Many people know that guns do not kill people; people
will evil intents kill people. Many
other people have said that the best way to stop an active shooter is with
another gun; the proof of this statement comes from the actions of policemen
when they face a shooter. When every
other method available at the time fails, the police use their guns!
President Ronald Reagan had personal experience
with an active shooter during an attempt to assassinate him. During the attack, a bullet lodged about an
inch from Reagan's heart and required surgery to save his life. Reagan said, "You won't get gun control
by disarming law-abiding citizens. There's
only one way to get real gun control:
Disarm the thugs and the criminals, lock them up and if you don't
actually throw away the key, at least lose it for a long time… It's a nasty truth, but those who seek to
afflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers.
I happen to know this from personal experience."
Since the shooting at the Sandy
Hook Elementary School
in Newtown , Connecticut
We
all need to understand that people who desire to kill other people will find a
way to do it. If a person wants to
commit
murder, gun-control laws will
not stop them! Laws do not stop
criminals; in spite of having laws, banks are still robbed and embezzlement
still take place. We have laws in order
to have a standard and to establish a penalty or punishment for breaking the
law.
Gun-control laws do not stop violence with a
gun. Connecticut
One of the first things that we must do is to
establish the correct meaning for the words we use. Many people are calling for a ban on
"assault" weapons. We had a
law banning "assault rifles," but it was allowed to expire because it did not work. Nevertheless, people want to ban
"assault" weapons, apparently not realizing that every single gun is
an "assault weapon."
The
second bit of misinformation is the type of gun used by the Connecticut
The
Bushmaster is a semi-automatic adaptation of the AR-16 used by our
military. A semi-automatic weapon is one
that feeds itself and ejects its shells automatically with each pull of the
trigger. Some semi-automatic weapons can
be switched to full automatic. An
automatic weapon feeds and ejects the bullets like a semi-automatic, but it
keeps firing as long as the trigger is pulled.
Most hunting rifles in past days are a type called repeating
rifles. This means that the hunter has
to work the bolt manually to load bullets and to eject spent shells. Some hunting rifles are now semi-automatics.
Brandon Webb, a former U.S. Navy SEAL with more
than thirteen years of active duty service, wrote an e-book entitled Navy SEAL Tips - How to Survive an Active
Shooter. He also wrote an article giving specific common-sense ideas about how to protect ourselves and our
children from violent people. Webb made
the following suggestions: 1) It takes a
village: parents and teachers can start
local programs to put more adults around schools. He called such a program "School
Watch." He also suggested that
"educating teachers on how to deal with active shooters is also key. Creating and implementing a standardized
system of awareness."
2) Leverage technology: We use various types of technology to protect
airplane passengers; why not use the same technology to protect children. Since schools usually funnel visitors through
one entry, technology such as metal detectors, conventional and high-energy
x-ray, active millimeter wave imaging, and energetic trace explosive detection
could "disrupt and warn" and would be further from the classrooms.
3) Be more aware and pay attention to our
surrounding. Do not ignore the
"warning signs, clues, and outright treats" and the "cries for
help." Then use the many means of
communication to get the information out about potential murderers.
Webb quoted Winston Churchill: "I never worry about action, but only
about inaction." "It's time
for us Americans to take action."
In an article entitled "Active shooters inschools: The enemy is denial," Doug Wyllie reported remarks made in 2010 at "an extraordinary daylong
seminar, presented by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a Pulitzer Prize nominated
author, West Point psychology professor, and
without a doubt the world's foremost expert on human aggression and
violence." About 250 police
officers from around the region attended the California Peace Officers
Association's event.
According to Wyllie, Grossman discussed the
reasons why no school children have died in fires in the past fifty years and
suggested that communities prepare to fight violence in the same ways they
prepare for fires. Just as schools are
built to prevent and/or fight fires - walls made of cement, ceilings of
unburnable materials, fire extinguishers, nearby fire engines and fire
hydrants, and battery-operated exit signs - they should also be built in ways
that will prevent and/or fight violence.
"`Are these fire guys crazy? Are these fire guys paranoid? No!
[The fire guys have] redundant, overlapping layers of protection, [and]
not a single kid has been killed by school fire in the last 50 years!
"`But you try to prepare for violence - the
thing much more likely to kill our kids in schools, the thing hundreds of times more likely to
kill our kids in schools - and people
think you're paranoid. They think you're
crazy. … They're in denial.'"
"The challenge for law enforcement agencies
and officers, then, is to overcome not only the attacks taking place in
schools, but to first over come the denial in the minds of mayors, city
councils, school administrators, and parents.
Grossman said that agencies and officers, although facing an uphill slog
against the denial of the general public, must diligently work toward
increasing understanding among the sheep that the wolves are coming for their
children. Police officers must train and
drill with teachers, not only so responding officers are intimately familiar
with the facilities, but so that teachers know what they can do in the event of
an attack."
Grossman described how the librarian at Columbine High School Sandy Hook Elementary
School
Wyllie wrote that "arming campus cops is
elementary," and Grossman agreed with him.
"`Never call an unarmed man "security." Call him "run-like-hell-when-the-man-with-the-gun-shows-up"
but never call an unarmed man security.'"
"`Our problem is not money,' said
Grossman. `It is denial.'" Grossman and most peace officers know that
"the most important things we can do to protect our kids would cost us nothing
or next-to-nothing."
Wyllie summarized Dave Grossman's "Five
D's" as follows. "1) Denial -
Denial is the enemy and it has no survival value.
2) Deter - Put police officers in schools,
because with just one officer assigned to a school, the probability of a mass
murder in that school drops to almost zero.
3) Detect - We're talking
about plain old fashioned police work here.
The ultimate achievement for law enforcement is the crime that didn't
happen, so giving teachers and administrators regular access to cops is
paramount.
4) Delay - Various simple
mechanisms can be used by teachers and cops to put time and distance between
the killers and the kids. a) Ensure that
the school/classroom have just a single point of entry. Simply locking the back door helps create a
hard target. b) Conduct your active
shooter drills within (and in partnership with) the schools in your city so
teachers know how to respond, and know what it looks like when you do your
response.
5) Destroy - Police officers
and agencies should consider the following:
a) Carry off duty. No one would
tell a firefighter who has a fire extinguisher in his trunk that he's crazy or
paranoid. b) Equip every cop in America America
Other people are suggesting that principals have
access to weapons in order to protect their schools; still others are
suggesting that active-duty or retired police officers be assigned to each
school. Former Governor and presidential
candidate Mike Huckabee suggested that we have "created an atmosphere in
this country where the only time you want to invoke God's name is after the
tragedy" and made it clear that "he believes people should consider
these themes more regularly."
I
agree with Huckabee that "Americans need to quit apologizing for their
faith and `quit being ashamed that we believe in God.'" I also believe that we must 1) Get help
for our mentally ill citizens; 2) Strengthen families by encouraging marriage
and better parenting skills. The
healthiest families have both mothers and fathers because children need the
influences of both men and women in their lives. Healing families will not stop mental
illness, but it can help troubled youths with many of their problems before
they reach the point of violence.
I
pray for peace and comfort to the people in Newtown , Connecticut America
