All excellent points.
(once again, I started the day with only a handful of likes)
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It would still be faster than the police response.
That person already knows the SRO is the one armed person on campus, making him the initial target as well.
The purpose of armed security is to act as a deterrent. If you want to commit a mass shooting, which location would you pick? One with NO ONE armed? Or a location with even just ONE person armed? Yes you can still do SOME damage at a location where someone else is armed, but if you go to an unarmed location you just reduced the chance of being shot at to 0% until the cops arrive.
Youâre right that the practicality of it being used is reduced unless they gun was on them at all times. Which I think everyone here thinks is a bit overkill. But this is a balance of being a deterrent with being able to protect the school if something bad happened with not being all East Germany-like and parade around in riot armor for an already unlikely event.
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Aw, just for you: 
I think a pot of coffee after the double espresso Iâve already had would be a bad idea, donât you?!
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Hey, no argument here, I think arming folks is daft. But assuming theyâre hellbent on the idea that more guns = more safe, then pushing the guns further away from kids seems like a step in the right direction.
While I disagree with their basic premise, it doesnât matter what I think. The folks making these decisions live in the same gun culture that led to the shootings. Just because it looks like a cycle to me doesnât mean a) Iâm right or b) folks in that culture can be reasonably expected to share an outsideâs perspective.
Frustrating, though.
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Are security guards common in schools or are they only for especially dangerous schools?
It appears that yes, they are common, though not all of therm are armed. Some are liaisons of the local police. Some are actually school cops like college campus cops. My old HS has one.
My kids school doesnât have them, but does have dads of the kids form a volunteer program. But it is a private school, so, probably different.
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@Mister44, is this a reasonable amount of training? Not that I know anything about gun usage, but it feels rather short and Iâm not sure if I like that he didnât mention any refreshment courses.
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What.
The.
Fuck.
Thatâs it, America is done, fuck this shit, it turned out to be a bad idea from the start. Hey Queen Elizabeth, want your colonies back?
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I really donât know. I am not LEO, so I donât know what exactly you need. 20 hrs you should be more than proficient at safe handling and know how to shoot straight, reload, clear malfunctions, etc. I have no idea if that is enough for like room clearing or what ever. But the guy said the SRO are all ex-LEO, so I am assuming they already had training on top of that, and the 20hrs is just to get certified to add the rifle to their kit. IIRC normal cops have to do the same thing, if they carry a shot gun or a rifle in their car they have to get certified to use it.
I will say this - the minimum training even real cops are required is probably not enough for them to be proficient if they have to use it under fire. There are literally cops who shoot only to pass their yearly qualifier and that is it. And then there are cops who go to private training courses on the weekend or compete and are some of the top shooters in the nation.
The thing is - most cops never fire their guns while being a cop. I know we see the high profile cases of cops shooting suspects, but you can have towns where the whole department hasnât shot at someone in a decade. And even in some place like Chicago with the worst crime, most officers still will never shoot at any one. While there are certainly a lot of âgun guysâ who are cops, there are also a lot of cops who just see their gun as a tool and and arenât really INTO them or into honing their skills. I suspect this is changing some, as we have a lot of ex-military who moved into LEO slots.
This is why you read about NYCPD shooting at someone a 2 dozen times and only hitting them once. I have been to ranges with cops shooting and have much tighter groups (and I am, at best, a âBâ shooter.)
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A lot of people genuinely seem to think having an armed response at the ready will act as a deterrent. This has not been borne out in practice, since many of the worst campus shootings (including Columbine) took place on campuses where there were armed security officers present. But it also fails the âcommon senseâ test. As a group, psychotic mass shooters EXPECT to die. The ones who arenât taken down by police often off themselves.
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Which it doesnât. We know that for a fact. The narrative of shooters choosing âgun-free zonesâ is an outright lie; the choice of locations is emotional, not rational (and certainly not based on self-preservation). This is doubly true for school shootings. Not to mention that mass shootings are often preludes to suicide - killing people puts them in a âno going backâ position. Look at the school shooting that started this wave - Columbine. It had armed police on campus, and that didnât alter the choice of target - they just went after the cop first.
So the whole approach is based on an apparently deliberate, willful misunderstanding of the dynamics of mass shootings which simply serves to make things worse.
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I am familiar with Douglas County schools to an extent. This county is located south of Denver, sort of the intermediate between Denver and Colorado Springs, both in location and politics. Itâs a well funded school district, predominantly white, rich, entitled, and obviously pro-NRA. On a day-to-day basis they are very safe, but as has previously been stated, Colorado is a progenitor for school shootings. Itâs a pretty obvious pattern.
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I am not 100% sure that is true. Security can act as a deterrent in general. It isnât just mass shootings you are using them for. It isnât fool proof, of course.
No they didnât. IIRC one of the shooters shot back at one of the school cops, but then ran away. They started shooting at the cafeteria.
But the fact that the campus cop couldnât STOP Columbine does illustrate that nothing they do can keep everyone 100% safe. The TSA isnât keeping us safe. Cops arenât keeping us safe. If someone wants to do you harm, they probably can before you can react. Cops and security are there as deterrents for one, and to react in response to something bad happening. At the same time some people take comfort in the TSA or security/cops, as they feel someone is watching over the situation. Now are they actually much safer? No, not really.
I already stated that this measure most likely isnât needed. Then again everyone has those heart paddles on the walls of their break rooms now - so I guess the âjust in caseâ attitude is just more prevalent than it used to be. At the same time, a locked up rifle in a car by properly trained people isnât probably going to cause any problems.
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It was part of a tie-in for the Blu Ray re-release of Red Dawn.
Ah Colorado, my home and state of many contradictions - we legalized marijuana and are one of the healthiest states in the country, but also have among the lowest school funding, and the disturbing propensity for using âmore gunsâ as the solution to nearly any problem.
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thanks for the reply, I learnt something today!
Iâm not sure if I would be comfortable with more ex-soldiers as police officers - the job description is too different. They are most likely better trained with guns, but the focus of the military is not exactly on de-escalation - imo (one of) the most important attributes of a LEO (they are civilians, not military. and the distinction is relevant).
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If you canât protect 'em, shoot 'em.
Itâs also one of the largest (and fastest growing) school districts in the state with over 67,000 students spread out across 90 different schools and 840 square miles. The county is mostly rural with the largest portion of population concentrated around the southern Denver metro area.
Only 10 rifles seems like a pretty stupid waste of money for such a large and disperse area. I honestly canât see what purpose a long rifle has in any active shooter response.
I was here during Columbine (ironically itâs the 17th anniversary of the shootings today), and I donât recall any outcry about how arming security guards with rifles would have made a damn bit of difference.
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The two high schools where I used to work had unarmed part-time security that staff and students equally like (all very calm personalities). They also had some police who were designated by the department to respond to any incidents on campuses.
The school where I did my student teaching had city cops stationed at the entrance, which was silly because the city had/still has a substation right next door (ironically, a student was shot in front of the substation by gang members from a rival high school). This district has full-time armed SROs who roam from school to school. Also, LAUSD also has fully armed SROs that are considered LEOs.
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