest 1-2 reasonably armed/motivated CHL holders on/ariving at the scene quickly could screw things up for them pretty quickly.

I think you gravely underestimate the enemy. That's a dangerous thing to do. I also think that you are greatly overestimating the ability of CCW holders in general. That is also a dangerous thing to do.

The whole idea is to buy time - not exercise any John Wayne nonsense. Every second the terrorists are looking over their sholder / exchanging shots with a civilian is one in which they aren't shooting at kids and the security response teams come closer. Heck, a couple of minutes could bring a patrol car or two and then its probably pretty much over. The odds would just keep getting worse for the vermin in question.

They probably aren't going to exchange shots with civilians for very long. they'll use the children as a shield or just bypass the civilian, leaving one or two to deal with him. We're talking about a planned raid. Not some nutcase who wants to shoot people. They have a mission, they have a plan and they probably are familiar with the layout of the school.

Provided they haven't already cut phone lines and equipped themselves to jam cell phone signals (the technology is available to the public), how long do you think the response time is. In many rural areas it might be 20 minutes or longer before one officer could arrive on the scene. It's just not realistic to think that we can protect ourselves from a Belsan type of attack by arming the school staff.

Jeff

 

[F4GIB]

In this case, the solution, imperfect as it is, lies largely in investigative and intelligence agencies heading the terrorists off before they attack a school.

And, when (not if) they evade the I&I services and get inside the school, what do we do?

IMHO, first, we F. U. their plan by getting some return fire. Who knows, the shooters might be lucky and get the 3 terrorist leaders in a stairway. Or, the defenders might die. But time and confusion favor the defenders and the rapid response force (I hope the police don't stand around with their collective thumbs in their a**s like SWAT did in San Yesidro, CA, 101 California Street, and Columbine, CO). "Don't do nothing!" should be the first command.

There is no way to avoid the desirability of armed teachers and staff inside the school. At best they stop the attack or impair it severely. At worst, they lay down their weapons and hope for outside rescue.

But SOME counterforce must be present in the school at all times it's occupied. It's not a guarantee, it's an opportunity. The Israeli's have learned this from sad experience. We should avoid that tragedy.

 

[F4GIB]

Jeff White posted:

It's just not realistic to think that we can protect ourselves from a Belsan type of attack by arming the school staff.

So when intelligence fails and the school IS occupied, we are left with a Waco-type assault that kills the children to save them? Isn't that what happened in Belsan?

I've observed FBI's HRT in action at Waco and Ruby Ridge, I don't think they can take a force of 30 hardened, trained, veterans ensconced in a hard structure without destroying the facility and killing almost everyone in it. That's an "operation" by "operators", it's not a victory.

 

[Wes Janson]

Personally, I suspect that a Beslan on American soil is about as significant of a threat as killer asteroids-theoretically possible, but not remotely likely to occur anytime soon. The smaller threats are the likely ones..although statistically "likely" still means that something on the order of 99.99%* of schools won't ever face such situations.

*Extremely approximate figure, given that there are approximately 100,000 public schools in this country, and that each year there are perhaps only one or two widely reported school shootings of a significant nature.

 

[Jeff White]

F4GIB said;

IMHO, first, we F. U. their plan by getting some return fire. Who knows, the shooters might be lucky and get the 3 terrorist leaders in a stairway.

Why don't you read this account of the attack at Belsan and then we'll talk about armed staff being a credible deterrent.

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0606BESLAN_140?school

But time and confusion favor the defenders.

What defenders? Again I ask you, what kind of credible resistance do you think they will put up? What is your plan to get enough armed staff together in time to put up a credible resistance? You seem to be putting all of your faith in what's likely to be minimally or totally untrained, possibly poorly motivated teachers, administrative and custodial personnel to repel an attack by a trained, motivated force that isn't afraid to die to accomplish it's mission.

At best they stop the attack or impair it severely. At worst, they lay down their weapons and hope for outside rescue.

Read the article on Belsan. Then tell me that armed staff could stop such an attack.

But SOME counterforce must be present in the school at all times it's occupied. It's not a guarantee, it's an opportunity.

Do you think the terrorists won't search the staff once they take the school?

So when intelligence fails and the school IS occupied, we are left with a Waco-type assault that kills the children to save them? Isn't that what happened in Belsan?

Yes, that's what we're left with. And no one, not HRT, not LAPD D Platoon, not the SAS or CAG, no one possesses the ability to make an assault like that without massive loss of life. It's a lose/lose situation. The only way to stop this is with intelligence operations that can prevent it from happening.

Arming the staff is fine. But in this situation it will make little difference. You could issue every staff member an M4A1, require them to wear it on their body in a chalker sling whenever they are on school property, send them to Thunder Ranch or Gunsite for carbine training, and they'll still lose the fight for the school. In the end, arming the staff is not a solution to this problem and we're kidding ourselves if we think it is. I'm not against it, for it might be the solution to some other problems, but it's not the solution to this one.

Jeff

 

[Mannix]

Somehow I find in hard to accept that our government is so incompetent it could let a force of that size slip through the cracks, I just can't see it happening. Our situation is TOTALLY different from Chechnya's, they have an on going civil war between the pro-Russian forces led by their president, and the various Chechen separatist groups, and the entire area is a terrorist breeding ground. We, on the other hand, have no civil wars going on, and very few homegrown terrorists.

The biggest threat as it is right now are attacks from individual and groups of 2-5 people, both of which I think would be deterred in part by arming school staff.

 

[Oleg Volk]

Jeff, defenders might lose but any time during which the site isn't secured by attackers would allow flight by the students and unarmed staff.

 

[Jeff White]

Oleg,
Not once did I say it was a bad idea to arm the staff. If it allows one child to escape it's worth it. All I'm saying is that it's not a solution and we're kidding ourselves if we think it is.

Jeff

 

[ArfinGreebly]

Can't Happen Here

There seems to be this idea that any "suspicious" activity would get noticed and someone would alert someone and that would mess with the BG's plan.

Which is fine.

Except that a SCHOOL BUS FULL OF PEOPLE isn't suspicious.

There you are. There's the school. And there's a school bus pulling up in front of the school. The fact that it's a slightly different model of school bus, with markings that aren't consistent with the local district, and with the name of some school you've never heard of, will probably not raise any flags with a casual observer.

Why would it? In competitive sports, public speaking/debate, and other inter-mural activities, it's not at all unusual to see GOOFBALL UNIFIED SKOOLZ on a bus outside your school.

You can fit a force of 40 or so, complete with equipment, on a normal school bus. And you'd never see it coming until they were storming out of the bus toward the school.

And this is my own personal naive scenario, based on five minutes of thought, not months of planning.

Whatever you are used to seeing in the news about "school violence," this isn't going to match that template.

This requires a new thinking model.

(And, yes, I'd arm the teachers. No sense giving any ground you don't have to.)

 

[F4GIB]

All I'm saying is that it's not a solution and we're kidding ourselves if we think it is.

If you said "not a complete solution," I think Oleg and I would agree.

But available counterforce is essential (like fire extinguishers at an oil refinery) even if, as it turns out, it's not used. Lots can go wrong in an assault, lets be prepared to take any advantage God gives us.

 

[thegriz]

Glenn Beck said that architectural plans of several schools in the US were found on a hard drive in Iraq that was possessed by a known terrorist.

a snippet from the transcript:

THOR: Okay. What was found in an insurgent, an Al-Qaeda affiliated safehouse over in Iraq, they were school blueprints, basically, floor plans for schools across the country. San Diego, California, West Salem, Oregon, Boyertown, Pennsylvania, schools in Texas, Virginia, New Jersey, and this was very, very disconcerting and there was a cover story that was concocted that, hey, this was just some Iraqis who were involved with the Ministry of Education in Iraq and they're looking to rebuild their schools and all that kind of BS.

GLENN: Unbelievable. I mean, who would buy that, that they come to us to look at the architectural plans of schools all around the country, six or eight -- I mean, were these remarkable schools, architecturally speaking, Brad?

THOR: No, no, it wasn't incredible Frank Lloyd Wright but it shows you how desperate the FBI is to get to the -- they are desperate. They are working so hard to prevent this from happening. That's one thing I want your listeners to know is that they do not want this to happen. They are working hard, but at the same time they are trying to prevent people from panicking.

GLENN: Right.

http://www.glennbeck.com/news/09112007a.shtml

On today's program Beck stated the specific schools were listed in a newspaper somewhere but he refuses to repeat this info on the air or even quote the transcript above.

Does anybody have the list of schools? Since I'm in Texas I sure would like to know which Texas schools were on the hard drive.

 

[El Tejon]

If the Israeli model will not prevent a Beslanesque attack here in the USA, why has not a Beslan styled attack been waged against an Israeli school?

I would think such an attack is unlikely here, from The Base. Lots of nutballs out there though.

A Beslan here is small potatoes for The Base. With a much smaller number of operators and a much more extended lines of communication and supply, they need a big operation to make a dramatic statement. I would think that they would run the same play that worked before on 9/11/01. Maybe this time use planes from a more vulernable source such as the cargo industry.

With 8 or 9 years between operations and using another historically significant date, say March '09 or '10 to hit us again. Just speculation.

 

[Mr. Designer]

From the terrorist point of view, they are assuming that there will be zero armed citizens when they enter the school. Having just a few armed good guys could possibly change the situation resulting in fewer lives lost.

 

[Deanimator]

A couple CCW holders and a school resource officer banding together to fight off the terrorists might make a good chapter in a techno-thriller or part of a movie script, but in real life, it's not going to happen. The terrorists will come in big enough numbers with enough firepower to render that type of defense hopeless.

Strange how that doesn't seem to happen in Israel.

You can let yourself and the children be killed without a fight or you can fight back.

Being a willing victim doesn't make you a good person.

It just makes you dead.

 

[Deanimator]

(And, yes, I'd arm the teachers. No sense giving any ground you don't have to.)

Given the known facts of Beslan and Israeli practical experience, there's simply NO downside to arming the teachers, at least none which outweighs the need to resist ALL such atrocities on GP.

Arguments to the contrary sound like the arguments that it was good that nobody on the LIRR was armed when Patrick Ferguson shot it up, since people MIGHT have been shot in a "crossfire". Clearly such people prefer the CERTAINTY of a bullet in the head from a mass murderer than the POSSIBILITY of being shot by someone trying to stop him.

But there will always be people johnny on the spot with a reason why you should passively accept your own murder and that of your children...

 

[Siderite]

As Jeff White has pointed out, against a Beslan-type attack (20+ heavily armed individuals), nothing short of a dedicated defense force could stand a chance of stopping the attack outright.

This leads to a different sort of strategy - how can we lose less? Given the unreasonable demands of terrorists, it seems unlikely that negotiation will work. Also, an assault on the terrorists with hostages in a defended position would lead to a result similar to Beslan.

So, to mitigate the situation, a defense in depth is needed, not as a means of stopping the attack (though it is possible), but as a means to evacuate potential hostages.

Here's what I could see as possibilities:

1) effective communication within the school - an alarm to alert everyone that a situation has started.

2) armed individuals within the school - though unlikely to stop the attack, it will force the attackers to either divide their force or to re-route around armed defenders. This will slow down the attack (the 'speed bump' Jeff spoke of).

3) massive noncompliance with terrorists by teachers and students - as most here know, the best defense is put into effect immediately, not when you've been 'secured' by the attackers. Chaos would be the goal, making the situation so disorganized that the attackers can't herd people. This will be a hard one - convincing people that they stand better odds by running from attackers than surrendering. It also is a challenge, because the education system in this country works very hard to get compliance with authority.

All in all, this sort of attack seems to have no good solutions, only delaying actions for a retreat to reduce the number of hostages.

 

[Colt]

I discussed this topic with a coworker who immigrated from the Ukraine a few years ago. The fact that he's from the Ukraine doesn't mean anything other than that he is a bit more objective than me.

From what he saw there, and what he's seen here, he's convinced that an attack on schools would generate violence against mosques and muslims living in the US.

He agrees that such an occurance is the ultimate goal of the muslims. Currently, they're in a holy war with us, though we don't feel we're in a holy war with them. They want that perception to change, so that they can unite muslims all around the world.

He's also convinced that the national guard would be deployed immediately. Not to protect our schools but to protect muslims from vigilantes. The last thing the powers that be want is to be drawn into a true holy war.

 

[One of Many]

The Islamic extremists are training their young children to hate all infidels, and to kill infidels. The schools indoctrinate them, and train them in methods such as suicide bombing. When people hate so much that their own lives are worth less that the death of the enemy, there is no way to use force to defeat them, short of killing them first.

We need to start training our youth, in the reality of terrorist attacks, and the fact that some of them may be killed if they don't take an active role in defending themselves, by running and hiding, or even bashing the bad guy with a chair if necessary.

Hostages will be killed by the terrorists, and there is no way to stop those hostage deaths. If you want to reduce the number of hostages taken in the future, you eliminate the hostage takers immediately, even if it means that the hostages are killed by friendly fire. Only by making the cost to the enemy great enough to discourage enemy attacks, will we win against terrorists. It is a matter of sheer numbers. If their are 100 terrorists, and we have 1 million students, then sacrificing 200 students to eliminate the 100 terrorists is good math; total elimination of the enemy with a small loss of your own people is how wars are won. The hard part is making sure that the enemy has been completely destroyed. That may require that we start destroying the training grounds of the terrorists, including the schools that indoctrinate their young children.

War is war, and many non-combatants get killed in wars; you can not win a war if preventing collateral damage is your highest priority; you must destroy the enemy at all costs, if you have any hope of being victorious. You must be willing to accept losses among your own non-combatants, if defeat of the enemy is assured by doing so.

The biggest reason we are incapable of winning wars, is that we have become a culture of cowards; unwilling to accept any loss of life on the part of our military and civilians, and looking to technology to wipe out the enemy with no losses on our side. The terror war is not going to be fought on a battle ground where there is clear separation of good guy and bad guy (no uniforms), so technology (smart bombs and missiles, etc) will not help us. The war on terror will be fought in our streets, our schools, our churches, our farm fields, our shopping centers, our highway systems and railways, and our air transportation systems.

We will have casualties and deaths in this war; it is inescapable - we need to toughen up our mental processes, and cope with that concept. Then we can determine the best way to destroy the enemy. Not to subjugate the enemy, not to imprison the enemy, rather to destroy the enemy - you must keep them from breeding and indoctrinating new warriors, if you want to have peace.

This is a war that will take decades to complete; we can not win it in 100 days, or in the term of office of a single President of the United States. We can certainly lose it in the term of a single President, or even the term of a Representative to the Congress, if we (voters) allow the elected officials to surrender to the terrorists. Victory comes at great costs, but the costs of defeat are much greater. Freedom is not free; it has been, and will continue to be, paid for with the lives of brave men, women and children.