“The Security Industry Association (SIA) supports the inclusion of a new school safety initiative in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 (H.R. 3547) cleared by Congress on Thursday and poised for enactment by President Barack Obama,” an email blast from the industry lobby group proclaims. “Of the $75 million in the bill, $50 million would go toward pilot projects at schools to test technologies to improve school safety, training for school personnel and other initiatives. Another $25 million would go to research efforts by the NIJ [National Institute of Justice] specifically to evaluate and determine the most effective methods for improving school safety, including innovative facility design and use of security cameras and other technologies.” The NRA’s School Shield Program prepared a most excellent report on that topic that cost taxpayers nothing. [Click here to read.] Removing barriers to the right to keep and bear arms inside schools? Also free. Still, if the $75m saves one lobbyist child . . .
track the $$ and watch to see if MDA or MAIG vie for some of that gov’t tit-tay $$$ by preparing a “report”
Of course Uncle Sam will choose to spend $75 million on something … it is another irresistible way to bankrupt the nation.
$75 Million dollars will get you 1,250 armed police officers in the schools making $60,000/year. Instead they are going to waste $75 million dollars “researching” effective solutions. Awesome.
How many schools would 1250 armed police officers be able to protect? There are over 98,000 public schools in U.S. Each officer would have to handle over 80 schools… At the same time.
While I don’t think they are spending the money wisely, those 1250 officers wouldn’t even touch the problem.
How about 1250? Is that a good start?
Assign them randomly like air marshals so that no one, not even the school administration, knows or could predict when they would be on campus.
If the problem is Gun Free School Zones (and we know it is) and the perp has no way of knowing if or when that zone may NOT be gun free, this solution would be effective, although undoubtedly not foolproof.
$75 million will, however, buy you 112,000 Glock 23s and 112,000 enrollments in a handgun safety and self-defense course. That’s more than one apiece for each school in the nation. Factor in wholesale pricing and you’ve got a winner.
Tell the teachers to call me, I will teach them for free. Did that free up some of my tax dollars?
“The Security Industry Association (SIA) supports the inclusion of a new school safety initiative in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014…”
Of course. Throw money we don’t have at expensive, difficult answers to problems that could be solved with easy, inexpensive solutions. It’s the American way. And it’s for
our members’ exclusive enrichmentthe children…The ability of big government to waste money continues to impress. I have a free solution for the bureaucratic dipsh!ts: the 2nd Amendment. I can’t claim the idea, because it was established by greater men than me, and it is as relevant today as it ever was.
They are going to have to do so serious mental gymnastics to miss the fact that concealed carry permit holders have lower arrest rates and greater firearms accuracy than police officers. I predict that the end result will be – wait for it – another government program. Sad.
“I predict that the end result will be – wait for it – another government program.”
And that surprises you because … ?????
That is standard operating procedure for government. They either create a problem in the first place or find ways to exacerbate an existing problem and then they offer a solution that requires … wait for it … more government.
Government doesn’t oppose armed citizens in schools because they hate armed citizens. (Well actually they do but work with me.) Government opposes armed citizens in schools because that leaves government out of the loop and makes government less relevant. Saying it another way, government will always oppose a solution that leaves government out.
Why do I get the impression the Republicans wanted to spend $25 million on this, and the Democrats wanted to spend $50 million, so they compromised and appropriated $75 million?
Because that sounds entirely plausible?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXQ2lO3ieBA
Enough said.
Basically what the SIA is advocating is to turn all public schools into minimum security prisons. That way there there will be no shortage of video footage of the next gun free zone massacre.
Public schools already are very similar to minimum security prisons. The main difference is that the students are less trustworthy than the convicts.
I believe that, but being familiar with the SIA I know what products they promote. Every square inch of every school would be
surveiled by high definition, networked, motion detecting digital cameras with programmable digit playback monitored full time. Very profitable. But if just one child is saved right.
The federal government allowed pilots to begin carrying pistols after 9/11, in addition to the myriad of other measures. Why? So they could protect themselves, their passengers and the plane. It boggles the mind as to why they will not similarly empower teachers and school administrators to protect their students with the best tool for the job. I know a handful of districts have taken this step, but it’s not nearly enough. It’s just sad that anti-gun politics trump something that would really make schools safer.
Matt, would you allow the people running and teaching in our public schools (“Those that cannot DO, teach.) to fly a passenger airplane?
The analogy is not exact, of course, but I contend that commercial pilots show a great deal more intelligence, discipline, and ability to react to emergency situations than you average “educator”.
Does not change the fact, of course, that any and all of this discussion is about how much we will agree to continue to let the government(s) infringe on the Second Amendment.
“Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014”, they say? Sounds more like “Leave No Special Interest Behind Act of 2014.”
I can’t believe I miss Clinton. Look up the “COPS in Schools” program that Clinton and the congress at that time started up. At the time, Feinstein thought it was a great thing and even had references to it on her web site all the way up into around March/April of 2013 when they were removed. Note that Obama killed the program in 2012 with no replacement and now we have an uptick of school massacres and attempted school massacres (the ones that were stopped by a good guy with a gun). Now he is spending our money to research the issue. But wait… Obama stopped the COPS in Schools program because a liberal think thank said that we don’t need good guys with guns in schools to protect our children. I believe it also said we didn’t need metal detectors. Oh, I see now. If you spend the money the right way, you’ll get the answer you want.
Well, I submitted this to the Sandy Hook crowd one year ago (online video-based training): https://guardamerican.com/images/stories/blog_pics/sandy_hook_a_tech_community_reply.pdf
The reply of a major VC funder? “I AGREE that videos are a HUGE asset but it just cant (sic) be a priority to the committee at the moment.”
Of course they want to spend millions of dollars to put cameras in schools, that would give the media hounds ample material to play non-stop.
You’d think Arapahoe would make someone think twice.
“innovative facility design and use of security cameras and other technologies.”
what is the point? it wont stop a shooter. it will only make it so you can watch the massacre in a better quality.
I’ve always wondered exactly how much opposition the Sandy Hook parents would have if they had to watch it… If “Why aren’t they allowed to fight back?” doesn’t enter a parent’s mind as they watch their child get killed, there is something seriously wrong in that parent’s head. And they think WE are the ones that need mental health checks?
Harsh, but that’s reality. The more one tries to defy reality, the uglier it gets… By all means, put in a bunch of cameras so everyone can see how horrible it really is. Waste shitloads of money just to prove what we already know; there is no substitute for being ready, willing, and able to fight back. If they need to watch it in HD fisrt, so be it. Take your kids out of their
educationless slaughterhouse of indoctrinationfaux-school and let them kill their own kids if that’s the only way they’ll learn. We tried to help them and they wouldn’t listen. Let them have their way. Worst case scenario, in 2 or 3 generations, there won’t be any people like that left alive. Self-solving problem.Look at the current political example. Democrats are hanging themselves. LEt them have exactly waht they want as soon as possible instead of trying to fight them. The insanity is exposed faster and the consequences reaped sooner. They go away the fastest when you let them have their crazy, stupid way because it always blows up in their face. Fighting them just prolongs it.
Gov’t waste on programs that do not work run by democrats , sooo what did you expect?
Don’t do what makes sense cause that makes sense and costs less.Do the stupidist , most expensive, least effective thing you can employ at tax payers expense, wait for it to happen again, cause it doesn,t work, then spend another 75 mil and repeat from the beginning.
You win the Internet.
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of $$$ the leftists/liberals will spend to get their way, right or wrong…
Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain
Follow the money. Anti Gun politicians make their millions off of dead babies. It’s in their best interest to make sure it keeps happening.
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