ANOTHER ATTACK ON A SCHOOL! From an expert, here’s your Marching Orders, America!
What has changed since the last? Little to nothing. So heed my warning: the next attack is on the horizon. We must change. Ignorance, procrastination, and hope is no defense. So what’s the solution? Below is YOUR marching orders, America.
Democrats yell and riot for gun control but in the same week as this shooting in Texas that claimed 10 innocents, there was a very similar attack in the gun control-haven Australia that claimed 8. Gun control is not a solution; it’s a dangerous distraction that will cost us more time and lives. Establishment Republicans defend the 2nd Amendment on their heels and so time passes and nothing changes. The pattern repeats. Enough!
Polite discourse must end. As an expert in ground based defense from the Air Force Security Police protecting our bases, the Secret Service Uniformed Division protecting the Executive Branch and the Air Marshals protecting our transportation, I've proposed very simple non-political solutions schools could implement tomorrow BUT the ire of political ideologues have stymied real discourse on schools finding the right strategy for themselves. Politeness is over. As an expert, I'll be 100% clear: The current plan of “Run-Hide-Fight” and call 911 has been tried so many times AND FAILS HORRIBLY by itself.
Furthermore, the plan has a strategic achilles heel and the word is out: active shooters are now studying case studies in great detail and are pulling fire alarms at the start of their attack to thwart Run-Hide-Fight. Its painful to say, but if a school has Run-Hide-Fight as its lynchpin, they have to completely re-adapt and fast!
Run-Hide-Fight was cooked up by the Department of Homeland Security and its precursor originated with The Secret Service as I wrote of in Secrets of the Secret Service but while most USA schools have adopted it, the current plans no longer work! How many school shootings and massacres must we see repeat until we accept the DHS plan alone is horrendous and backwards!
No loss of innocent life is acceptable and so we must call out the COWARDS responsible for making our schools "Defense-Free Zones" aka "Gun Free Zones."
If a school superintendent or administrative leader (an oxymoron in terms) cannot justify the school taking an active "kinetic" role in a school's strategic defense, we must call them what they are: COWARDS. “Cowards” is a term that has fallen to the wayside. In my day, we called people cowards who ran from a fight or were too afraid to fight. HEROES defended others and saved others. But “Run-Hide-Fight” is not a heroic plan. Run-Hide-Fight is institutional cowardice. Today "cowardice" is deemed politically incorrect. Cowardice is an individual's own choice but HOPE IS NOT A PLAN. Furthermore, we must stop indoctrinating our kids to believe that cowardice is a moral high ground. Not only is cowardice immoral, it is without the consent of the parents and students—and its been proven to be horribly disastrous!
My son is a wrestler in high school. In a lockdown drill he is ordered to duck under his desk with no exceptions. If he should so choose, why shouldn’t he be allowed to grab a fire extinguisher and stand by the door, ready to fight to death? It’s his body, his life, his choice! And yet he has been told he will be punished for being ready to defend his life and that of his classmates. It eats him up inside. As I've traveled the world protecting Americans and political VIP's, I haven't been there to defend him against this indoctrinating system. And if, as a child, he is not legally responsible enough to defend his own life, who then is responsible for his life? Is it the cops (I'm a retired one) who are minutes away after the 9-1-1 call is made? And lets be real, 9-1-1 calls often go out AFTER the shooting has started. IT’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! So someone must be responsible then on site!
Let’s be clear: schools that refuse to protect our kids to the fullest must be held civilly responsible for enormous damages. Attack after attack, administrators cannot pretend, "We never thought it would happen here."
Schools tell us parents, "We can’t discuss security measures publicly because transparency could be used for attackers to plan their attacks." But where's the consent in that?
Like Parkland and Columbine and Pulse and Aurora, its only AFTER a MASSACRE that we get transparency from a business or school. Only then do we see how innocent victims were set up for slaughter and how we were lied to. We were not and are not safe in non-transparent hands. Only then do we see indeed the administrators DID NOT do everything in their power to defend us and our children.
So if you are legally able to and have the fortitude, carry a gun and be ready to use it. If you are not prepared, don’t carry a gun. But if you are in a gun free zone, prepare to fight anyway. Like the waffle house, train to Paris, and the Gabby Gifford attack, good guys with fortitude and training ended the fight by using violence, even when literally outgunned. But in instances in which armed defenders were on the scene to rebuff an attack, less innocent life was lost and in some cases, there was none. Armed is as much a state of mind as it is a possession of the tools for defense.
Zero loss of innocent life is the most ideal after thwarting an attack before it ever happens! In the Secret Service, we often wondered how many attacks we thwarted simply by making it clear to potential assassins that success was impossible.
In the Secret Service and Air Marshals, our agencies realized that we were statistically more likely to be involved in a gunfight off-duty while we were in plain clothes (aka civilians are more at risk of being targeted for crime than in-uniform cops). They also realized that the federal government could be more effective if we were trained, empowered and encouraged to carry our firearms off-duty to not only defend ourselves but everyone around us. We trained for the worst scenarios, often with the odds against us: multiple hostiles, multiple innocents, and multiple off duty responders with guns drawn-- and everyone out of uniform. In these simulated sessions, I was "shot" many times by friendly units. I made peace with myself if that ever were to happen in real life, so long as the hostile is neutralized and more innocents were saved as a result.
So here are the solutions:
1) call out gun control advocates out as hypocrites and cowards—don’t hold back. Just because the truth hurts don’t make it any less the truth.
2) Demand schools be transparent about their measures to ensure they truly do all they can to protect our kids and ensure they are not dithering, holding out on hope and cowardice.
3) Demand our schools make their plans consensual to staff, students and parents. It’s not moral unless their consent.
4) when schools willfully ignore case studies in attacks on schools and choose to do nothing, the individuals that set the students up for slaughter must be civilly held liable for deaths and injuries that result.
5) Teach your children that cowardice is not a moral high ground, but the lowest of the low. Give them your permission to do whatever is necessary to defend themselves against serious threats and have that discussion.
6) When discussing real solutions that work with your school, be it rural or urban, heavily populated or less-so, reference this article as a how-to guide, read up, and get educated.
7) Don't be defensive about your constitutional rights. Instead, ensure that schools adhere and embrace our constitution and use it to protect what matters most: our children.
No more being polite about strategies that have proven to be horribly and willfully ineffective over and over again. Not one more attack on a school where loss of innocent life occurs will be tolerated. Democrats have been in control of schools and they have failed! They need to admit their failure and step aside so a new solution that has proven to work can be implemented across the country. We can work out the details and specific strategies but "gun free zones" must be recognized for what they are: ambushes waiting to happen.