Unfortunately it’s Politicians that develop and pass these laws. They call on “Subject Matter Experts” for advice, then it’s off to the smoke filled back rooms to talk about how this new law would effect their re-election chances and who’s going to pay them the most for passage of the new law…
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Another bad example for us all and one of the reasons some of this is an uphill battle.
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My understanding is that many private security officers hired by schools are not all that well trained for school settings. Plus the pay often isn’t all that great so they aren’t necessarily attracting the best and the brightest to take these jobs.
According to the article this was the 3rd security officer in three months in Texas to be fired for doing the same thing. Shows how proper training and constant vigilance are needed in school settings to keep kids safe.
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My son’s school got to test out its response to a potential event earlier this week.
I was sitting at home when a text arrived saying that due to a suspicious person in the area we are activating lockdown procedures. All is safe.
We are still waiting to hear more details. Not sure if it was police that informed the school there was a suspicious person or the school that informed the police. There are trails in the forest behind the school that locals sometimes walk. The school is only a mile or so from the highway so a transient passing through does happen on rare occasions. Though they are quickly recognized and likely quickly realize they are not all that welcome in our little town. But the school’s confidence that locked doors would keep real threats out made me feel less, not more safe.
So I grabbed my EDC hopped in the vehicle and within a few minutes was driving along the road in front of the school with my windows down looking and listening for any signs of trouble. As far as I could tell I was the first responder. Though within a minute several other likely parents drove very slowly by and a couple drove into the parking area.
I chose to park just past the school and wait for LEOs to arrive. In AZ it is illegal to drive onto school property with a loaded firearm and if you exit your vehicle the unloaded firearm must be left locked out of sight in the vehicle. Figured I could respond just about as quickly from just off school grounds and I didn’t want to be another unaccounted for suspicious person for LEOs to have to deal with when they arrived. Which finally happened 15 minutes after the original text though it is possible an off duty LEO in a personal vehicle responded before then.
Given the minimal LEO response at the school I suspect the threat was not considered to be all that serious. The all clear was sent out as soon as they arrived.
Lessons learned or confirmed by me:
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It was great the school appears to have immediately informed parents of the situation.
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As expected LEO response time is too long to be counted on. Though the same would be true even if they arrived within minutes.
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Fortunately all the local chat board warriors who said they would charge into any school event with their full kits on either didn’t get the memo or were too busy getting dressed up to arrive before the LEOs did. The parents who did show up quickly were not clearly armed and all were calm observers waiting to respond if needed.
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I need to switch up my response gear. I didn’t want to take the time to get my rifle out of the safe since I don’t have a quick access safe for it. If I had taken my rifle and had heard shots being fired and grabbed my rifle to run in, the parents arriving just after me would have seen me running around the school with a rifle and quite likely would have considered me the threat. So I think responding with a pistol concealed in a holster until the real threat is positively ID’d would be a safer idea. But my EDC is not ideal for making very precise long range shots. My downstairs quick access safe needs a pistol I can more easily make those shots with if I had to.
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Despite the above concerns having a quick access rifle I could throw in the back of the car in case I saw the obvious threat at a distance outside the buildings when I pulled in would also be a good idea.
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Ideally there would be armed staff already on school grounds so responding parents wouldn’t have to risk adding to the confusing. I spoke with a couple of the responding people after who talked about being ready to run in but they didn’t seem to take into account how confusing that would have been if we all ran in separately until I brought that point up.
This event gives me the opportunity to once again bring up the topic of the benefits of having properly trained and armed staff on site. Perhaps the school administrators will now see the benefits of having a trained on site response over untrained and uncoordinated parents feeling the need to rush in. The parents all responded appropriately in this case but it could have been incredibly confusing if we had arrived to shots being fired and had to figure out who were the bad guys and who were the good ones. Not to mention the potential ensuing chaos when LEOs finally arrive.
Maybe if the school won’t up their security past locked doors the parents will have to come up with a better coordinated response plan and hopefully get some appropriate training to go along with it. I suspect the school and maybe even the LEOs will not be all that comfortable with that idea but it sure beats having a bunch of parents having to act individually with no communication and coordination.
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I like the measured response.
And I get where you are going with the rifle also available, but I worry it will do more to hamper than help in many situations. Like, if LE decides you look suspicious and then you have a rifle in you car even near the school, well. In almost all situations a concealed pistol and maybe a spare mag is just so much more low key/low visibility/“normal”. And you can get it and yourself into position remaining low key/not visible…not take such a risk of being shot yourself or diverting other responders to figure you out.
I’d also suggest that a desire to have a better pistol than your EDC be taken as your sign that you need to upgrade your EDC. If the pistol you carry truly isn’t the pistol you would want to have…do everything you can to carry that other pistol instead
JMO
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Your point about the rifle did go through my mind which is why I didn’t pause further to decide if it was worth taking the extra time to get it out of the safe. Though responding LEOs would have to get to the point where they had already responded inside, set up a perimeter and started searching nearby vehicles before my having one in the back would even get on their radar. There just aren’t enough LEOs nearby to make that happen for quite some time.
Your point on the pistol upgrade is what makes me lean towards wanting to have a rifle option handy. If an active murderer was marching around school grounds and I had a chance for a long shot amongst buildings full of kids I would 100% prefer to have a rifle over any pistol I own or could own. Otherwise I would have to spend time getting close enough to the threat for a safe pistol shot without being shot by the attacker and still risk being mistaken for one of the attackers by other responders.
Though I still believe if I had to run into a building to find the attacker it would probably be best to do so with a holstered pistol. This would decrease the chances of me being mistaken for the attacker and ranges inside would be much shorter.
I am pretty comfortable out to 35 or so yards with my EDC. In a typical active murderer event my primary goal would be to get my family and myself to safety. The likelihood of me engaging someone at longer ranges is very low. My home defense pistol which I could carry is much less comfortably and easy to conceal than my usual EDC. But it only extends my range to 50ish yards and I still wouldn’t want to have to make precise shots potentially amongst frantically running students and staff at that distance.
Running towards an active murdered with a pistol is not something I am ever likely to be doing unless one starts their attack near me or I get to my son’s school before LEOs arrive with an event already taking place. And I likely wouldn’t even do that if I knew there were properly trained and armed responders already inside. I wouldn’t want to make their job harder by having to figure out who’s side I was on.
I do have a new pistol that I believe will increase my range and precision a bit more. But it is not something I would ever consider carrying on a daily basis. Though it or my bedside home defense pistol would be better tools to respond with to this type of incredibly unlikely event than my EDC. So I will likely make one of them my new near the door pistol.
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Something to really consider here, is, the locked doors aspect. Aside from all the other major concerns of running towards gunfire/a murderer and the many huge risks of doing so (given this situation, I’m with you on the risks), there is the obstacle of…the doors you approach may be locked, you may literally have locked doors with a killer inside, and I can only imagine it would take a huge degree of personal knowledge and trust for anyone to open the door to anyone not in a full LEO uniform at that point.
I don’t have an answer to that, but, something to consider…and another point at which I think a holstered concealed pistol or just a pistol vs a rifle is l likely to be a benefit due to the ‘optics’ of it (hell, you could maybe risk being shot through the door or a window from an armed person inside, maybe that nobody knew was armed, if you show up at the door gun in hand)
An extremely unlikely scenario of course, schools shootings are exceptionally rare to begin with. But, talk about high stakes
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I agree that in the case of a civilian responding to a school incident and having to approach a building they would be safest doing so with a holstered and concealed weapon.
Still very risky but if shots were being fired, kids were screaming, the school had no armed and trained responders on site and the police were nowhere in sight I don’t see how you wouldn’t end up with a bunch of parents responding. Especially in a town like ours. Standing by and listening to defenseless kids getting slaughtered may be acceptable procedure in some localities but wouldn’t fly here.
In my particular case I have spoken a fair number of times with my son’s current and past teachers, have interacted with several of the other staff and know exactly where the door to his classroom is. Even if they were smart and closed the blinds I could listen to determine if the shooting was taking place inside that room. The door or windows would not take long for me to get through in that case. If the shots were not coming from the room I could either get the teacher or my son to recognize my voice and let me in, or at least stand guard outside the door.
Ideally the school would have a couple of well trained armed responders on site so I wouldn’t have to spend time thinking about these unlikely, but not zero chance, possibilities.
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These are great thought exercises. Appreciate you sharing and appreciate how you responded.
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This is an example of scary scenario. Prolonged threats and sub-lethal violence, though legally minor, this is a physically mature enraged male abusing a defenceless woman. Bring a gun into the picture, what would happen?
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“Parkland High School Principal Noel Keener warned the student would face disciplinary action along with the criminal charges.”
This Lil-Jon wannabe needs to be put in the ‘hole’,
Deer Hunter hole
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The same thing?
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You would hope teacher’s head is cool, and that the thug does not close his fist, and … lots of variables.
Was that Will Smith’s son? 
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How is this different than worrying about concealed carry in general and pointing to a less than lethal encounter and being like, bring a gun into the picture what would happen? I mean that’s what the anti gun anti self defense crowd say all the time about not disarming people isn’t it?
We have discussed the extra difficulties of this sensitive location/situation, but if you were to assume a concealed firearm the students don’t know the teacher has (that’s a difficult but doable ask), what’s the concern really?
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Obviously the student was physically superior to the teacher
Other class members encouraged the assault
Attacked twice
Looks to me like a case could have been made for escalated self defense.
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Perhaps you are right. Not being in the shoes of this teacher, speculating further is pointless.
I would be more concerned about this thug figuring out over time that this teacher carried a firearm than the teacher going for the firearm when not absolutely necessary. Assuming the teacher had reasonably good training to go along with her apparently cool and calm demeanor.
If the thug new she was armed he might wait for an opportunity to get the gun when the teacher is distracted or intentionally continue escalating the situation to force the teacher to draw the weapon.
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Here’s the deal to me. Maybe, Might Could Have… all of those are unknowns and in this case didn’t happen. What DID happen is a guy attacked a lesser opponent, an older female teacher. He physically did it twice, he also threatened her verbally. He had full support of the others in the class, not a single real man even said a word let alone did anything. To stop this kind of craziness, to me, it would be a good thing if the little richard head had to worry about this teacher or another teacher having/using a weapon to stop him.
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While I feel this thug fully deserved to be laid out on the ground, and certainly deserves to be expelled from school and to spend some time behind bars for assault, I don’t think what he did was at a level that required a lethal force response.
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