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Question of the Day: How Do I Do Something About My Daughter’s School’s Lax Security?

Robert Farago - comments No comments

(courtesy tea.state.guv.us)

For the sake of maintaining a modicum of OPSEC, I will simply say this: the security at my daughter’s school is woefully inadequate. (I’d say laughably but then it’s no laughing matter.) The question is: how do I broach the subject with the principal if, indeed, that’s the best place to start? As I previously reported, the jefe’s already gave me grief when a parent suspected I was carrying on school grounds (someone glimpsed my empty holster). Nowadays he gives my hip the malocchio every time he sees me. When I asked him if the school was participating in Texas’ ludicrous school marshall program he looked at me as if I had pin lice in my eyebrows. So now what? What’s the best way to kick someone’s ass begin the process of rectifying the security situation – without scaring the horses (i.e., teachers, administrators and fellow parents)? Petition? Committee? Call the school district? What?

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “Question of the Day: How Do I Do Something About My Daughter’s School’s Lax Security?”

  1. Good job. Display a graphic for my home state, that touts false information about the laws (common liberal agenda shit) and then attempt to get viewers to read more propaganda from the group that should be truthfully named “Mayors Against Freedom”. Nice.

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  2. Sending the rifle back after bitching about it on the internet? Don’t expect to get it back fixed, Alex Robinson has said himself he won’t fix one of his shitty rifles if he finds out the owner complained about it on the internet.

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  3. I bought one in 22mag. I put on a cabelas caliber specific 3×9 on it. Off the bench I am able to shoot 1/2 inch groups at 100 yds using cci mini mag +v 30 grain hollow points! Simply awesome rifle! Am going to get one in .223 next. Great rifle for the price!

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  4. Tough call RF.

    If you have discussed the topic with the principal, and they are convinced their security is adequate, present them with a list of the things that should be improved. If the principal insists their security measures are still adequate and no changes will be made, ask if they would be open to a demonstration of how insecure their measures are.

    If they still balk, I would move on to greener and safer pastures. Then publish a scathing expose.

    You are a well known and confirmed weapons carrier. Making too big a stink could be counter productive, with you and yours ending up on a sort of community black list or extra LEO scrutiny.

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  5. The 702 has problems eating certain hollow points. If they fixed that this modular version MIGHT be worth the extra dough. Plinksters are hitting for around 125 most places, with the 25 rd mags selling for 40 if you can find them.

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  6. I’ve said it before and will say it again. No knock warrents are only to be used in the most dire of circumstances. I’d rather see a pothead or low level dealer flush the evidence than have blood in the streets when not needed.

    Pull up to the house, hit it with spots, announce on the bullhorn why you’re there. Give the man with the pregnant girlfriend a moment to think and guess what? 9 times out of ten he’ll come out with his hands up.

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    • I agree completely. Yes if its coke or heroin and an apartment complex, it’ll get flushed–but 5 lbs of pot in a mobile? Let’s get real. And if you have access to the water supply, shut it off and he’ll get no more than one flush any way.

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  7. In management, it’s sometimes said, “don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” I’m under no illusions that making things happen, even in the finest of Texas school districts, is a long uphill battle. Especially in central Texas, where I’ve run into more than a few parents who are clearly of the “guns make me feel like throwing up” variety. Still, you can’t go up to the principal, or the school board, or any group and just say “your security suc…, er, is woefully inadequate.” You’d need to go in and propose, well, something. Put in bullet proof glass in those full-length windows; implement the programs that are permitted in Texas now to arm select individuals; teach our kids to RUN and not shelter in place. Whatever it is – maybe even a whole set of layered solutions – it’s got to be something to which they can say “yes” or “no.”

    You should start a committee or something 🙂 I’d join.

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  8. I know nothing of the XCR, but I own two R96s that I purchased new directly from Robinson in 2000. I can confirm from repeated personal experience what Rab, RD, KeithF and Murdoc refer to above. After I had purchased the rifles, Alex Robinson refused to take my phone calls, and was mostly unresponsive when I attempted to communicate with him via mail and email about my concerns about the rifles. I will not do business with him again.

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  9. 1) Inquire to the district super and ask about their liability policy
    2) Contact your state rep/senator and explain your concern and inquire why said rep/senator allows a district who fails to protect the children with an armed guard should not have state funds cut or why anyone in administration should be protected from liability
    3) Go to school board and ask publicly during comments period why the board doesn’t care about the children

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  10. Research what may have already been tried by others to see if you can glean anything from the past. Maybe find like minded parents so it’s not just you trying to institute a change or at least a review. Ask for a copy of the schools security plan to fully understand just how bad it really is. If you can find other parents start going as a group to PTA meetings and even run for PTA leadership positions. Talk to the School Boards Attorney about your concerns and have a discussion about what has been brought before the School Board. As a friend of mine used to tell me, change happens when there is pressure from the top and from the bottom leaving the middle nowhere to go but where you want to lead them. Good luck.

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  11. There is a fundamental perception which motivates the masses to oppose armed staff and parents at schools. You must change that perception before the masses will graciously recognize our right to keep and bear arms even at schools.

    And what is that fundamental perception? The masses believe that armed parents and staff are a much greater danger to our children in schools than spree killers who attack one or two schools per decade in the entire United States. Specifically the masses believe that:
    (1) Many parents and staff frequently erupt in violent anger and they would inflict a LOT more damage if they were armed during their temper tantrums.
    (2) Many parents and staff are bumbling idiots who cannot carry a firearm responsibly … and they will cause several injuries via negligent discharges and leaving their firearms out where children find them (and of course squeeze the trigger when they find them).

    I can promptly demonstrate both logically and with real world experience/facts how that perception is totally wrong. The really big question is whether policymakers care to learn the truth much less act honorably upon the truth. While you are welcome to try that, I suspect it would easier to get photos of key policymakers with prostitutes and “persuade” them to change their policies.

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  12. Based on a military training video showing how to use gauze lased with quick clot on a pig I would say this would be way more effective.

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  13. Expecting good shooting performance from a $2500 308 “battle rifle” is not out of line. That thing must be broken somehow. My lowly M&P 10 with medium priced ring/optics shoots MOA with 168g SMK. It cost less than half what the XCR-M cost at a significantly lower weight (about 8 lbs with MBUIS and a M/I float fore end).

    The best part is that it will run cheap steel and hunting ammo no problem while shooting decent groups.

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  14. I don’t know what to tell you. When even McGruff the Crime Dog is going to prison for sixteen years on pot and weapons charges, including supposedly a grenade launcher, about the only option left is homeschooling.

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  15. I’m amazed that a Grand Jury in Burleson County Texas got this right. It’s a good sign. No knock warrants are for Pablo Escobar, not a dude with five pounds of homegrown weed.

    Ever watch videos of the keystone cops doing these things? 5 masked men with guns all yelling something different. Even if the alleged criminal wants to comply, how does he when one cop is yelling hands up, one is yelling on the ground, and one is just yelling unintelligible profanity? Watch a well trained Army or Marine fire team clear a room. One guy talks…the team leader. Everyone else uses hand and arm signals and shuts up.

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  16. RF, I am keenly interested in how you approach this, and your results. Please keep us updated! My 2-year old girls will be going to public school when the time comes, and I see no reason to wait until they’re in school to get proactive about this. Good luck to you.

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  17. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how well a firearm hits its target.

    I owned an XCR in 5.56. It was my first “AR” and I expected perfection for the price tag. I experienced similar issues (FTE, mediocre accuracy) and sold it. I went with the ACR and have been happy as hell. Most troubling was having the hammer shatter when it was cold. It was free to replace. Further, the buffer pad disintegrated after shooting. For me to own a rifle, I expect it to be decently accurate and utterly reliable. I might have to depend my life on this.

    Lastly, the 5 or 6 position adjustable gas setting seemed ill-suited for military use. Simply, it isn’t “Joe proof.” I can figure it out in the comfort of CONUS indoor/outdoor ranges but with the two way ranges of Afghanistan, absolutely not.

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  18. Nick,

    Care to comment on the potential future use of a grenade launcher per the first post? That is the part I questioned. I understand the idea behind it and without a doubt accept its utility in this application, but I see it as having the most potential for causing an agonizing/inhumane death.

    Good point also about walking your shots in with a machine gun for quick followups.

    Text from my first post included below.

    “I was also contemplating the ethics of exploding pigs partially and/or completely with a grenade(s). A machine gun however, I see as no different than any other firearm; a crap shot is a crap shot and has the same consequences no matter the rate of fire. Having your body mangled by shrapnel is another matter entirely. “

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  19. 1. Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.
    2. Never go outside the expertise of your people.
    3. Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy.
    4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
    5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
    6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
    7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
    8. Keep the pressure on. Never let up.
    9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
    10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
    11. If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.
    12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
    13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

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  20. Hopfully something positive can come out of this…….Like police thinking twice before they roid rage through a door in the middle of the night. The thing thats is messed up is that the cop didn’t have to loose his life if we didn’t have stupid drug laws. I personally don’t give a piss about drugs. If you want to smoke weed or do heriorin that your business…..Also helps cut down on population explosion.

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  21. I know we’re talking about an actively bleeding, gaping hole where there shouldn’t be one, but doesn’t Celox have the potential to cause nerve damage? How does this compare?

    And yes, I know it’s relative considering a vital bodily fluid escaping at an alarming rate….

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  22. This is the whole article of anyone wants to read it

    I’m the mayor of one of the largest cities in the Hudson Valley, just 90 minutes north of New York City. I’m a life member of the National Rifle Association and a former member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, or MAIG, started by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2006.

    I’m no longer a member of MAIG. Why? Just as Ronald Reagan said of the Democratic Party, it left me. And I’m not alone: Nearly 50 pro-Second Amendment mayors have left the organization. They left for the same reason I did. MAIG became a vehicle for Bloomberg to promote his personal gun-control agenda — violating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens and taking resources away from initiatives that could actually work to protect our neighborhoods and save precious lives. Gun control will actually make a bad situation worse.

    I was first elected mayor of Poughkeepsie in 2007. At the time, it was a city that had grown weary of burying its young. Homicides were so commonplace that a newspaper without a murder story was news. Gangs roamed downtown streets and neighborhoods, terrorizing law-abiding citizens and selling drugs in broad daylight. As the drug wars escalated and gangs battled over turf, kids were killing kids.

    I vowed to do everything in my power to make our streets and neighborhoods safer. MAIG approached me with the promise that they’d assist me in developing effective approaches to clear our streets of criminals, get guns out of the hands of convicted felons, crack down on the drug trade and rid our streets of gangs that were terrorizing a city. I joined MAIG with this understanding.

    It did not take long to realize that MAIG’s agenda was much more than ridding felons of illegal guns; that under the guise of helping mayors facing a crime and drug epidemic, MAIG intended to promote confiscation of guns from law-abiding citizens. I don’t believe, never have believed and never will believe that public safety is enhanced by encroaching on our right to bear arms, and I will not be a part of any organization that does.

    Those who doubt this hard fact might want to study Chicago, which has among the most restrictive gun-control laws in the country, as well as some of the highest rates of gun-related crime and killing. Depriving law-abiding citizens of their right to own firearms only makes them more vulnerable.

    What works against gun violence is reducing the number of illegal guns available to criminals through cash-for-tips programs; eliminating plea bargaining in cases of gun-related crime; and strengthening surveillance and neighborhood policing in problem areas — initiatives I’ve spearheaded.

    And, fundamentally, troubled urban areas desperately need an economy that welcomes businesses to locate and remain in our cities. Robust respect for the Second Amendment rights of the law abiding does this by discouraging theft and enhancing personal safety.

    Unless Bloomberg and MAIG recognize and implement these principles, their efforts are doomed not only to fail, but also to cause further — if unintended — harm.

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  23. I’ve been here since before ’68 and I can tell you:
    It’s the same lies, told and re~told since the late 1940’s. The packaging has changed along with skirt length an lapel width but nothing of note has changed.
    it will never go away, and that is the victory of the ‘Left”, they captured the reigns of our culture and convinced America that communisim is dead

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  24. I think it’s best if we keep our children as ignorant about firearms as possible. They can get all the firearms knowledge they need from Quentin Tarantino movies. Just like it’s best to keep them ignorant about sex except what they learn from watching pornos.

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  25. Don’t brag about how “deadly” you are with your gun, especially after you just shot 5″ groups at 5 yards.

    Don’t curse like a sailor.

    Don’t tell the young lay in the next lane she shoots well “for a girl”.

    I personally witnessed all three of the above from the same idiot last week…

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