When we last met, we explored the idea of the “Golden Minute.” The Golden Minute is a derivative of the “Golden Hour,” a term used in treatment of trauma patients. The Golden Hour is the timeframe from injury to surgical treatment, that gives the best chance of survival for a victim of severe trauma. The Golden Minute in active shooter situations, is the time from where an active shooter pulls out a firearm until the arrival of a good guy with a gun who engages him…with extreme prejudice
Arrival of that good man with a gun in the Golden Minute, is what can keep a single shooting from becoming a mass murder…or at least reduce the casualties, as happened in Nashville, Tennessee. You can read about this idea in detail; SEE: A Good Guy With a Gun and the Golden Minute
As I mentioned some time back on the David Webb Show,** absent Presidential-level security, it is well-nigh impossible to prevent a truly determined shooter from getting off the first shot. Of course, that isn’t saying we shouldn’t attempt to mitigate that risk, especially for our children. The question becomes, how to best do so while making best use of scarce resources, and also safeguarding civil rights, especially the enumerated constitutional ones.
How do we go about this? First of all (and I will likely offend some here) we need to understand that the Federal Government is a big part of the problem. Our “betters” in D.C. have passed laws that made it a Federal Felony for armed, law-abiding citizens who are properly prepared to properly defend children and teachers too. The first thing that needs to go, is any federal law prohibiting law-abiding citizens from possessing firearms on or near schools. The mandarins in Washington DC have no business telling American citizens they are forbidden to protect children and other innocents. The only part the Federal Government has in this discussion, is ensuring the protection of civil rights.
That brings us to the main part of the discussion between Mr. Webb and me; How do we approach issues like this? We know that whenever a horrific event such as a mass murder happens, before thee innocents are even identified, we hear something along the lines of, “We need a National conversation about ‘common sense’ gun control!” along with the standard, “It’s for the children!” “If it saves one life!” “We must DO something!” That last is the most insidious.
Those cries, to DO something, are followed by attempts, that are all too often, led by the Federal Government, to abridge civil rights. They tout the same old “solutions” that have failed time and again-gun free zones and gun bans, along with a ton of federal money thrown at a problem to brute force a solution to a problem that is not a federal issue. This is exactly, backwards. The only thing that should be a top down effort inside the borders of these United States, is the enforcement of civil rights. All else should be bottom up. Let’s examine why.
The Constitution was written by geniuses. The Framers recognized a pre-existing, God-given if you will, right of self defense and enumerated that right in the 2nd Amendment. So that is where we should start, with individual and small collections of folks able to defend themselves. That is where Constitutional Carry comes into play. It recognizes the right of every law-abiding American to defend himself and if need be other innocents. However, individual citizens bearing arms don’t form the totality of the solution, merely the foundation, a starting point and likely the only “size” that applies to most situations.
Back to, “We need a national conversation…” Yes we need such. But that conversation should consist of what techniques work, sharing them among the 50 “laboratories of Democracy.” In order for that to be effective and constitutional, the discussion has to start at the lowest level, school districts and counties, coordinated with state legislatures. Individual school districts need to be the driving forces. They are the ones closest to the problem and can best determine the risks.
School districts evaluate risks versus the cost of mitigating risk. As we’ve discussed, it is fait out impossible to totally eliminate the risk of someone eating a school and getting off the first shot. The way we do that is to enact measure that harden the school and make it appear to any potential attacker to be too tough a target. In short, deterrence.
My good friend and former colleague over at Red State, Nick Arama made this point quoting Nashville City Councilman Robert Swope’s interview with the NY Post:
Swope told The Post that Hale had “looked at” two other schools, both public, before deciding “the security was too great to do what she wanted to do.”
“So she chose a private Christian school, for, probably the reason is that the security is a whole lot less,” he went on.
For Arama’s entire article, READ: Nashville Officials Reveal Critical Info About Why Shooter Targeted School That Everyone Needs to Hear
When an attacker has choices, he (she) will almost always choose a softer target. Knowing or believing that he could be met with two rounds in the ten ring, is one great deterrent.
This brings me to my most important point; Many times when confronted with a serious problem, it’s best to start with the fundamentals. In this case, there are two:
1) The Constitution will most times point towards possible solutions. And…
2) Evaluating, Choosing and Implementing said solutions, are best done at the lowest level possible.
In certain areas where risk is low (but never non-existent) a local school board in conjunction with the county sheriff or local police chief might determine that certain teachers could be armed and incentivized via stipend, to undergo active shooter response training each year. If a math teacher gets a little extra to help coach the track team, it should be too hard to find a few extra dollars to incentivize firearms training for teacher and other staff. In other locales, those same-level authorities might assess a much higher level of risk and thereby, wish to further harden their schools with metal detectors and additional patrol officers. The objective at both ends of the spectrum, is to deter attacks and if deterrence fails, put them down with minimal loss of life.
I’ll leave you with this final thought; No matter how we do the cost vs risk assessment, we need to remember that the Constitution is our guide and that ultimately, local Americans will have to live with the results of any decisions. They should be in the driver’s seat when looking for solutions. A group of 535 folks hundreds of miles from the problem, have no dog in this hunt. Ultimately, individual Americans remain responsible for their own safety and that of their friends and neighbors.
**David Webb can be found, M-F from 9-Noon on Sirius XM 125-Patriot.
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Civil Rights are the problem!
Demtards are the problem.
In every area there are many retired military and police who would probably be willing to be guards at schools, even unpaid. They are trained in weapons, and would serve as a significant deterrent for the bad guys. I am not sure why schools are unwilling to avail them selves of these resources.
Mainly because America has become the most litigious country in the world.
I am concerned about security, but I am more concerned about how it got to be at this stage and what to do about the root cause.
Harsh words will follow, and that’s because there are key players who started this, who need to be jailed, or much, much worse, because there are those, like Randi Weingarten, a teachers union president who is actively promoting this brainwashing of our children, but she is far from the only one behind this. The entire Democrat caucus in our United States, due to their rabid lust for power, is also behind this. They actively promote the breeding of pedophilia by mainstreaming it in society. Funding through billionaires, like Gates, Zuckerberg and others, and through NGOs politically aligned with progressive totalitarians, like in the World Economic Forum are promoting this.
Heck, if we don’t do something about this, more than passive and active security controls at our schools, that security will be meaningless. It’s no wonder that every group I mentioned above is for confiscating our guns, is it?
There is a laundry list of things to do to stop all this, and it will eventually cost us a generation of our children before it is corrected, if that ever happens.
This is one of those things that the falling away from the church can be directly attributed to. It is an act of pure evil.
Bullets will only be a stopgap. Then, more bullets will be needed.
One of those Metro cops responded to a reporter, when complimented about the 14 minute response time, that affected me in a very positive way: “We were 14 minutes too late, six people died.”
That cop just gained his wings in Heaven, as far as I’m concerned.
Carry. Every day, everywhere.