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Has your city seen an increase in chl licenses?

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_2228 ... se-holders" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Poll there
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_2228 ... id=1458258" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Concealed handgun license
Would you apply for a concealed handgun permit? Read story
Total Votes = 82
No, I already have one.
32.92 %
Yes, if I felt unsafe in my neighborhood.
8.536 %
Yes, I plan to get one.
31.70 %
No, there is no need.
9.756 %
I don t own a gun.
17.07 %

The solution is not additional weapons -- it's prevention, mitigation and being prepared," Araiza said. "Those are all the factors that emergency management plans address on campus including dealing with bullying and security issues. My personal opinion is that having an educator have access to firearms is not a good idea because that introduces the question of what are the rules of engagement?

Spoken like a true anti. I have a different solution.

Let's replace all of the Lib administrators with Conservatives. Then not only can we allow teachers their 2nd amendment rights but we can stop the socialist indoctrination of our kids.

Mr. Araiza, what about the rules of engagement for the 600,000 CHLs who already have access to public places, have had for 15 years and have developed a spectacular record in doing so versus the general public? In a school shooter incident the rules of engagement are that you take out the BG. The rules of engagement in Sandy Hook without a means to defend themselves didn't turn out so well for a lot of innocent people.

I'm in the school business so perhaps I can offer a short perspective. Most educators--most meaning nearly all--graduated from high school, attended and graduated from college, and immediately took employment in a school district. They had little or no experience in the commercial side of the economy, nor did many serve in any military organization. Hence the concept of owning handguns generally does not dovetail into their professional lives, and that one could own and carry a firearm and not immediately use it for no good is alien to their thinking. There are no real world studies anyone can point to that defines how many gun holders it takes in a school building to prevent an outside assault. Largely, the fear of the unknown drives the top administration down to distrust that which they do not understand, and as a result, you see school superintendents across the nation downplay the value of having licensed individuals within the school. I would tend to agree that some additional training would be prudent. Such training might include knowledge of who is armed and who isn't, how to allocate the defense of the school, etc. If the nation trusts that their cadres of teachers are not wild eyed crazies, they might also take the leap of faith that they might do the right thing when and if called upon to defend their children and themselves from an outside threat.

gdanaher wrote:I'm in the school business so perhaps I can offer a short perspective. Most educators--most meaning nearly all--graduated from high school, attended and graduated from college, and immediately took employment in a school district. They had little or no experience in the commercial side of the economy, nor did many serve in any military organization. Hence the concept of owning handguns generally does not dovetail into their professional lives, and that one could own and carry a firearm and not immediately use it for no good is alien to their thinking. There are no real world studies anyone can point to that defines how many gun holders it takes in a school building to prevent an outside assault. Largely, the fear of the unknown drives the top administration down to distrust that which they do not understand, and as a result, you see school superintendents across the nation downplay the value of having licensed individuals within the school. I would tend to agree that some additional training would be prudent. Such training might include knowledge of who is armed and who isn't, how to allocate the defense of the school, etc. If the nation trusts that their cadres of teachers are not wild eyed crazies, they might also take the leap of faith that they might do the right thing when and if called upon to defend their children and themselves from an outside threat.

I understand your point of view but would counter that those same distrusting administrators are more than willing to try massive untried, unproven educational methods on their students. I would submit that most of their paranoia comes from the same viewpoint that it is impossible to prevent all of the possible attacks on a school and therefore we should attempt to prevent none. It is the "zero tolerance" logic on steroids. If they actually had to do a risk assessment and make judgements about potential risks, they might be held accountable for those choices. We certainly couldn't have that.

It is an old adage that military leaders want to re-fight the last war and develop tactics to do that. Those tactics are rarely effective in the actual next war. That said, it is hard for me to ignore the fact that most of the recent mass shootings have been conducted by single men under the age of 25. If one could develop a strategy for dealing with them, rather than trying to handle the fruits of everyone's vivid imagination, it would be a start that could be refined to handle more situations later. I'd freely admit that I'm a big fan of Kaizen, which suggests that you immediately start somewhere and slowly and reasonably make improvements toward you goal. Having something immediately that could possibly help to at least contain an active shooter in a school is an improvement over where we are in almost all of the elementary schools in this country and many of the secondary ones as well. There is no such thing as a perfect solution for every possible contingency. I acknowledge that a simplistic strategy would have been less than successful at Columbine. It still would have been been better than what actually happened.

chasfm11 wrote:

The solution is not additional weapons -- it's prevention, mitigation and being prepared," Araiza said. "Those are all the factors that emergency management plans address on campus including dealing with bullying and security issues. My personal opinion is that having an educator have access to firearms is not a good idea because that introduces the question of what are the rules of engagement?

The rules of engagement are simple. If a bad guy enters the school with a gun, you shoot him. And you keep shooting him until he stops twitching. Then you call 911 to report his death, put your gun away and sound the all clear.

This isn't rocket science. It isn't a war zone. There are no free fire zones. Nor are there any check-with-me zones. Bad guy shows up with guns. You react.

I'm a big fan of unobtrusive security. Think the Israeli airport security. It's not in your face but it's pervasive, layered and . We should not make it harder for children to enter a school or classroom, and we should not be placing armed guards with visible guns in schools. These things emit a sense of fear and insecurity. It's important that children feel safe in school.

Having said that, there should be a single entrance (after school has started) with layers of interrogation for "unusual entrants", people who do not regularly visit the school. They should be screened by the administrative office personnel before being allowed to proceed further into the school. There should be strategically placed "lockdown" buttons that, when pushed, seals all the classroom and common area entrances (lunch room, gym, locker rooms, etc.) but unlocks any locked exterior entrances. EDITED: The lockdown button should also notify the police silently. The unlock (reverse) mechanism should require the actions of two parties so a bad guy couldn't unlock.

On the "inside", past the perimeter security, it should be impossible for the bad guy to distinguish between a target and armed opposition. I can't think of a better way of doing that than to allow those teachers who choose to carry the right to do so. Not even the people who work at the school would know who was armed and who was not with the exception of the principal.

baldeagle wrote:Having said that, there should be a single entrance (after school has started) with layers of interrogation for "unusual entrants", people who do not regularly visit the school.

The problem with that is people who commit mass murder at schools are usually not strangers. More often they're related to somebody at the school, or they're students at the school. There's a reason they picked that target.

gringo pistolero wrote:

baldeagle wrote:Having said that, there should be a single entrance (after school has started) with layers of interrogation for "unusual entrants", people who do not regularly visit the school.

The problem with that is people who commit mass murder at schools are usually not strangers. More often they're related to somebody at the school, or they're students at the school. There's a reason they picked that target.

That's why I didn't use the word stranger. I used unusual entrants. IOW someone who isn't normally entering the school on a day by day basis.