Vern Blanchette is an experienced teacher with a Masters degree in education. He has a new, small book out titled “How to Completely Stop School Mass Killings.”
His plan? You guessed it: competent, discreetly armed faculty.
I am totally with him on this. The best way to shortstop what has become a trend crime among sick losers is to have skilled, determined, armed good people present when evil people attempt to murder the innocent. It has worked in Israel, Peru, and the Philippines. It would have severely limited the casualty toll, and perhaps completely eliminated it, had it been in place here, from Columbine to Sandy Hook to Uvalde.
The book is available on Amazon for something like five bucks a copy. It uses simple, sound logic to refute every argument against arming volunteer faculty members. It’s short enough that if passed out to school board members it is likely to be read.
I’d have bought a bunch to distribute to the school decision makers where I live, but for one thing: they have already armed and trained volunteer faculty. Only they – and the police department and sheriff’s department, with whom they work hand in hand – know who those select employees are. The superintendent of schools told the local newspaper flatly: if some sick SOB tries to shoot the kids, the offender will be killed where he stands.
Predictably, there have been no such attacks here…nor anywhere else I can find where the armed faculty program has been put in place and publicly announced. Some of these psychopaths may want to die in what they think is a blaze of glory shooting it out with a SWAT team after they’ve murdered helpless children…but none of them are up for risking a bullet in the back of their head from Mrs. Grundy the history teacher.
If I still had school age children I would feel much better about their safety if there were well trained and armed faculty present in their schools. It is difficult to understand why school board members view armed trained teachers as more of a threat to children than the disturbed murderous monsters that stage these attacks. I have never heard of any armed faculty ever using their firearm to kill or injure a child. It is as if they believe that the mere presence of a weapon will turn a professional and caring teacher into a mass murderer. Maybe they are projecting their own lack of impulse control onto others.
For most people in authority they don’t worry about a sociopathic faculty member, they worry about accidents of leaving a firearm where a student may find it and then injure themselves or others with the “Gee, look at this” process. This can be mitigated.
“they worry about accidents of leaving a firearm where a student may find it and then injure themselves or others”
According to the Texas Association of School Boards one out of five school districts in Texas have had armed faculty for going on a decade. It seems like if accidents were a problem, there would have been at least one incident by now.
That’s why people should teach children about handling and not handling firearms and teach them the dangers of handling firearms . In the right hands and treated with the respect they deserve they are “SAFE ” , with a deadly potential just like electricity . Electricity is ” SAFE ” when used for it’s intended purpose , people who use it should learn how to safely use it and be taught the dangers and the consequences of not following the laws of physics .That is why THE EDDIE EAGLE PROGRAM AND THE KIDS SAFE PROGRAMS should be taught in schools . Children need to be taught about firearms so they KNOW not to handle them if they are not supposed to . By not educating them we do a dis service to them and society .Children that are taught TRUE FIREARM SAFETY have less of a chance of as you say the “Gee look at this ” mentality as they are used to being around firearms and learning about them and the associated possible hazards IF MISSUSED . Responsible firearm owners DON’T just leave firearms around where a student can find it . The possibility is always there that a child could come across a firearm , EVEN A DISCARDED ONE LEFT BY A CRIMINAL GANG MEMBER ON A PLAYGROUND .The trained child will know what to do the untrained will say “Gee look at this ” I would dare to say every time .
The administration should be more concerned with that happening ,AND TRAINING CHILDREN HOW TO REACT . KIDS SAFE FOUNDATION ! AND EDDIE EAGLE !
when a personal defensive weapon is carried upon the person of the armed staff member, it cannot be “found” by any student. Seems summadese self-appointed worry warts need a course in logic. Or mybe just told to shut up and go away, and let the BiG Boys deal with reality. This is the sort of thinking that passes for “logic” emanating from the Wattophiles stumping for instilling universal panic.
Thanks for the heads-up. Easily found on Amazon ($4.99). I am waiting for my copy to arrive to preview.
I am a trustee on the board of a Christian school and we have talked about this. We have three campuses in a rural area that are all difficult to secure. Two of our administrators are married to police officers so we have had conversations about armed staff. I’ve been to the range with staff members, so I know we have candidates. Perhaps this book will become the catalyst to action “left of bang.”
investigate the FASTER Saves Lives programme, put together and made to happen by the Buckeye Firearms Association in Ohio. They are eager to help others put together similar programmes .
These use cases need widespread visibility. Difficult when the press has succumbed to the siren song of illiberal politics, but data are data and facts are facts. “Welcome Assassins!” signs are not the answer, nor is disarming a willing and motivated citizenry.
My cousins daughter is trained and Carrie’s at her school in Florida. I’m envious
I have been preaching this for years to my family and friends. My nephew’s wife is a primary school principal who knows how to shoot (I taught her). She resists this idea out of fear that that some student will find a faculty gun and create an “accident”. I have also preached that any gun used for self defense should be on you and not in a desk drawer. There are some problems with this, of course, but they can be overcome. Teachers will have to start dressing for concealed carry and any student touching a teacher’s firearm should be severely punished (including expulsion). Dress for concealed carry could be simply slacks and blazers/vests for faculty. If the kids can wear a school uniform, then so can the faculty. With the faculty all dressing alike, the bad guy won’t be able to tell who is carrying and who is not. All of the perceived problems in arming the faculty pale in the face of the consequences of failure to interdict a school shooting. Which would you rather deal with – the problems of prevention or the agony of failing to keep your students safe?
Excellent points about uniforms for teachers!
Pullover “golf shirts” untucked for everyone!
How to Completely Stop School Mass Killings: This Technique is Effective, Inexpensive, and Easy to Implement in Your School.
https://a.co/d/1r9Bn2D
My son is a school administrator in the “oil patch” Thanks I’ll send him some of these.
I completely agree, Mas. And Florida law now allows for armed teachers, subject to local school board approval. Unfortunately, many counties have “declined” this security measure, including the one where I live. The sheeple that are so common in the field of education have a reflex comment when the topic is brought up: “The last thing we need is MORE guns in schools.” This is, of course, devoid of any real understanding. I have at least caused one young, local teacher to pause thoughtfully when I responded, “It seems a shame that teachers, who are willing to risk their lives for their students, have no options other than to serve as “meat shields” (a term most young folks understand from video games, where they employ minions to soak up opponents’ firepower).” We must continue to try to elect more enlightened school board members.
On a somewhat related note, I am often amused in airports to hear the announcement that everyone is responsible for airport security. I have the urge to ask, “Then why do you require us to render our firearms inaccessible?” But, that would likely get me detained, so I must be content with quietly chuckling to myself and suffer the stares of others who wonder what I just found funny.
Best Regards to All.
School employees have repeatedly proved their courage in these incidents. From the custodians at Columbine to the teachers in various places in fact acting as “meat shields” to the assistant principle in FL who simply walked up to a shooter and took his gun and on and on and on. It is time to give them the tools.
Beeoward County Florida school poohbahs had consulted with the folks with Buckeye Firearms Association and their FASTER Saves Lives programme to explore putting that programme in place in Broward County. They “decided” that guns in the hands of highly trained school staff woiuld be a bad idea. Just a few weeks later a crazed known nutcase kid violated a court order specifically prohibiting his presence on his former high school campus (he’d been expelled for things kile \beating other kids and bringing large knives to that school) brought newly purchased AR pattern rifle, and killed quite a number of students and staff at that school. I guess that school board thought guns in the hands of a crazed expelled violent student was preferable to guns upon the persons of highly trained wellproven school staff……. because that IS the decision they made. Had any ONE of Stoneman DOuglas’ school staff been armed and trained the body count this crazed kid piled up would have, at most, been in low single digits, and very probably zero.
The American Left is not at all interested in slowing down or stopping these mass murders. Especially, those that involve firearms. Politically, these mass murder events serve two (2) useful purposes from the point-of-view of the American Left:
1) They provide fuel for the Left’s anti-gun narratives. Pardon the pun, but they are “ammunition” that the Left can use to push their firearms-prohibition narratives. The American Left is eager to disarm the American People because they know that stripping the American People of their Arms is THE ONLY PATH FORWARD to reducing the American People from being Citizens into being Subjects of the All-Powerful Leftist Central Nanny Government that they are trying to build. Fear is a favorite tool for the American Left and they greatly desire to use FEAR of MASS-MURDERS as a tool to persuade the American People to voluntarily disarm in exchange for a false promise that disarmament will provide security and put an end to these mass killings. The American Left wants the People to lock themselves in chains out of fear.
2) These mass murders contribute to the general sense of chaos and fear that the Left is trying to create. The Left knows that the old American Republic must be burnt down to the ground before they can build their Leftist Control State. So, the Left, as a general policy, encourages ANYTHING that will sow chaos and instability in American Society. Clearly, these Mass Murders serve that useful purpose (from the Left’s perspective).
Therefore, the American Left is not at all interested in ending the killing. Quite the opposite, they want to ramp the killing higher. So, authors like Vern Blanchette can write all the books they want. The American Left will pay no attention.
The American Left wants and needs firearms-prohibition. That is the only options that feeds their power. They will use their mass media attack dogs to shout down ANYONE who proposes alternative solutions that might actually slow the killing and tone down the chaos.
From the point-of-view of the American Left, the solution given above is counter-productive. It will not give them the POLITICAL POWER that they CRAVE. Whether it would work or not is beside the point.
They flatly reject the idea of ‘more guns in schools’ ideologically, when the alternative to “guns in schools held by discrete and motivated adults” is “guns in schools held by a disgruntled former student trying, unopposed, to set a new high score”. Keep Guns Out of Schools only works until someone decides they don’t respect the authority of a sign, as we have seen repeatedly ad nauseam over the last 30 years.
The most generous interpretation of this is they have the emotional idea that “more guns is always worse than fewer guns, regardless of intent”, and the least generous interpretation is “more preventable tragedy=more disarmament”. The reality is likely somewhere in between these extremes but nowhere on the scale is anything approaching rationality.
Well, sonce the gummit skewlz have decided to keep guns out of schools (at least the guns that can be used against the killers) I have decided the best policy for me and mine gojng forward is simply to keep MY kids out of such schools. My kids will NEVER darken the door of any such institution. Other options are on offer.
Tionico,
In my opinion, government schools = child abuse.
Most men want to be like James Bond. I’m sure male teachers would love to be ‘forced’ to carry a gun so they could pose, while protesting how they don’t want to……
The safety ‘problem’ is easily overcome. The gun has to be unloaded except when going to be used.
The oft repeated line that ‘politicial movement x wants to ban guns, so they can be tyrants’, doesn’t stand up to examination. When Hitler and Saddam knew their population had the most incentive to remove them, because faced with actual invasion.
They didn’t confiscate guns, they started handing them out.
njk
“They didn’t confiscate guns, they started handing them out.”
Of course, tyrants arm their own supporters in the military and loyal police agencies. Of course, a tyrant who finds himself at war with exterior opponents is going to start “handing them out”.
How you can extrapolate from this that tyrants like Saddam and Hitler were “Pro-Gun” is beyond me. Such thinking requires a true leap into pure imagination!
As another tyrant, Mao, observed: “Political power flows from the barrel of a gun.” Given this true statement, it is axiomatic that tyrants will want to arm the troops/police that are loyal to them and their government while disarming everyone else.
The Nazis may have built one of the most powerful armies in the World, at that time, but they were a long way from being “Pro-Gun” in the sense of the 2nd Amendment.
Here is some suggested reading for you:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2013/12/how-nazis-used-gun-control-stephen-p-halbrook/
In Cuba, Fidel Castro armed his people, AND NO ONE ELSE.
First the ONLY staff that will be armed are they who have carefully considered, volunteered (never “forced”) and taken intensive and specific training for this particular situation.
As to “only loaded when it is going to be used”, since NO ONE knows “when it is going to be used” the only plan is to carry it loaded at all times. No murderer ever makes an appointment, nor announces their intention. The thing on my waist is ALWAYS loaded and ready to draw, aim, fire that quickly. nything else, ,might as well save the hassle and leave it home. AND be vulnerable/defenseless.
Jeff wrote:
a reflex comment when the topic is brought up: “The last thing we need is MORE guns in schools.”
To which the obvious answer is “so why do they call the police?”
Timely news. Gunman at Memphis Jewish school thwarted by security measures https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-66374065
I apologize if this was in some of the other comments, but this is what the Israelis had to do in response to the terrorists in their own country. I don’t think they’ve had a school shooting incident for several decades.
Very few, since this policy was introduced after the Maalot school massacre.None with high casualty rates when armed faculty were present.
I can’t remember when I’ve read so much plain wisdom concentrated in one place. As Mas pointed out, Israel solved the school shooting problem in 1974. Murderous violence is common in Israel, and they know how to deal with it.
Maybe we will soon see a great divide. Patriot parts of America will have high employment, low crime, and safe schools, protected by teachers. Communist parts of America will have what we now see in American cities, and school shootings with fairly high body counts, because the shooting doesn’t stop until cops show up.
Even if five goblins band together to attack a Patriot school, they will be resisted by heroic teachers who shoot back. Imagine what five goblins could accomplish in a Communist school. They would probably be able to shoot everyone who doesn’t run away, or hide really well.
Too bad it has taken so long for half of our country to see the light. I remember reading bumper stickers in the 1980s, “Fight Crime. Shoot Back.”
There’s a meme going around. “Faculty Carry”
Teacher: silhouette of a pistol;
Librarian: silhouette of a pistol with suppressor.
Of course, tyrants arm their own supporters in the military and loyal police agencies.’
That’s not what I said and not what happened. In 1945 any male with a pulse was being armed by the Nazis.
Christian Science Monitor March 2003: https://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0310/p01s03-woiq.html
‘With a gun culture that closely resembles that of the United States, Iraq is one of the most heavily armed societies in the world.’
‘it may appear ironic to US planners that the regime is further arming potentially rebellious party cadres and tribal groups’.
You should have the right to carry arms because gun bans don’t work. But you are kidding yourself if you think it’s going to keep you a democracy
“That’s not what I said and not what happened. In 1945 any male with a pulse was being armed by the Nazis.”
In 1945, Nazi Germany was dying. They were losing a war on two fronts. The Russian were pouring in from the East. The Allied Powers were pouring in from the West. Hitler would soon shoot himself in the head. Naturally, in such desperate conditions, every weapon was being handed out. Even children were being armed. However, this was a desperation action. It was not normal Nazi policy.
“But you are kidding yourself if you think it’s going to keep you a democracy.”
True. Being armed is only part of the answer. Having a gun will not, automatically, give you a democracy just like owning a gun will not, automatically, keep you safe from crime. As Mas regularly points out, a gun is not a magic talisman. This is true for firearms on both the personal and national levels.
Having a gun is not enough. To use it effectively to provide protection from crime, one must have the willpower and skill to use it. The same is true on a national level. Having an armed population will not, automatically, generate a democracy nor will it, automatically, sustain the American Republic Model.
The armed population must also have the willpower and skill to use their arms. They must have a culture of democracy and freedom. Arms are just tools. They are no substitute for mindset.
That is the reason for the Left’s indoctrination programs in our schools. They are trying to brainwash our younger generations. They are working to erase the existing culture of American democracy and freedom and replace it with their false Woke sheep culture.
If they can brainwash enough of the younger population into being sheep and into believing the Woke fantasies of the Left, then they will undercut the will of the American People to use their arms to retain their freedom.
First, destroy the existing culture of American Values by undercutting the mindset of democracy and freedom. Then, use fear of mass-murders and crime to scare the People into disarmament. That is the general plan of the Left that is being executed right now.
Once the minds of the People have been brainwashed into being Woke sheep and the main population disarmed (with arms being largely restricted to troops loyal to the regime), then the Left will have their victory. They might well have the political power (flowing from the barrels of THEIR GUNS) to build their version of a “Thousand Year Reich”.
“With a gun culture that closely resembles that of the United States, Iraq is one of the most heavily armed societies in the world.”
What horse manure! No other nation on Earth has a gun culture that “closely resembles that of the United States”. The closest nation would probably be Switzerland. Certainly, no Muslim country is even close. Let us examine this statement for accuracy. Are there any points of similarity?
1) The culture of Iraq is founded in Islam. The culture of the United States was founded in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
2) The Law of Iraq is largely founded on Sharia Law. American’s legal system is based on English Common Law.
3) American has a dynamic “melting pot” culture based upon a long history of immigration. Iraq has a monolithic, static culture that goes back centuries.
4) American has a history of frontier growth and expansion. Iraq does not.
Tell me. Can you point out the section of Sharia Law that is equivalent to our 2nd Amendment or, even, to the right to keep and bear arms in old English Common Law?
Indeed, the only point in common is that the populations of both nations have not yet been disarmed and small arms (both legal and illegal) are readily available in both countries. So, despite widely different cultures, this propagandist, writing for the leftist rag of the CS Monitor, declares that there are similar “gun cultures” in both countries based upon the people not yet being disarmed! Only in the fevered imagination of a leftist propagandists could such a claim exist!
Clearly, the left has such faith in their organs of propaganda that they believe that they can claim ANYTHING and it will be accepted uncritically.
The American Left reminds me of the Con-man, Mr. Merriweather, in the old Movie ‘Little Big Man’ (Dustin Hoffman played the protagonist, Jack Crabb, in this movie). He, too, believed that the bigger the lie, the bolder the falsehood, then the better it would sell to a gullible public.
Quote of the Day:
“Mr. Merriweather : You’re improving Jack, you just can’t seem to get rid of that streak of honesty in you. The one that ruined you was that damned Indian, Old Tepee.
Jack Crabb : You mean Old Lodge Skins.
Mr. Merriweather : He gave you a vision of moral order in the universe and there isn’t any.Those stars twinkle in a void there boy and the two legged creature dreams and schemes beneath them, all in vain, all in vain Jack.
Jack Crabb : You hear anything?
Mr. Merriweather : Listen to me, a two legged creature will believe anything and the more preposterous the better: whales speak French at the bottom of the sea. The horses of Arabia have silver wings. Pygmies mate with elephants in darkest Africa. I have sold all those propositions.
Jack Crabb : Or maybe we’re all fools and none of it matters.
Mr. Merriweather : Ahhhh…” (dialog From the Movie ‘Little Big Man’)
Wonder when the American People will wake up and see the Leftists as Con-men (or whatever gender they assume today)?
nicholas kane,
Thomas Jefferson stated that keeping our republic would require feeding the Tree of Liberty with the blood of Patriots and tyrants. When asked how often that needed to be done, I think he replied it would be about every 25 years.
While teachers and administrators may not accept the idea of being armed to stop a violent encounter; arming and training support staff is an idea with merit. Most janitorial and maintenance staff have intimate knowledge of buildings and grounds (much more so than teachers and administrators); security screening infrastructure (they maintain it); carry master keys to access all areas and have been pre screened for contact with children. Responding LEO’s rely on support staff for building access and advice on layout upon arrival for an emergency; why not give them the training and tools to stop a violent attack in the incipient stage?
Also, my experiences in conversations with support staff is that they would be receptive and willing participants in this security strategy, even in a Deeply Blue State (NY).
It remains incomprehensible to the politicritters and top education administrators of those States.
I am glad that our school system believes in arming people on campus. Nice that you got them the books. Columbia County is NOT of the same thought, they need the books! Keep doing what you are doing.
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