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“Didn’t you hear about it?” my daughter asked the other morning as I drove her to middle school. “There was some kind of threat to the high school.” “If it was serious, I’m sure they would have closed it,” I said with as much false bravado as I could muster.

As we rolled up to drop-off, I gave my youngest the usual pre-school advice: run or ambush (hide and be ready to attack). “The school says don’t get caught in the corridors if there’s a lockdown,” she informed me. “I’m hoping I am in the corridor so I can run.” That’s my girl.

Truth be told, my child’s odds of surviving a school shooter depend on an uncertain combination of her avoidance or attack strategy; a prompt, effective police response; and blind luck.

That’s not enough. For one thing, there’s no guarantee that it will be one shooter. Or that the perp will be a disaffected teen. It could well be a coordinated assault by trained terrorists. The slaughter would make Sandy Hook look like a JV terrorist team warm-up.

Here’s an excerpt from the high school principal’s 1:45am email dealing with the threat:

Yesterday evening, I informed you that we had information on a potential threat to Westlake High School by a WHS student. As soon as the information became known to our high school administration, we immediately began working with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office and Austin Police Department to assess the threat. The following information has more detail, and what we know now, as of 1:45 a.m.

We received reports yesterday from students and parents that a teenage male had made statements indicating that he was going to do harm to others at Westlake HS. We immediately shared the identity of that individual with the authorities, who have been working with us cooperatively through late evening and early morning to locate this individual and investigate the allegations.

At this time, we can report that the student who made the threat has been located and is being evaluated. Westlake HS will continue to work with law enforcement as those agencies determine what actions they need to pursue, if any.  Based on information received from law enforcement, we do not believe that any students or staff members are in danger, and, as such, plan to resume school as usual on Thursday.

We understand that this type of an event can be troubling to many in our community.  As I said in my message last night, we understand if parents want to keep their student(s) at home. We will honor parents’ decisions regarding their child’s attendance today. In order to provide support, we will ensure that counselors make their schedules open so that they are available to talk to students this morning, if any student feels a need for such support.

We thank the Austin Police Department and the Travis County Sheriff’s Office for their hard work to quickly assess the situation, investigate, and work with Westlake HS staff on safety measures. We also thank the West Lake Hills Police for reaching out to us to provide additional support.

I want to reiterate how proud I am of the young adults in our community who acted quickly in alerting us to this potential situation.

Yeah, well, how quickly would the school react if the potential attacker hadn’t been detected and intercepted? What could they do anyway? It would be up to the adults to protect them. Are they ready? Hell no.

I don’t think I’m violating OpSec to reveal that my local school’s adults are unarmed and defenseless. It should have armed teachers, administrators and/or staff, trained to deal with a lethal threat or threats. As the old expression goes, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away — and my daughter’s life is on the line.

I want an immediate effective counter-attack against murderers violating the school’s “gun free zone.” Why is that so hard to understand?

Because guns. Here in the liberal heart of this conservative state, no one’s even talking about “allowing” teachers, administrators, staff or (God forbid) parents to exercise their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

When I suggested opening a discussion on the subject, including hardening what is a ridiculously soft target, the principal looked at me like I had pin lice on my eyebrows. When I inadvertently exposed my empty holster at a school function, I was called to one side, politely interrogated and gently but firmly rebuked.

It will take a tragedy of epic proportions to open their eyes. I just hope my daughter isn’t amongst the victims, and work for the day when she can depend on the adults around her to man up, tool up and shut up. And the day when she can be armed in her own defense, and the defense of other innocent life.

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63 COMMENTS

  1. Presumably your youngest goes to the same school mine will next year. If you want another parent to join you at the next discussion with the principal, drop me a line. I know it’s a bit like water on rock, but I’m willing to give erosion an assist.

  2. In Linden NJ they crammed all the students and faculty of one of the elementary schools in the gym when the recent bomber was being hunted and caught in the town.

    Like pigs to a slaughter. My children will never attend any public schools, they truly care nothing for their safety or even freedom and intelligence. Homeschool for freedom.

    • “My children will never attend any public schools, they truly care nothing for their safety or even freedom and intelligence. Homeschool for freedom.’

      +Eleventy Billion, x2

  3. RF exposes the underbelly of a schools administration and the district. All talk and no action because they just cannot accept the reality of a murderer targeting children of their school. The failure to accept the proper action required to end the threat and abdication of responsibility of their charge. Schools are not interested in protecting students,
    …only in collecting federal attendance monies. The few that would be murdered are not worth the cost to protect them.

    Welcome to the machine.

    • It’s probably even more than that. I think it’s an active hatred of people who own guns due to political correctness and an onslaught from the political left who is pushing for disarmament.

      Fires in schools are rare and certainly keeping fire extinguishers available and charged along with making certain staff know how to use them properly does cost some money but no one in even the most liberal states would suggest that students should just run from fire and forgo the extinguisher expense.

  4. Yep home school if possible. My son and brother do and everyone is doing great. Happy my kids are grown…wtf happened to reporting that the Washington mall shooter was a Turkish immigrant?!? Bizarre beyond belief… you’d think it was a con………..

  5. “It will take a tragedy to open their eyes.”

    If only a tragedy would open their eyes. Most of them will only shut them tightly, screaming “I never thought it could happen HERE,” and then blame an inanimate object.

    We live in a time so peaceful that many people cannot accept violence as a fact of life on a conscious level. It’s bewildering.

    • Exactly. Fearful, traumatized people will double down on what makes them FEEL safe. They will likely demand gun bans and more gun-free zones. Point out that those failed them already, and you will be accused of being heartless and a red-neck idiot. Even asking for more armed police at schools is only accepted if traditionally anti-gun people make the decision. (NRA is crazy to call for more security, but Obama is just using common sense when he does it.)

    • A more likely reaction will be to go “If more people had guns then it would be a shootout! More people would die! How did the shooter get his gun?!” and then go on about how guns have to go. As long as people believe in gun control, they will only take such things from the perspective that if we had gun control, it wouldn’t have happened. Something has to break their faith in gun control and I don’t know what would do that.

      They will always have that excuse “Well, we just haven’t gone far enough!” any time gun control fails. If we just be a little more strict, that will fix it. and when that doesn’t work, well we just need to be more strict, then when that doesn’t work, add more restrictions and that will do it until the U.S. is in the same position as Europe, and even they somehow think adding more laws to their already impossibly strict laws will fix their problems.

      The problem in the end is they have too much faith in the government. You can say “Well allowing guns in schools would give people the ability to fight back.” all you want, but that’s not going to do any good as long as they believe the government could have stopped it if we let it.

      • “Something has to break their faith in gun control and I don’t know what would do that.”

        I know – another holocaust. When they are marched to their own death, they will get it.

        • I’ll just give you the typical anti-gun/government trusting response to that. “What, are you crazy?! Do you really believe our government would do that!? I don’t see our government doing that I see children being murdered because this country is too crazy to even accept minor gun legislation!”

        • Maybe a school shooting followed by a massive lawsuit by parents whose kids were killed, wounded, or traumatized by having to huddle and wait to be the next victims would wake some folks up. It would have to be aimed at the folks who made the policy that forbids anyone on the grounds from having the means to effectively end the threat.

    • The pro Second Amendment, pro-self defense community (that’s us) need to make a concerted effort to establish the imagery of an ostrich (head in the sand) as a standard for the hoplophobes, especially those who think herding all the potential targets into crowded locked rooms is the solution to an unopposed mass shooter scenario.

      Perhaps we could start with adding to the Idiot Gun Owner of the Day and Gun Hero of the Day – Ostrich of the Day award.

  6. We send our son, who is a sophomore, to school with a gun carefully concealed. There is no way I’m sending my kid to the public killing fields defenseless.

    He has been trained how to use it and has promised only to pull it out in the event of a school shooting, nor to tell any of his friends he has it.

    We hope and pray he never will need to reveal his secret. In these troubled times we just can not in good conscience allow him to head off to school without his baby Glock.

    • That my friend is ballsy.

      I’m not saying that your son can’t handle the situation. I’m sure you wouldn’t allow this if you doubted his capabilities.

      I’m just saying that the repercussions for getting caught are enormous and if the unspeakable were to happen even if he stopped the shooter with a few injections of copper jacketed lead, I’m fairly certain you’re all going to end up in a heap of trouble for letting your kid, who’s obviously underage not only possess a gun without your supervision but take it to what is likely a gun-free-zone. They’re not gonna play you guys up as heros on the news for stopping the mass killer. They’re going to play you up as a family of dangerous about-to-be-convicted felons who broke numerous laws and were generally irresponsible.

      Better that than a defenseless and dead son I suppose. Crazy times we live in.

      I sympathize though. After Virginia Tech my buddy and I illegally carried handguns to our college classes. If it hit the fan we agreed that we’d rather be in prison for doing the right thing than being those assholes who knew we could have done something but didn’t.

      • Ballsy it is. I’d be less fearful of an unlikely active shooter event at a public school than a government’s near absolute certain retribution against his son and family along with the likely witch-hunt interrogations of everybody close to any of them. I’d think this might be close to admitting to a federal felony.

        Furthermore, the schools I know of that have armed non-leo adults on campus, put them through a qualification/certification program that makes qualifying for a CHL seem like just getting out of bed…one of the discussions is contact with LEOs following an shooter event and how armed citizens can prevent being shot by police that drive to a active scene and run into armed nonuniform school professionals. It will be more difficult for a armed adult citizen to distinguish between a active shooter student and another that is armed, not shooting but still committing a felony….to say nothing of LEOs response to seeing a student at school with a firearm during a school shooting event.

        Everybody has to make their own decisions. I’m hopeful the RF will pull this whole comment thread.

        • “…one of the discussions is contact with LEOs following an shooter event and how armed citizens can prevent being shot by police that drive to a active scene and run into armed nonuniform school professionals…”

          The fact that this even has to be discussed in a manner that is more that cursory speaks volumes about how piss poorly trained cops are these days.

          The armed non-LEO that’s not the BG is going to be easy to find. They’ve got a gun but they’re not indiscriminately shooting kids or employees. They don’t fire on the police and when ordered to drop the weapon they do. Not hard. If you can’t figure this out as a cop you shouldn’t be a cop.

          All that out of the way, I will second Model 31’s request.

          RF, please take down this particular thread. Doxxing is a thing and while some people may disagree with Naz’s way of doing things that’s no reason for his whole family to get fucked by a doxx dropped to over zealous LEO’s enforcing stupid laws. His/her statements don’t even have to be true for their family to be ruined by this. Even if it’s just trolling there’s no need for there to be literal federal charges here.

          Do the right thing. Kill this thread. For the children (sorry, couldn’t resist).

        • Just because you’re trolling doesn’t mean you life can’t get turned upside down.

          The interwebz bring out the crazies and if your identity and address get leaked they might just show up on your front lawn regardless of the fact that you were joking. You should keep that in mind in the future.

        • In good conscience I would kill anyone, in uniform or not who sought to use my tax dollars to have supposed “servants” of the state harass people exercising their God-given liberties.

          The great news: in my millennial lifetime, I’ll get the chance to take that revenge…and I will if I haven’t gotten as weak as the Vietnam generation. Those guys who complain about the treasonous limitations they faced always amaze me. Hell, you survived Charlie, Heroin, the Suicidal ROE, and the jungle, why would you balk from killing your traitor congressman? Didn’t the VC show you how to do it REAL Quiet?

          Truth is being of the age to get deployed to Vietnam doesn’t make someone to read Jefferson or Madison. They were just idiot 18 y.o.s getting fed into a meat grinder, and their sacrifice was for nothing. Vietnam or no, the Soviet Union would have fallen because Communism makes everyone poor.

          If one of these people on this website reads my comment, and later kills one of the traitors (LE, Amry, Police, Politicians, etc), he/she will be one of the first citizens striking in defense of the constitution in over 100 years. That person will be better than Abraham Lincoln. In the United States, one is supposed to swear an oath to a principle…an idea, not a family name.

    • Naz,

      I think your plot element (an armed student in school) for the book that you are interested in writing would certainly be an exciting read.

      May I suggest an additional plot element that you can try to work into your book. That plot element includes:
      (1) a person posts a comment on a blog which admits criminal actions
      (2) someone reports those blog posts to law enforcement
      (3) law enforcement traces the post back to the actual poster
      (tracing blog posts to the post is exceedingly easy to do)
      (4) law enforcement turns the poster’s life upside down
      (5) the poster learns to NOT post comments admitting criminal actions

  7. Interesting to see this from the POV of someone who isn’t a security specialist or paid spokesperson for this group or that.

    Personally I’ve never understood this. When I was growing up there were no restrictions of bringing a gun to school until Columbine happened and the country lost it’s collective mind. Then the State legislature went nuts and started banning things. First it was guns and knives over 5″ then it was knives over 3″ then all knives. Pretty soon people were talking about banning those chain wallets.

      • I was told they were worried about it being used as a whip or a strangulation device.

        That made no sense to me because I’ve never heard of a “mass strangling” pulled off by a single person. But hey, fear makes people do and think dumb shit.

    • Banning items that could conceivably be used as weapons would result in a variation on the original university: a naked student sitting on the far end of a log from a naked professor.

      As long as the log is too heavy for either to lift, obviously.

  8. G.Gordon Liddy once told the story of when his daughter felt threatened at a Washington, DC area school.(This was the 60’s-70’s).

    He got a purse carry-sized spraycan of MACE and crafted a label for it that said “Hair Spray”, and told her to keep it in her purse. Told her if the teachers gave her any grief about it, they were welcome to spray it and smell it…

  9. Get your kids to a private school !

    Even if there were no guns or weapons of any kind in existence, public schools are dangerous to children, and other living things. Minds are a terrible thing to waste.

    Mine attended private schools, even though it took 5yrs (3 kids; different ages), both of us working, and living like monks, we valued our children above our immediate comfort.

    Private schools are no guarantee against gun-free zones, but you might be able to find one more secure than what the teachers unions and liberal wing nuts allow.

  10. RF, as has been said on this site many times you are your own first responder. You alone can provide security for your daughter. If she’s in school and you’re not there to protect her in the event of an attack you personally have failed in your responsibility to protect her. Homeschool! It’s highly unlikely your home will be targeted by a psycho or terrorist but I repeat myself. Anyone who has graduated from high school can do it. Yes, there are challenges, but nothing insurmountable. Plus you don’t have to fight the negative programming at the government indoctrination center. A great book to get you started on the process is: A Thomas Jefferson Education by Oliver DeMille.

    • The wonder of Kindle! No sooner mentioned than downloaded.

      And other than the Liberal crap about owning slaves (he was under legal edict not to free them as he inherited an unpaid debt from his father) and other slander I cannot think of anything about or by Jefferson that should not be required curriculum in any home school scenario.

  11. I’d at least give her a backpack with an AR500 plate in it.

    But considering most school shooters aren’t trained soldiers or hunters, the instruction should always be to run and duck. Huddling in place equals death.

    And yes, we are lucky Isis hasn’t managed to get two or more shooters to act together. Imagine if the Pulse shooter had a partner, or the San Bernandino couple had attacked a school instead of a holiday party. Four shooters could more than likely clear an entire grade school before the cops mustered enough courage to go in (no offense to the cops on this blog who WOULD go in).

    • The 10 kg (or more) mass of the plate will help build upper-body strength as a bonus.

      TTAG did a review about 2 years back on a very thin and light armor product. Something like that backed with a trauma plate may be worth looking into…

      • EDIT – Found it!

        It weighs one (1) pound, and stops .44 mag. The backing uses a non-Newtonian fluid, so it acts like cornstarch in water, hit it, turns solid.

        “These sheets will only run 1 pound each. But while the standard option is nice, it’s the second option that really intrigues me.

        AR500 Armor sells a 11″ by 14″ plate that fits almost perfectly into my 5.11 Messenger Bag and turns it into a real bullet stopping piece of equipment. Even better, it only adds about 1 pound to the bag and doesn’t make it any less flexible. But the best part is that I can bring this bag anywhere and have my IIIA protection with me at all times without raising any red flags or having to answer any unwanted questions about why I’m wearing a bullet proof vest. I recently flew from San Antonio to New York City’s JFK airport and back with this IIIA plate in my carry-on bag, and then proceeded to carry it everywhere in the city, and didn’t get a single question about it from the local constabulary. Or my family, for that matter. It was completely covert.

        That’s really what these plates give you, and where you get your bang for your buck. They’re lighter and more covert than the standard Kevlar plates, even if you use them in a traditional vest-style setup. Oh, and did I mention that they’re cheaper than their Kevlar buddies? The best deal on a Kevlar vest I could find was around $400, but I can kit out a vest with a set of these plates for $350.”

        http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/12/foghorn/gear-review-ar500-armor-carbon-nanotube-soft-armor-iiia/

        • Also your standard assortment on textbooks in a backpack will stop a pistol round on their own.

    • “…or the San Bernandino couple had attacked a school instead of a holiday party.”

      The Happy Muslim couple of San Bernandino had taken pictures of middle schools in the area, if I remember correctly.

  12. I’m an SRO. Lately our role has shifted to promoting positive interactions between police and kids (which I’m down with, and it’s honestly helped a lot with the stability in the school) and responding to an active shooter event. And it’s not enough.

    I just now received level IV shtf throw on armor that I’m not allowed to keep in my office, so it’s useless (or would be, but I keep it in there anyway). No rifle, either in office or car. They took it away when I got transferred to schools. I have four hallways that are over 100 yards long, and though I actually am a very good pistol shot, 100 yards under stress with a handgun is a loooong way. What’s the answer? I say “allowing” teachers to be armed as a deterrent.

    • Tile floor,

      If I were in your situation (potentially needing to put “minute-of-badguy” shots down a 100+ yard hallway) and prohibited from keeping a rifle, I would acquire and keep a single/double action revolver with a 6 to 7 inch barrel and practice enough to be proficient.

      The real question is whether to acquire said revolver in .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum. If you go with .357 Magnum, you can get a revolver with an 8-round cylinder which is a big plus given that reloading a revolver is relatively slow. On the other hand, if you go with .44 Magnum, you are less likely to need to reload because no one is going to be functional after taking a .44 Magnum round anywhere close to the center-line of the torso or an extremity. Personally, I would go with .44 Magnum.

        • If we are talking 25 yards and closer, absolutely.

          When we are talking about engagements over 100 yards, a medium-size 9mm handgun is pretty much useless. The bullet would be going slow enough at 100 yards that it would not likely result in a debilitating wound (unless you hit the attacker in the head). And I would be surprised if the average person could connect one shot in 20 with a human-torso target, no matter how slowly/carefully they shoot and how much they practice. On the other hand I want to think that an average person with a revolver, who practices and places carefully aimed shots, could definitely connect at least one shot in 6 with a human-torso target at 100 yards. And a .43 caliber, 240 grain hollowpoint bullet, still traveling at something like 1200 fps at 100 yards, is going to hit HARD and drop any attacker.

          Ever hear of anyone hunting deer at 100 yards with a 9mm pistol? Me either. Ever hear of anyone hunting deer at 100 yards with a .44 Magnum revolver and harvesting deer? All the time.

        • “a medium-size 9mm handgun is pretty much useless. ”

          The recent shooting of the New Jersey terrorist begs all sorts of questions. Shot eleven times, remained alert for a long time after. Still a threat after all those shots?

          Wondering if any handgun is worth a damn at ranges beyond 50ft? 100ft? Nah. Who, under stress can make reliable, stopping hits on people at those, or greater, ranges?

  13. American schools accept and embrace failure. Grading on a bell curve, Black, Latin and poor whites students advance to the next grade. Pre-planned apologies for lives taken, zero accountability and no concern of responsibility. Superintendents pullIng six figures, while teachers pay for pencils and paper, have zero concern for protecting their students while calling for meetings leading the no resolution of their protection. The next child murdered at shool should result in the the district supervisor and the principle marched out to the football field, made to keel and shot in the head. The replacement will quickly train teachers in use of armaments, their lives would depend on it.

  14. “It will take a tragedy of epic proportions to open their eyes.”

    No, it won’t. Nothing will pierce their epistemic closure. Nothing. The worse the tragedy, the more they will yawp, “This happened because GUNS!!”

    And I say that as a chaplain to the parents who lost their children in the Virginia Tech shooting.

    • Even if it’s a bomb or arson the hoplophobes and MSM will be sure to cry out, “”Think how much worse it would have been if they had brought guns!”

  15. “When I inadvertently exposed my empty holster at a school function, I was called to one side, politely interrogated and gently but firmly rebuked.”?

    …. and here is where you went wrong, you should have used that opportunity to ream whomever accosted you a new anus and if they called police sent them a “Notice of Intent To Sue” the very next day. Least of all a trip to the next School Board meeting should have been on your list of “Things-To-Do” where you could exploit the occasion to enlighten them as to the “law” and rectify the injustice of being “rebuked” by a “public employee” (they’re NOT our “betters”). Believe me I’ve done this, they close a School Board meeting or go into “Executive Session” when I start asking questions and/or call the cops I “burn” the place (municipal bldg & Board of Education) down the next business day with FOIA’s and “Notices of Intent”.

  16. “As the old expression goes, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away — and my daughter’s life is on the line.”

    Why on earth are so many people so insistent at sending their children to government schools…complete and total failures in every respect…and then complaining about the problems?

    I just don’t get it.

    This is the wrong calculus.

    We cannot 100% guarantee our children’s safety, but we sure and eff-all CAN stop putting their lives and futures in the hands of incompetent bureaucrats and Progressive Unicorn Chasers.

    The public school system is completely broken. It’s a failure at “education” and it’s a failure at “keeping them safe.” It’s a failed socialist experiment.

    Vox Day uses the term “convergence” to describe organizations that have been taken over by the modern day arm of the Marxist movement (SJW’s, if you like)…the kind of takeover that implies “you can’t serve two masters.” The public school system in the US converged long ago.

    What does this mean?

    They will gladly sacrifice your child on the alter of “social justice” (or any other Marxist ideal). One characteristic of convergence is that the Marxists would rather burn down the converged institution than lose it…and in this case, that means even with your child inside.

    We can argue, cajole, campaign and lobby til you are blue in the face for “school carry,” but at the end of the day, that simply won’t matter. The folks that run the public school system(s)…from the feds down to the lowest district board member…are ‘converged.’ There may be a few honest hold-outs, but they are neutered. The proof is in the pudding, and plain to see.

    You want to give your children the best chance…at education AND staying ‘safe?’ Get them out of the cesspit called public school and stop pretending that diseased institution has any prayer of being fixed.

    Rant over.

    • Because like it or not you are being forced at gunpoint (the government has the guns to back up their tax collectors) to pay for that public school whether or not your children attend. Sending them to private school means you are paying double, or more, for their education and for a whole lot of people that is an expense they just cannot budget.

      I do not discount any of your arguments against the public schools, just want to point out the economic reality the government has forced most people to realize in this regard. School vouchers is the solution, but the Liberals and the Teacher’s Unions will fight harder to protect themselves from this sort of competition than they will to protect your children from school shootings.

      • Homeschooling mitigates the economic argument somewhat.

        Don’t pay for it twice. One can homeschool far, far cheaper than the cost of private school tuition, even after considering the loss of one parent’s salary in most cases.

        The other side of the economic argument is putting that kind of price tag on your (rhetorical) children’s future.

        That’s the part I don’t get…all the excuses that are made to keep a child in, as I called it above, the cesspit we call “school.”

      • “the Liberals and the Teacher’s Unions will fight harder to protect themselves from this sort of competition than they will to protect your children from school shootings.”

        This is exactly true and well said.

        This is a GREAT example of what I mentioned above. They will gladly take destruction (including of the children, physically or mentally) over losing ground to anything remotely anti-collectivist / Statist.

        They want the control that bad.

        More folks need to wake up to this. We can’t “fix” that which they have taken over; they will never let us have it back. They will destroy it before letting us take it back.

        “Take it back” in this context means re-implementation of school policies that makes sense and align with US values….such as, and including, the protection of the lives of children.

        Their goal, their sole goal is collectivist control of any taken over institution in order to use that institution to spread collectivism and Statism. Their goal is NOT ‘education’ or anything at all that benefits the children.

        It’s one of the biggest lies of our time…that “School” is about education and for the children.

        Parents willingly blind themselves and accept that lie rather than face the truth head on.

    • You could not possibly be more correct. Yet, completely dismantling the public provision of education is not even on the agenda for conservatives. Very odd.

      • Booyah! Now I know there are two of us. $10,000 a year per student could buy a lot of individualized education.
        At least give vouchers a try.

  17. My little sister is a teacher outside Baltimore. She fell for it when recruiters told her how much money she would be making and they would pay for her to get her masters degree. My brothers and I warned her, but just like her brothers, she is stubborn as hell. She called me to tell me how deplorable the conditions were, that they make the teachers buy EVERYTHING for the class, and that some of the children were extremely violent. She stuck it out for the two years she signed on for, got her masters, and got the hell out of there. She said the school was a nightmare. This is the modern public school system.

  18. If I were Shannon Watts I would use your comments here to claim that even gun nuts know that schos are under constant threat from gun violence.

    There is a difference between acknowledging that a school shooting can happen and acting like it is an everyday occurrence.

    • I was waiting to see if someone would bring this up. (I would have if nobody else did.) This book should be required reading for all school personnel. Every year.

    • Hell of a book! Add to it “Terror at Beslan” and the plans found for US school attacks at Tora Bora after the failed Ben Laden raid and the future gets real ugly. Fortunately I teach in fly over country.

  19. The focus should be on eliminating government provision of education. In a private school, you are the customer;, in a public school, you are the product and the government is the customer. It is precisely the difference between being the person who buys a hamburger and being the hamburger.

  20. You want teachers to protect your teenage daughter?

    In a public high school, the greatest threats to your daughter ARE the teachers, from molestation and/or indoctrination.

    I’m not saying you shouldn’t train to identify and defend against all of these threats, just that Holden Caulfield with a GLOCK is a relatively low priority risk, while Mr. Smith in Homeroom is someone to keep your eyes on.

    • There was a pedophile in my oldest daughters English grade school. I am aware of MANY dangers facing my children: drugs, automobile accidents, disease, etc.

  21. Spree killers and terrorists (whether acting solo or as a team) could strike anywhere, any time, and to their maximum advantage. It is neither practical nor desirable to “harden” every facility/location against such strikes.

    Rather than curling-up in the fetal position, hiding under a table, and withdrawing from the world, we should simply be prepared to act swiftly, decisively, and effectively if scumbags attack … which necessarily excludes unarmed frontal counter-assaults on armed spree-killers or terrorists.

    Look, we have a GINOURMOUS advantage of numbers over a couple spree-killers or terrorists. Furthermore, spree-killers and terrorists have a HUGE disadvantage of a relatively short time limit to complete their attacks — on the order of 5 to 15 minutes until armed police show up (unless they attack in Orlando, Florida, where they have three hours to complete their attack, but I digress). Our tactic: flee if you have cover and concealment. If you get out alive and well, you win and they lose! If you cannot flee, then everyone prepares a counterattack at a pinch-point like a doorway: everyone grabs improvised melee weapons (stools, chairs, fire extinguishers, books, tools, bricks, rocks … anything heavy and hard), creates an improvised obstacle-course (stools, chairs, desks, tables, etc.), and gets into position CLOSE to the pinch-point to rain-down all of their improvised melee weapons on the attackers as they stumble through the obstacle course.

    I assure you, two attackers with rifles who have to navigate an obstacle course and absorb blows from hard, heavy improvised melee weapons will have at most a few seconds to injure/kill anyone before they go down and are no longer able to harm anyone. Will the attackers successfully injure/kill a few of the defenders before they go down? Perhaps. What the attackers will most certainly NOT do is summarily execute the entire room of 20 to 30 people … or several dozen in the entire facility.

    Unfortunately, any defenders who are basically alone and away from a pinch-point are probably not going to survive if they themselves are not armed.

    • I like your thinking, but even on Flight 93, only (apparently) a few actually engaged the hijackers. The individual desire and will to live will have people hoping, desperately hoping they can get away alive. Only a well-trained and disciplined “mob” could have any chance at overwhelming armed attackers.

  22. Sadly, our society today compares well to that inside a prison: there are those willing to stand up for themselves, and there are serfs.

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