"Gun Free" Schools and Terrorism

[Deanimator]

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 people could possibly change the situation resulting in fewer lives lost.

And what do you lose by resisting someone whose ultimate goal is to kill as many children as possible?

These guys' OPSEC is DREADFUL. I'm betting that their ability to adapt on their feet isn't much better. They say that no plan survives contact with the enemy. When your reaction to changed tactical conditions boils down to, "And then my imaginary friend performs a miracle", anything unexpected especially effective resistance, can derail the plan. And once again, when the goal is to kill as many children as possible, how is impeding that goal a bad thing? Allowing terrorists to concentrate victims (and rape and torture them) unmolested so that more can be murdered at one time, doesn't seem much of a solution to any conceiveable problem.

A lot of the pooh poohing of armed resistance sounds an awful lot like, "Why do you need a gun? The criminal will always have the drop on you! Just do what the criminal tells you and you'll be alright! Why do you think we have police?"

 

[ZeSpectre]

Watching schools and protecting our children while at school are not the jobs of parents. It is the job of the school it self and the police to protect our children from danger.

Sorry I disagree. Just because the task of safety gets expanded to others doesn't necessarily relieve one of basic parental responsibility to maintain that safety as well.

 

[RLsnow]

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.

about the Islam thing, you should remembered that pretty much every religion is violent. with Christianity the Crusades spring to mind


im sorry this has nothing to do really with the argument, just wanted to point out that his statement was a bit unfair.

 

[cnorman18]

fly in the ointment

As I've said before, arming teachers and staff is a good idea; the hard part of that will be finding teachers who want to be armed. Teachers, as a group, are about as liberal a group as you'd ever want to see. Even here in Texas (where I was a teacher for 26 years), most teachers are liberal Democrats. Consider: Most teachers are female, relatively young, and the products of liberal colleges. The education departments of most colleges are hotbeds of far-left political correctness. It's taken for granted, without reflection, that schools ought to be "weapons-free" zones. I was once told that, even as an adult, I should not carry a pocketknife while at school (the knife in question was a mini Swiss Army with a 1 1/2 inch blade).

Also, all of the teachers' unions are very liberal; the NEA, the largest, is practically a wing of the Democratic Party. Any attempt to arm teachers would be met with HUGE resistance from that quarter.

Bad news indeed, but there it is.

Best we can do, probably, is make it LEGAL to carry in a school and hope that at least SOME teachers and staff will do so.

God, I hate liberals.

 

[Mr. Designer]

If you asked anyone what the most precious thing in their life is, most people would answer their family or children. With this high value placed on children it is amazing how deliberately unprotected they become when they leave for mandated government schools. This fact is illustrated even more when you compare how money is protected with armed guards and safes while anyone off the street can gain access to school children almost immediately. I believe people need to demand school children be protected as much as or more than the local bank protects it’s money.

 

[Correia]

Jeff, brother, I've got to disagree with you a little bit. (and you know I've done a little bit as OpFor on this issue)

It is all about defense in depth.

Will the janitor, the school resource officer, and the football coach armed with .38s and 9mms stop a platoon of dedicated shock troops? Hell no. But speed bumps never hurt.

You've got levels of threat, and levels of defense.

A threat against a school can by a lone whackadoo with a Tec-9, to a gang fight, to a car bomb, to Beslan. Having some armed staff in the mix usually doesn't hurt, and in most of the levels of threat can actually stop the problem.

At the highest level of threat (Beslan level platoon of crazies) then anything the speed bumps do is valuable. We both know what most jurisdiction's response plans are for active shooters are now. Anything that hinders the terrorists, or slows them from locking the place down is valuable.

And I've read the reports in depth. The absolute last thing we want is they to herd everybody in the gym, wire the doors with explosives, and torture, rape, and behead until there is a dynamic entry. And I would hate to be the team doing that one.

On the defense end of things, stopping the guys up front, through intel is obviously best. Which is one thing that really ticks me off about these discussions. The government gets berated constantly for not doing anything, but in this one facet, I know for a fact that they've done some pretty darn good work. I associate with a lot of interesting professionals, and they've stopped a lot of big operations through intel and preemptive arrests.

Could we actually prepare to stop a Beslan scale attack against every school in America? Nope. Impossible. We can't harden most of our military facilities for that level. But every little bit helps. Ironically, if we did harden our schools that much, they would just go hit something else. You've got to prepare whichever way you can, but there are limits to everything.

The odds of us facing 30+ troops in one location are doubtful in the US, but possible. Honestly, I figure it would be a much smaller group.

But I have no doubt, whatsoever, that it is a matter of time before this happens here. As for the terrorists not doing it because it hurts them, I don't believe that at all. They want a total war. They want us to start burning mosques and hanging innocents. We're satan, rememeber? They want to piss us off and provoke us, and make us react stupidly. We're talking about people that worship a man that quotes Noam friggin' Chomsky, so I'm not going to dismiss any crazy idea.

Now we both also know that there are quite a few other targets that would hurt America even worse. But I'm not even going to bring them up here.

 

[Geno]

I have a question:

How many who have posted here thus far, are employed in the educational system? It doesn't matter if you are employed in a public, a charter, or a private school, and at any level, Pre-K through Ph.D. and in any capacity.

There is not intention to degrade the concern of those who have posted who do not work in education, but I assure you that the view of bus drivers, cooks, custodians, play ground and classroom aides, teachers, administrators will vary radically from those who are outside, including school board members. Life looks different as you walk the halls daily versus periodically.

My years of working in education have provided me some ugly experiences, including working with the Michigan State Police, who coordinated with the FBI and BATF to ward off an attack on the first school where I was a principal of grades 7-12. It is a long and difficult story, but I assure you the fact of the perp thinking that I had a Colt 1911 under my suit coat, caused the perps them pause. But, that can be assumed only to the extent that the perps desire to continue to live. Had these perps had a total disregard for life, as many terrorists seem to have, the fact of one or two or 20 people possessing firearms will make little difference.

Furthermore, the problems reside not merely at the school level, they exist at the national level. We are talking about putting out buckets to catch the rain, when the front, back and side doors and every window in the place is left wide open to bring in ever-more illegals. It’s like locking your door at night, when the perp is hiding in your bedroom closet.

In closing, I can assure you of one fact, to effectively and proactively lock-down a school in terms of prohibiting intruders is a danged-near impossible task. It requires massive security fences, and gates that are kept locked, alarms, armed guards, etc. I will state for the record that I am fully in support of allowing for the possession of firearms in school. Furthermore, they should all be required to complete training such that they are all qualified and competent shootists. I will further state that they should be required to engage in on-going training. But, make no mistake about it, we still are talking bandages over gushing wounds.

While I could provide more detailed description and explanation of the rationale to support my position statement, I will not for the fact that it could provide insights from an insider as to the very real, and across-the-board weaknesses of all schools. We are talking a larger problem that arming school employees.

JMPO,

Doc2005, Graduate Professor
Education & Educational Leadership

 

[Riz58]

Let us all concede that Mr. White is right and armed staff would not stop a Belsan type of attack; however, we cannot assume that a Belsan attack was being planned simply because school plans were on a terrorist's hard drive.

It seems that a Belsan attack, while possible, is not probable in the US due to the large number of people who would have to gather and coordinate with others (assuming a multi-school attack across the country). Intelligence would probably pick and be able to grab them.

The terrorists have studied Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Amish school case, and the recent rural Colorado case. They more likely would attack with 4 to 6 people knowing that schools are weapons-free zones. If the goal is to get the US to become isolationist (pull all the troops and resouces back to the continental US), it would be an active shooter sceanrio. If we responded like the Spanish did to the Madrid bombing, we would give up and come home.

Remember, the terrorist are working with a different paradigm. They do NOT understand the American pschye. Sometime in the next election cycle, the risk will increase greatly because they wish to influence the election cycle for a more pacifist group to be in control; thinking we will react like the Spanish did.

The televison show "The Unit" had an episode on a Belsan-type attack last year that you might enhoy watching for.

 

[El Tejon]

Concede?

I won't concede that. Deterence, to win without fighting, is the greatest of all victories.

Deterence works in Israeli schools where the bad guys know that the schools are armed and yet no Beslan-inspired attacks transpire.

 

[DC3-CVN-72]

Beslan type atack

I don't have the answer to defend against a Beslan type attack but I do know one thing. the terrorists hate our fredom and our way of life. They want to change the way we live by using terrorism to scare us into takeing away fredom from ourselves. At best a terrorist attack on a school would be about as devestating as a tornado here in the midwest, and no way near as likely. I have an 8 yr.old doughter and a 12 yr.old son, and would give my life to protect them, but I would have about as much chace against a tornado as a platoon size force of terrorists.

 

[Jeff White]

F4GIB said;

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.

Armed citizens are no more a solution to the problem of a terrorist attack on a school then life jackets were a solution to the Titanic hitting an iceberg. An armed citizen in that situation may allow someone to escape. But we are kidding ourselves when we say that if we just arm the staff nothing bad will happen.

Mr. Designer said;

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.

Yeah, that worked out well at Belsan:

http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0606BESLAN_140-2

The terrorists appeared as if from nowhere. A military truck stopped near the school and men leapt from the cargo bed, firing rifles and shouting, "Allahu akhbar!" They moved with speed and certitude, as if every step had been rehearsed. The first few sprinted between the formation and the schoolyard gate, blocking escape. There was almost no resistance. Ruslan Frayev, a local man who had come with several members of his family, drew a pistol and began to fire. He was killed.

They will come prepared for armed resistance. They did at Belsan.

Deanimator said;

Quote:
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.

That's why Israel is such a peaceful place and everyone lives in blissful harmony there now. All terrorist attacks have stopped since many Israelis now carry guns? I must have missed that on the news....

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.

How do you suggest we change the culture in the US so that;

#1 the people accept the fact that their children will go to school with armed staff.

#2 and this will be the tough one, how are you going to change the institutional culture in the American education system so that teachers and
administrators will readily accept their new role as soldiers?

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.

Please point out where I said that teachers and staff shouldn't be armed or shouldn't resist. The discussion here is about what to do about the problem of a Belsan type attack. I would hope we can do better for our kids then a simplistic solution like arming the teachers and staff.

These guys' OPSEC is DREADFUL. I'm betting that their ability to adapt on their feet isn't much better.

So you are willing to bet the lives of innocent American schoolchildren on that? I don't think it's real smart to underestimate the enemy.

When your reaction to changed tactical conditions boils down to, "And then my imaginary friend performs a miracle", anything unexpected especially effective resistance, can derail the plan.

Ruslan Frayev sure managed to derail the plan at Belsan. Slowed them down by maybe 30 seconds. I'm not saying that what he did wasn't right, and I'm not saying he shouldn't have taken action. I'm just saying it wasn't effective.

A lot of the pooh poohing of armed resistance sounds an awful lot like, "Why do you need a gun? The criminal will always have the drop on you! Just do what the criminal tells you and you'll be alright! Why do you think we have police?"

Maybe you take some sort of comfort in the fact that someone resisted. That's great, but at the end of the day innocent people still died. In a scenario like we're talking about, most likely as many as would have died if there was no resistance.

Personally, I'd rather see a solution that actually has a chance of succeeding. I hardly think arming the staff is the best this country can come up with. Maybe you think it's ok and maybe even kind of neat for kids to go to a school that more closely resembles a prison then a school, I think that is giving in to the terrorists.

Correia said;

Jeff, brother, I've got to disagree with you a little bit. (and you know I've done a little bit as OpFor on this issue)

It is all about defense in depth.

Larry, the difference between defense in depth as OPFOR and defense in depth as a second thought is huge. When you were OPFOR you had the luxury of stacking magazines, straightening the pins on your grenades and waiting for the bad guys to come in. An armed staff as the defense against an attack like this will not have time to assemble and react. Their fight will be piecemeal and not layered at all.

I have never once stated that it was wrong to arm the staff. I'm saying that we are doing ourselves a disservice by thinking of this problem in such simplistic terms.

The standard internet firearms forum answer to every human problem is to give everyone a gun and it will be alright. I don't think that giving every staff member in every school in America a gun will solve this problem. At best it may allow someone to escape. So it could be a part the solution. But arming the staff in our schools will never be the solution. The problem is much bigger and more complex then that.

When someone can explain to me how they are going to change American culture to accept turning our schools into armed camps, and how every teacher, administrator and maintenance person in every school in America is suddenly going to happily embrace their new role as armed protector, I'll accept that it's even possible. Eliminating the laws against concealed carry in schools and allowing those who choose to carry a firearm to legally carry it in the school environment is about the best we can hope for. And those weapons will be like the life preserver on a ship, not the avenging sword of truth, justice and the American way.

Jeff

 

[Correia]

I have never once stated that it was wrong to arm the staff. I'm saying that we are doing ourselves a disservice by thinking of this problem in such simplistic terms.

That's why I said I mostly agreed with you.

I'm against mandatory arming of teachers. Being armed is a question of mindset and committment.

Now volunteers should be allowed to be armed. Just remove the prohibition against CCW in schools, and now you've got a handful of speedbumps.

As for cultural change, that is achievable. We've done it here, got CCW allowed in school, so it can be done.

 

[Geno]

We need to be careful not to confuse our personal and professional desire to arm educators and other school employees, and our desire to secure schools. We errantly assume a correlation between the two, and I choose my word carefully. Correlations assesses only two variables. If we consider these two variables alone, we set ourselves up for little more than a false sense of security. Then, when it fails, the antis can say, "We told you so."

I will assert a potential closing assertion to this discussion: America is not willing to commit to comprehensive security, either in the general population or in our schools. Our bleeding borders are our greatest proof of that fact. We are not willing to tolerate the dictatorial, prison-like, or military base-like conditions required to secure a facility. I submit for your consideration that schools are social systems, and they are a combined open and at times closed systems. Read up on those.

Are you willing to transition all educational entities into categorically closed-systems? It begins with permitting no discussion of, and no knowledge of said same, and forceful inquiry of those engage in a breech of that dictate (word very carefully chosen).

 

[Deanimator]

That's why Israel is such a peaceful place and everyone lives in blissful harmony there now. All terrorist attacks have stopped since many Israelis now carry guns? I must have missed that on the news....

Attacks by gunmen on schools have stopped. Once the Israelis decided that the schools would have the capacity to defend themselves rather than HAVE to rely SOLELY upon outside assistance, the Palestinians stopped attacking them. All they were achieving was an incremental decline in the number of available gunmen. No doubt some people would consider that a BAD thing...

 

[george_co]

Quick insert before posting - A number of posts have been made since I started typing this so hopefully I am not being redundent. ****

Jeff White - I hope you don't mind but I am going to pick on you. Hopefully, in a non-abusive non personal way, even though I use "you" a lot, it is not you personally but you as a representative of your profession.

When I read your first posts you sounded like the normal cop to a civilian, Paraphrasing here " Just stay out of the way, you can't help, and anything you do will likely just screw things up more than they already are, let the professionals handle it." Which, for the record, is very true for most of the normal things that happen in life. If the problem can wait for the professionals to show up, it is better to wait for those who have the training, the equipment, and the support to handle it. Except every now and then if the citizen doesn't start CPR before the EMT's get there, the victim will be dead and there is nothing that the professionals can do.

Then you latter clarified that you weren't opposing civilians carrying in schools, just that it wouldn't be successful. The CCW would barely provide a road bump in most cases. Again I mostly agree with you, the resource officer will be the first victim and likely won't even be a road bump he/she will just be the starter pistol for the event.

I have had many debates with our Emergency Mgmt. Coor., he was a deputy sherriff here before he went back in the army and shipped out to IRAQ, If, a Beslan style attack occures here, they will have complete control of the school inside of five minutes. Any defense of the school has to happen within those five minutes. Any hope of children escaping is within that same chaotic five minutes. There is no way that there is going to be any kind of reasonable police response in 5 minutes. It took 9 minutes at VT and they were already deployed due to the earlier shooting.

Any delay or disruption of the terrorist's plan plays into our hands not his. Maybe twenty kids can climb out of windows and run away. I hope that I would give my life to save twenty, ten, five, or 1 kid. Maybe I get lucky and kill or wound the lead explosives guy, that is a benefit. Now how long do I expect to last with my Beretta 9000 and 21 rounds? I would be very lucky if I manage to empty one mag. before I get to meet St. Peter. But if you have ten or fifteen people like me in that school (out of 200 teachers, parents, administrators), maybe we disrupt thier plans long enough for you the professionals to arrive and start doing your thing.

However, you the professional, will have to start making very tough choices. Do you shoot through our kids to get to the terrorist? You, the professional may kill or wound numerous kids, but you will hopefully save 5 or 10 times as many. But, if the terrorists are given uninterrupted time to crowd the gym with kids and explosives we have lost and hundreds of kids, parents and teachers will die. How long will it take to rig explosives in the gym? If they aren't interrupted probably no more than 20 to 30 minutes - can you react that fast in a coordinated manner? Not bloody likely in most areas of the country.

The Adult Parent/Teacher/Citizen is the last line of defense for our children. We are the only thing that may buy (with our lives) the time for the professionals to arrive and start their immediate offensive to retake the
school. If the terrorists here follow the Beslan templat anybody who represents a threat will be shoot anyway, so I figure I am dead no matter what. But, we can only be that last line of defense if we are allowed to be, and in most states the professionals say stay out of the way, you don't have a dog in this fight. By the way I have a wife and two sons in schools.

Part of most defensive strategies is to make the requirements for a successful attack high enough that a simpler target is chosen. Kind of like putting motion sensor lights on your house so the burgler hits your neighbor. The more people who carry at school, the less likely a school will be chosen as a target, because the resource requirements (number of attackers needed due to uncertainty) grows too large to move into place without loseing operational security and hopefully being intercepted by the professionals.

Right now in my county we have 12 to 14 different school sites. If Oshama got on TV today and said we will attack a school in Colorado tomorrow, we don't have the ability to professionally protect these schools. We can't use the law enforcement community anyway because they, as you rightly pointed out, should be out trying to intercept them before they get to the schools because that is the best way to do it. So all we have is the unorganized militia, we need to organize it before it is too late. The professional mindset that we civilians are just worthless lumps needs to change.

And if you think that the Jefferson County Sherriff's office got blamed for failing at Columbine, wait for the public reaction to the Law Enforcement Community's failure to protect a school from a Beslane style attack. In the immortal words of John Wayne "Let's be clear about this - Your fault, My Fault, Nobody's Fault Your Dead!" Meaning the police will be hung out to dry long before we get around to start killing muslims indiscriminately.

Again, this isn't aimed at you personally, but at the professional mindset that no defense is better than a poor defense when it comes to our kids.

George

 

[F4GIB]

Jeff White posted:

But we are kidding ourselves when we say that if we just arm the staff nothing bad will happen.

I have never said this. No other poster in this thread has said this.
Jeff, only YOU are saying this.

BTW, what is your "perfect" solution? You want to read ours, we want to read yours.

 

[Riz58]

El Tejon, I agree that deterrence is effective against a small group (2 to 6 people or so.) I think school staff should have the option to be armed (properly trained as Doc2005 noted) to serve as that deterrence.

A platoon-size force would not be deterred by such. Armed response would buy some time, but we would have to change our response from hunker down in a locked classroom - to get out the window and get out of Dodge! On second thought, I think maybe being hunkered down with the first person breaking open the door being shot might slow them down some, although the consequence would probably be the room being randomly sprayed by automatic/semi-auto fire.

Man, you could keep following this trail for some time! Glad I am not the one having to develop detailed sceanarios and responses - there must be a thousand things to consider!

 

[Wes Janson]

This isn't going to be a popular viewpoint, but I'd like to point out that any discussion of the widespread arming of individuals needs to take into account the overall costs associated with such an action. If Congress passed a law allowing teachers and faculty to carry concealed on campus, it seems likely to me that only a minority of schools would have at least one staff member armed on a consistent basis (particularly the smaller schools). From a preparedness point of view it makes little sense to only arm a fraction of schools as a deterrant to terrorist action, since a determined group of individuals would simply choose another school as their target. Forced armament of schools doesn't really seem valid either. Assuming only one staff member from each school is armed and trained by the government, that still represents tens of thousands of people. Ignoring the financial costs, it seems valid to me to ask whether the potential for misuse and accidents by individuals who aren't armed by their own choice is worthwhile outweighs the benefits of deterrance and reduced response times.

 

[george_co]

Wes Janson - Speaking for myself I will provide Me, My Arms and train myself at no expense to the State (it would me nice to get a tax write off though), All I ask that I be allowed to carry in schools, like I used to be able to, without getting arrested.

A side benefit would be if the liberal teachers would think of me as a Good Guy - Not a Gun Nut!

George

 

[Deanimator]

As for cultural change, that is achievable. We've done it here, got CCW allowed in school, so it can be done.

They've achieved cultural change of a sort in inner-city Cleveland. It's now considered quite acceptable not only to have a CHL, but to shoot people when they try to rob you. The robbers and their families and hangers-on were quite chagrinned to discover the profound LACK of sympathy for them in the community. I guarantee you there isn't more sympathy for Islamo-fascist child killers.

It's almost a dead certainty that there's not going to be a cop standing around when somebody tries to rob you, nor if somebody tries to attack your kids' school, at least unless it's in some high crime area already. It is absolutely ESSENTIAL that terrorists not be allowed the time to consolidate their hold on school grounds and hostages (whom they intend to kill anyway). Relying SOLELY on the police virtually guarantees them the time they need to kill a LOT more people. Relying on a combination of armed citizens and police to disrupt potential attacks that cannot be preempted is only common sense.

It is dishonest to claim that armed civilians are a guaranteed solution to EVERY problem, or even to the SAME problem EVERY time. It is equally dishonest to denigrate the abilities of armed civilians to save lives, or indeed in the right circumstances to outright defeat an attack.

 

[Jerry Morris]

What I don't have a handle on is how the president will handle the howls of rage and demands for revenge that will inevitably result. A very wise man who has worked his entire life in the middle east told be at the beginning of 911 that this country will be faced with moral choices which will stretch our civilization in ways we've never experienced. He very clearly said we will be asked to do things which are unthinkable 10 years ago.

In mt view, a Beslan attack is pretty darned hard to defeat totally. Even a 50% success factor is going to putthings through the roof.

I suspect a better method is to plan and publicize, the counter attack. What effects the Arab/Islamic mind? What do they need above all else? A nuke over Mecca? I do not think that is going to happen and it would not be effective, in my mind.

What will not only divide Islam, but seriously hurt it? Shut off the flow of money. Close our ports to their most precious commodity. Now,this is the unthinkable in their minds! It is also something that would throw this country into a turmoil of emotion. It would hurt greatly and instill in the terrorists mind that we mean to win. I would think this would be their greatest nightmare.

It would give the "the moderate Arab" a grudge to hold against the terrs. It might cause an action by the moderates we have yet to see.

It would be much easier to bankrupt them all, than to kill all of them.

Now, IMO, this would be something! A wartime effort towards energy self sufficiency. And a follow up business plan to drain those economies.

Jerry


Jerry

 

[azredhawk44]

The biggest benefit I see to arming teachers and staff at schools is the deterrent factor.

Jeff is correct in his assertion that a well armed group of 20 commandos will bowl right over impromptu resistance by a School Resource Officer and 1-2 CCW carrying teachers.

What the SRO and unknown teachers accomplish is MANDATE that the attacking force MUST be large to overcome the potential resistance.

If 1-2 crazy shooters (Columbine, VA Tech) hit a campus, the SRO and any other available defenses will help in neutralizing the threat... but the biggest deterrent they offer is FORCING the size of an aggressive attacking force (Beslan) to be large enough that they must plan, coordinate, build an arms stockpile... and leave enough sign for US intelligence services to find them and hopefully pre-emptively stop them.

Just another tool in the war against terrorism, IMO.

 

[Jeff White]

Deanimator said;

Attacks by gunmen on schools have stopped. Once the Israelis decided that the schools would have the capacity to defend themselves rather than HAVE to rely SOLELY upon outside assistance, the Palestinians stopped attacking them. All they were achieving was an incremental decline in the number of available gunmen. No doubt some people would consider that a BAD thing...

Apples and oranges. The Palestinian attacks on schools in Israel were not takeover attempts. They were closer to an active shooter scenario as we know it here. There were armed civilians at Belsan. It made no difference in the outcome.

george_co said;

I have had many debates with our Emergency Mgmt. Coor., he was a deputy sherriff here before he went back in the army and shipped out to IRAQ, If, a Beslan style attack occures here, they will have complete control of the school inside of five minutes. Any defense of the school has to happen within those five minutes. Any hope of children escaping is within that same chaotic five minutes. There is no way that there is going to be any kind of reasonable police response in 5 minutes. It took 9 minutes at VT and they were already deployed due to the earlier shooting.

We both know there won't be sufficient police response in 2 hours to take the school back by force. The resources do not exist anywhere in this country. And once there was sufficient force to retake the school, any attempt would be a blood bath. Unless we spend the money to make our schools physically impossible to take by force in a few minutes, the terrorists will in fact take over the school. And we both know that we aren't going to spend the money that would be required to turn our school houses into fortresses. We can't even get a new roof on a school building around here without the school district increasing taxes. The money it would cost to bring the physical plant of every school building in America up to a reasonable standard of security does not exist. 5 minutes, 9 minutes....it's really immaterial, we're not going to stop them from taking over the school once they are in the school yard.

Any delay or disruption of the terrorist's plan plays into our hands not his. Maybe twenty kids can climb out of windows and run away. I hope that I would give my life to save twenty, ten, five, or 1 kid. Maybe I get lucky and kill or wound the lead explosives guy, that is a benefit. Now how long do I expect to last with my Beretta 9000 and 21 rounds? I would be very lucky if I manage to empty one mag. before I get to meet St. Peter. But if you have ten or fifteen people like me in that school (out of 200 teachers, parents, administrators), maybe we disrupt their plans long enough for you the professionals to arrive and start doing your thing.

The possibility of someone escaping because an armed citizen is present is the best thing we can hope for. That is a realistic expectation. The possibility of armed citizens holding the terrorists at bay long enough for the professionals to arrive and take them out is pretty slim and I think we both know that.

However, you the professional, will have to start making very tough choices. Do you shoot through our kids to get to the terrorist? You, the professional may kill or wound numerous kids, but you will hopefully save 5 or 10 times as many. But, if the terrorists are given uninterrupted time to crowd the gym with kids and explosives we have lost and hundreds of kids, parents and teachers will die. How long will it take to rig explosives in the gym? If they aren't interrupted probably no more than 20 to 30 minutes - can you react that fast in a coordinated manner? Not bloody likely in most areas of the country.

I'm afraid that everywhere in the country, the terrorists will take the school before a force capable of stopping them could be assembled. What it will amount to is if the political leadership will negotiate with the terrorists for the lives of the children. That will be the problem. There won't be any taking the school back by force. No one could do it without causing nearly as many civilian casualties as letting them blow up the school.

The Adult Parent/Teacher/Citizen is the last line of defense for our children. We are the only thing that may buy (with our lives) the time for the professionals to arrive and start their immediate offensive to retake the
school. If the terrorists here follow the Beslan template anybody who represents a threat will be shoot anyway, so I figure I am dead no matter what. But, we can only be that last line of defense if we are allowed to be, and in most states the professionals say stay out of the way, you don't have a dog in this fight. By the way I have a wife and two sons in schools.

I have nothing against CCW in the schools. What I am arguing is that it will never be anything more then a last ditch chance for someone to live, and we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking it is the solution. It's not, and the idea that a terrorist organization would not attack a school because it's possible they might meet an armed citizen is just not reality.

Part of most defensive strategies is to make the requirements for a successful attack high enough that a simpler target is chosen. Kind of like putting motion sensor lights on your house so the burglar hits your neighbor. The more people who carry at school, the less likely a school will be chosen as a target, because the resource requirements (number of attackers needed due to uncertainty) grows too large to move into place without losing operational security and hopefully being intercepted by the professionals.

Even if every adult in the school was armed, they would be spread throughout the building and it would be very difficult to put up a credible resistance. Right now it would be hard to assemble a large enough force to take over an unprotected school without being caught. And that is the way we'll fight this. We aren't going to harden every school in the country and provide it with it's own trained and equipped security force to repel boarders. It's not going to happen, it's not feasible. It's also not possible to take a school back by force after it's been seized. Not without an unacceptable loss of life. So we're not going to do that either.

Right now in my county we have 12 to 14 different school sites. If Oshama got on TV today and said we will attack a school in Colorado tomorrow, we don't have the ability to professionally protect these schools. We can't use the law enforcement community anyway because they, as you rightly pointed out, should be out trying to intercept them before they get to the schools because that is the best way to do it. So all we have is the unorganized militia, we need to organize it before it is too late. The professional mindset that we civilians are just worthless lumps needs to change.

If you go back to TFL and do a search of my posts over there, you'll find that right after the 2001 attacks, I advocated using volunteer groups like the old civil defense organizations, arming them with surplus M16A1s out of war reserve stocks and equipping them with old AN/PRC77 radios and other gear that we have in storage, calling up military retirees to cadre the units and using them to protect our infrastructure. I hardly think civilians are worthless lumps. But I'm a realist and I recognize the weaknesses in the entire system.

F4GIB said;

BTW, what is your "perfect" solution? You want to read ours, we want to read yours.

Just what we're doing. Fight them on their turf not ours, and keep a good watch on their communities in this country and in the prisons where they are recruiting to stop these events before they happen. It's the only possible solution.

Jeff

 

[Deanimator]

What the SRO and unknown teachers accomplish is MANDATE that the attacking force MUST be large to overcome the potential resistance.

They act as skirmishers, forcing the enemy to deploy early, to his disadvantage.

 

[Peaceful John]

"If terrorists were stupid enough to do this, there would be no stopping the rage of the American people. I don't see how this would help their cause at all."

Something happened six years ago that I thought would generate American rage, but it seems like it devolved into only a moment of angst. We're still learning that our Democrat half doesn't "do" push-back.