THE FINAL REPORT AND FINDINGS OF THE SAFE SCHOOL INITIATIVE: This document is starting to make the rounds through the internets, but do not expect to see it mentioned in the news anytime soon.
The Safe School Initiative was implemented through the Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center and the Department of Education’s Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program. The Initiative drew from the Secret Service’s experience in studying and preventing assassination and other types of targeted violence and the Department of Education’s expertise in helping schools facilitate learning through the creation of safe environments for students, faculty, and staff.
It makes for a very interesting reading, specially when you hit page 37:
Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most attacks were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention…. The fact that it was not through law enforcement intervention that most of the targeted school violence incidents studied were stopped appears in large part to be a function of how brief most of these incidents were in duration.
And if we take a quick jump to the findings we get:
Key Finding 10
Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most attacks were stopped by means other than law enforcement inter vention and most were brief in duration.Implications
The short duration of most incidents of targeted school violence argues for the importance of developing preventive measures in addition to any emergency planning for a school or school district. The preventive measures should include protocols and procedures for responding to and managing threats and other behaviors of concern.
One can see politics rearing its unsightly rear end here. Key Findings 1 through 9 deal with the importance of proper vigilance and prevention which are very good and must be used because anything that reduces the chances of something from ever happening has to be encouraged. But when Finding 1 through 9 fail and the shooter is on the school grounds, you don’t go back and recheck what cue you missed on the shooter’s profile but go to direct action to stop the attacker. After all, the Secret Service Presidential detail do not carry file folders under their jackets, they carry guns to stop any assassin from taking the President’s life.
As the Secret Service painfully knows, it is impossible to catch all the crazies out there before they act. Sometimes your only option is to react forcefully and with deadly force.
PS: I did forget to mention, the report is from May 2002. It is up to you to do the math.
(Hat tip: I fount the link in my Facebook timeline this morning but failed to make a note of who posted it. Now I can’t find the person and I have to my apologies for my oversight.)
I have no doubt that there are a lot of teachers who would willingly take training classes and be certified to go armed or have arms in a fast access gun vault nearby to prevent future attacks. But the anti-gun fools would rather post a gun-free zone sign and confiscate all the guns while they go around with armed body guards.
The anti-gun fanatics have the blood of innocent Americans on their hands because they have instilled a false sense of security with gun-free zones and forced nearly everyone to go unarmed. You don’t hear about mass shootings where people go armed.
I wonder where gun stores fall in the statistics of businesses robbed at gunpoint. I would daresay very very few. Whereas convenient stores and liquor stores, I’m sure, are at the top of the list.
Remember, an armed society is a polite society.
[…] the events in Newtown this past week and the Secret Service Safe School Initiative report has proven since 2002, the concept of a Gun Free School zone to prevent the mass shootings […]