Putting armed guards in all schools would be prohibitively expensive and it's just not a reasonable response to a small threat. The costs would greatly outweigh the benefits.
I have thought a lot about this issue for years. It is very real to me. When I was a police officer in a small rural town I knew that most likely I would be on my own in an active shooter situation, too much time would elapse before another officer could arrive to go in with me. Just the way things are.
One of my duties in my current job with the sheriffs office is being in charge of security at the courthouse. I know how expensive real security is. I know this is going to sound cold in this emotionally charged atmosphere, but the risk of an active shooter in every school in America does not justify the cost of properly trained and equipped armed security. We already spend more per capita on education then any other industrialized nation.
I am an NRA life member and I will not readily give up anything in a futile attempt to stop mass shootings. But the more I think about it, the more I have to dismiss the proposal to put armed officers in every school as prohibitively expensive.
What can we do then? Gun control will solve nothing, we can't afford to harden our schools and staff them with armed security forces. The solution that has the greatest benefit for our society is to fix our broken mental health system. Back in the 1980s we (as a society) decided that treating the mentally ill by institutionalizing them was cruel and inhumane. And it was expensive. States closed most of their mental hospitals and sanitariums. Advocacy groups pushed an agenda of mainstreaming the mentally ill.
Suddenly we were having a "homeless" problem. Why? Many of the mentally ill who lost their homes in the state run institutions couldn't handle being "mainstreamed". The number of them I dealt with who just refused to avail themselves of the shelter and government housing programs and preferred to live on the street just amazed me. Today our jails are full of mentally ill people who have committed crimes, felonies and misdemeanors both. In many cases they a found unfit to stand trial and committed to a mental institution. The problem is, there are so few beds that they often sit in isolation cells in the county jail for months waiting for a bed to open up. The judges here have taken to issuing a Rule to Show Cause summons to the directors of the state hospitals ordering them to show up in court and explain why these people are still sitting in the county jail months after the court ordered them committed to the Department of Human Services. Usually a bed comes available within hours of the institution being served with one of these orders.
Would fixing our mental health system stop all mass shootings? No, of course not. But I think it would lower the risk tremendously and have the other positive effect of dealing with the homeless problem and the jail overcrowding problem. The benefits to society would be worth the cost.
I'm not sure how much national coverage this story got, but several weeks ago it's possible that a mass shooting was thwarted when the parents of a troubled young man who seems to share many of the problems the sandy Hook shooter had (I will not use his name here), contacted police after he bought an AR15 rifle at Wal-Mart.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_c34f5471-d12c-5f70-9ced-57d581ab4ac6.html
I would like to know why the Lammers are not guests on every news show. I do know the reason, it's because their story doesn't fit a certain agenda. But this is what we need.
I have thought a lot about this issue for years. It is very real to me. When I was a police officer in a small rural town I knew that most likely I would be on my own in an active shooter situation, too much time would elapse before another officer could arrive to go in with me. Just the way things are.
One of my duties in my current job with the sheriffs office is being in charge of security at the courthouse. I know how expensive real security is. I know this is going to sound cold in this emotionally charged atmosphere, but the risk of an active shooter in every school in America does not justify the cost of properly trained and equipped armed security. We already spend more per capita on education then any other industrialized nation.
I am an NRA life member and I will not readily give up anything in a futile attempt to stop mass shootings. But the more I think about it, the more I have to dismiss the proposal to put armed officers in every school as prohibitively expensive.
What can we do then? Gun control will solve nothing, we can't afford to harden our schools and staff them with armed security forces. The solution that has the greatest benefit for our society is to fix our broken mental health system. Back in the 1980s we (as a society) decided that treating the mentally ill by institutionalizing them was cruel and inhumane. And it was expensive. States closed most of their mental hospitals and sanitariums. Advocacy groups pushed an agenda of mainstreaming the mentally ill.
Suddenly we were having a "homeless" problem. Why? Many of the mentally ill who lost their homes in the state run institutions couldn't handle being "mainstreamed". The number of them I dealt with who just refused to avail themselves of the shelter and government housing programs and preferred to live on the street just amazed me. Today our jails are full of mentally ill people who have committed crimes, felonies and misdemeanors both. In many cases they a found unfit to stand trial and committed to a mental institution. The problem is, there are so few beds that they often sit in isolation cells in the county jail for months waiting for a bed to open up. The judges here have taken to issuing a Rule to Show Cause summons to the directors of the state hospitals ordering them to show up in court and explain why these people are still sitting in the county jail months after the court ordered them committed to the Department of Human Services. Usually a bed comes available within hours of the institution being served with one of these orders.
Would fixing our mental health system stop all mass shootings? No, of course not. But I think it would lower the risk tremendously and have the other positive effect of dealing with the homeless problem and the jail overcrowding problem. The benefits to society would be worth the cost.
I'm not sure how much national coverage this story got, but several weeks ago it's possible that a mass shooting was thwarted when the parents of a troubled young man who seems to share many of the problems the sandy Hook shooter had (I will not use his name here), contacted police after he bought an AR15 rifle at Wal-Mart.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_c34f5471-d12c-5f70-9ced-57d581ab4ac6.html
Mo. parents discuss son accused in shooting plot
BOLIVAR, Mo. (AP) — The parents of a Missouri man accused of plotting attacks at a movie theater and Walmart store said they repeatedly struggled to find mental health care for their son before his arrest.
Bill and Tricia Lammers spoke with the Springfield News-Leader about their struggles in the wake of the deadly Dec. 14 school shootings in Connecticut.
"You think, 'Thank God it's not Blaec,'" Bill Lammers said. "I thank God we got lucky. ... Everybody in our community got lucky because he wasn't able to do anything."
Their son, Blaec Lammers, 20, has been jailed since last month on three felony charges, including making a terrorist threat. Lammers' attorney, DeWayne Franklin Perry, has declined to comment on the case.
Blaec Lammers was arrested after Tricia Lammers went to law enforcement, reporting that her son bought an AR-15 and another semi-automatic rifle from a Walmart store in Bolivar, a town about 130 miles southeast of Kansas City. It's the same store where a police report shows Blaec Lammers was found three years ago carrying a butcher knife and a Halloween mask with plans to kill a clerk.
When questioned, Blaec Lammers confessed that he planned to open fire during a showing of the new "Twilight" film and at the Walmart store.
Tricia Lammers has received phone calls from people who say she's heroic.
"I'm not a hero," said Tricia Lammers, who moved to Bolivar with her husband and the couple's two children in 2009. He was the radiology director at Citizens Memorial Hospital before becoming a consultant. She is a patient liaison at the hospital.
"With the events that happened last Friday my heart tells me I did the right thing," she said, adding, "Our city could be in the news."
Bill and Tricia Lammers say their son has always been different. He was diagnosed with dyslexia soon after first grade. He was quiet and shy. Other children picked on him. He lettered in academics his freshman year of high school in Omaha. Two years later, he was expelled after saying he wanted to harm a teacher. He has homemade tattoos on his arms, belly and legs.
The couple has tried repeatedly to get help for their son, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and an anti-social personality disorder. They recalled waiting for hours as hospital staffers called institutions around the state, trying to find one that had an open bed for their son.
They've spent as much as $30,000 on repeated hospitalizations and medications. There is still a balance of about $9,300 from their son's last stay at Lakeland Behavioral Health System, a psychiatric hospital for children in Springfield.
They said the mental health system has failed them and their son.....rest of the story at the link
I would like to know why the Lammers are not guests on every news show. I do know the reason, it's because their story doesn't fit a certain agenda. But this is what we need.