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dlh wrote:I am interested in how much "active shooter" training Peterson had as an LEO.

Same here. I live rural and have run into quite a few small-town sheriff's deputies. I'm sure some of them have received additional training since they left the academy. It's pretty obvious, though, that the majority of them would be hard pressed to run across the front yard. It would be interesting to know what kind of additional training Peterson had - if he was kept up to date, or if he was just one of those good ol' boys down at the donut shop who couldn't hit the side of a barn with his hat.

Charles L. Cotton wrote: I find it most interesting that you claim you would have gone in the school, but resolutely claim Trump would not. You base your opinion of Trump's willingness on a medical condition from 50 years ago. What possible good comes from attacking his sincerity as to what he would have done under the same circumstances?
Chas.

I wasn't in the military and didn't go to Vietnam. However, both I and many in my family have worked on military bases and spent many years around military personnel. I used to eat lunch every day with GIs who still had Vietnamese mud on their boots.

One thing I've heard repeatedly is that one can not predict how you would react to a real-life combat situation. It is totally individual. In a real, intense, life and death firefight, a big gorilla might turn into a whimpering puppy, and a little wimp might turn into a rampaging death machine.

So a lot of these guys trying to armchair-quarterback this and saying oh, yeah, I would have gone in and done this or done that.... they're blowing smoke; they don't know what they would have done. We like to THINK we'd be Rambo, but you really don't know, until you're actually in that situation. Let's keep that in mind before we start calling somebody else a coward.

This could also apply to Peterson, to some extent. In a smaller community like this, it's entirely possible that he had never fired his gun in his 30 years with the department, and drew it maybe once a year for his mandatory qualification and gun-cleaning. I'm not defending him by any means; I'm just speculating as to what was going on in his head. The prospect of drawing his handgun and going into a building where some unknown party was blasting nonstop with an AR may very well have been more than he could handle, i.e. he may have been just plain scared shirtless.

I worked for 15 years with state and federal school finance, and budgeting will be a core issue here. Many schools can barely afford to replace their light bulbs, much less pay a professional security guard $50,000 a year. And what about larger schools that are scattered out, with 10, 20 or more temporary classroom buildings? Stoneman Douglas covers 45 acres. That's as big as the University of Texas at Austin. What are they supposed to do, hire 40 armed security personnel, all of which will spend their time standing around waiting for a shooting that, statistically, will never happen? Even if you had them, would that stop a lunatic who is going to shoot himself anyway?

Of course, the Plan B is volunteers, but even then you run into logistical issues where multiple buildings are concerned, given that a shooter can kill 2 or 3 dozen kids in a matter of seconds.

The best answer might be to control access not to the school, but to the campus itself. Most schools already have tall fencing around them. So maybe an approach is to put in an entry gate, where only approved vehicles and/or personnel can enter. Non-approved persons (e.g. visiting parents, special guests, etc.) could step through a metal detector next to the gate. It would only require 1 or 2 personnel, and the whole thing could probably be contracted out by the school district.

I'm just thinking off the top of my head here, but from a budgeting and effectiveness standpoint, something like that is MUCH more feasible than having a platoon of armed guards wandering around all day.