This winning entry from an “anti-gun” poster contest shows shows what happens to “good people” when unarmed and attacked by “bad people”
The headline of this post was the stated position of Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley as indicated in a March, 2012 WNT article titled “Police presence returns to high school, Oak Harbor motorcycle cop dropped in tradeoff“. Mayor Dudley’s comment in March was in reference to a shooting at Cleveland High School in February, 2012.
On December 07, 2012, at the Memorial for Chris Cooper – one week before the December 14 school shooting in Newton, Connecticut - I asked Mayor Dudley if he thought that perhaps a police presence at local bars serving alcohol might be a better use of police personnel than at Oak Harbor High School.
Mayor Dudley’s indicated to me on December 07 that his position on having a police presence at Oak Harbor High School was unchanged from what the WNT reported back in March. Mayor Dudley explained to me that the number of people regularly concentrated at the high school made having a police presence at Oak Harbor High School a logical choice. The context for my inquiry to the mayor on that day is exemplified by a December 19 WNT article “Increase in Oak Harbor bar violence sparks concern“, which the WNT published five days after the events in Newton, Connecticut.
Without having spoken to him about this topic since then, I would still surmise that the events in Newton, Connecticut have not caused Mayor Dudley to waiver from his position about having a police officer at Oak Harbor High School. However, the events in Connecticut occurred not at a high school but at an elementary school, of which we have five in the Oak Harbor School District, plus two middle schools, for a total of eight schools.
So, is the reason we have ONE police officer in ONE of our eight local schools to act as an armed protector in case of a school shooting, as Mayor Dudley seems to posit? Or, is it mainly, as the OHHS principal described back in March to…
“…build a connection between the school and police and…to have an officer on hand when a discipline issue becomes a police issue“?
Oh, and the high school principal also added:
“An added bonus is the high school will have a police presence during large community events such as home football games“.
In other words, the school district seems to like having a paid-for police presence as much as possible within their federally mandated “gun free zone“, a zone which, of course, deters only law-abiding non-police-force-type citizens from bringing guns into schools. (Washington State RCW 9.41.280 also prohibits firearms on school premises).
While we have but one police officer assigned to our eight local public schools, a New York Times article Schoolhouse to Courthouse delineates that:
“In New York City, the Police Department has a special unit to protect students in public schools. With some 5,000 agents, the School Safety Division is larger than all but a handful of the country’s big-city police departments: there are nearly twice as many safety officers in city schools as guidance counselors and nearly four times as many safety officers as social workers.”
According to that article, over 882 arrests occurred in New York City public schools during the 2011-12 school year. In Oak Harbor, the only school-related arrest I recently recall was when a boy’s father was arrested in September, 2011 after his son brought a gun to school and was expelled for doing so.
So, while Oak Harbor is obviously much smaller than New York City, we have ONE designated school safety officer for our approximately 5,000 students in eight different school buildings. Is that enough? I guess the question I have is: enough to do what, exactly?
I recently watched the entire video of the National Rifle Association‘s call “for placing an armed security guard at every school“. I felt Wayne La Pierre made some really excellent points about the potential effectiveness of armed security guards, but I thought he may have gotten off his main theme a bit too much by dwelling on things like video games and movies having violence in them. I also thought Asa Huchinson has made a pretty good analogy about the use of Air Marshalls on commercial aircraft in discussing the National School Shield Program which the NRA is promoting.
Two seemingly contrary points in the WSJ “NRA Calls for Arms in School“ article have caught my interest. The first was:
“A Department of Education survey conducted during the 2009-2010 school year found that 23,200 of the nation’s public schools, or 28% of those surveyed, reported already having security officers who carry firearms on campus at least once a week. “
The other interesting point was:
“Each year, since 1992, less than 2% of all youth homicides occurred at an elementary or high school or as children walked to school, according to a report issued earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Justice.”
Below is a video of the entire NRA press conference from Friday, 21 December made in response to the 14 December school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, Connecticut. As one person said in an email to me today about this video:
“What a difference from the presentation of the “slightly nightly news”. If the nation is going to have an intelligent conversation about weapons, then all sides should be listened to in the entirety of their thoughts.”
Tags: asa huchinson, Chris Cooper, connecticut, gun control, motorcycle cop in oak harbor, national rifle association, national school shield program, newtown, Oak Harbor High School, Oak Harbor Mayor Scott Dudley, Oak Harbor School District (OHSD), Second Amendment, violence in oak harbor bars, Wayne LaPierre
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If you look at the number of school shootings and deaths attributed to them it seems like the addition of a police officer to the schools will have very little effect statistically.
I really think we need to get back to the basics here. This is not a complex problem if you take the emotion out of it. I think by resurrecting the concept of the unorganized citizen militia and making people responsible for their basic protection you would have better and longer lasting results. That, combined with enforcing our existing criminal laws against the improper use of firearms, will have a greater effect than spending millions for police in schools.
We have taken everything firearm related out of our school system. It is if the Second Amendment does not exist. We need to lessen the laws for concealed carry in our schools at least to the point to allow the teachers and other responsible individuals to carry while at work. We need to educate our young’uns in the responsible safe use of firearms just as they teach them the responsible use of prophylactics. We need to rid ourselves of the politically correct vision that we are a safe society and that we live in a safe world, and educate ourselves and our children that we ourselves are responsible for our own basic protection.
We also, and this is most important, need to educate our children about why we have a Second Amendment to our Constitution and why it is important at a personal level to recognize and to come to terms with that Amendment.
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A vector in the opposite direction from what you suggest, I imagine, would be akin to have an entity like the the Department of Homeland Security create another organization like the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) which could then create in our schools, school buses and school athletic facilities a security environment akin to what the TSA has done with our airports and airplanes.
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We need to get as far away from the concept of “I am here from the government to protect you” as we can.
I think our Second Amendment needs more attention than we give it. The Right it speaks of is reserved to the people for a reason. We need to listen to it instead of demonizing it or allowing the government to supplant it with some form of government program.
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On a related note: New Jersey Mayor Defends Decision to Arm School Security
From the article:
“Last week, Marlboro, NJ decided to arm security officers in its nine public schools after Newtown, Conn., school massacre…The move came before the National Rifle Association on Friday recommended that schools across the country employ armed police officers…Hornik, a Democrat, said his decision wasn’t prompted by the NRA and he believes in gun control…“I’ve got liberals [mad] at me. I’ve got the conservatives [mad] by saying the NRA is ridiculous,” Hornik said . “I’m not a lunatic, trust me. I’m not someone who can just sit there and hope that our children will be safe in our schools.””
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And, another very interesting related story:
School Obama’s Daughters Attend Has 11 Armed Guards
(Not counting Secret Service)
“Some interesting news has broken in the wake of the latest push for gun control by President Obama and Senate Democrats: Obama sends his kids to a school where armed guards are used as a matter of fact.
The school, Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, has 11 security officers and is seeking to hire a new police officer as we speak.
If you dismiss this by saying, “Of course they have armed guards — they get Secret Service protection,” then you’ve missed the larger point.
The larger point is that this is standard operating procedure for the school, period. And this is the reason people like NBC’s David Gregory send their kids to Sidwell, they know their kids will be protected from the carnage that befell kids at a school where armed guards weren’t used (and weren’t even allowed).
Shame on President Obama for seeking more gun control and for trying to prevent the parents of other school children from doing what he has clearly done for his own. His children sit under the protection guns afford, while the children of regular Americans are sacrificed. “
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Is the officer that is on duty at the high school armed?
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According to Oak Harbor Police Chief Ed Green:
“He is a fully commissioned, full time officer which means “yes”, he is armed when on duty.
He is assigned to the Oak Harbor School District, drives an Oak Harbor Police Vehicle and wears an Oak Harbor Police Department uniform most of the time, unless some other arrangement has been made between the School District and the officer for a specific reason.”
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The Washington State PTA strongly disagrees with you, our local school district and our Mayor:
“PTA executive director Bill Williams says children need to feel safe to do well at school, and having armed guards would probably make them feel less safe.”
I bet if it was the WEA calling for armed officers in schools instead of the NRA Bill Williams would give his full support.
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And, over in liberal la-la land, Diane Feinstein is aiming to:
“Ban the sale, transfer, importation, or manufacturing of:
– 120 specifically-named firearms
– Certain other semiautomatic rifles, handguns, shotguns that can accept a detachable magazine and have one military characteristic
– Semiautomatic rifles and handguns with a fixed magazine that can accept more than 10 rounds”Here’s a live link to an interview with Diane Feinstein on YouTube explaining her justification for her new legislation.
As if, somehow, her proposed legislation is some kind of “solution” to this issue.
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The one thing that Ms Feinstein does not understand is that there is no way many of us will give up that right. She obviously has lost the meaning behind the words “shall not be infringed”.
As a civic duty I am required by the our Bill of Rights to post the below document:
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We already have at least one Democrat Governor, Andrew Cuomo, of New York, talking about new firearm legislation while suggesting:
“Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option.”
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In her own words, Diane Feinstein explains, back in 1995, why she had/has a concealed weapons permit for self-protection for herself from domestic terrorists who had planted a bomb in her home back in the 1970s:
See: Dianne Feinstein has/had a concealed weapons permit
Yet, somehow, fast-forward to 2012,and she’s decided that people need to have some of their weapons banned completely, because, she claims, that they would never have any legitimate purpose, anywhere, anytime.
See: Senator Feinstein discusses assault weapons legislation
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The winning poster was from a school kid and NO ONE is commenting on the errors on the poster??
“Carjacer with gun is a bad person” CAR JACKER, not carjacer with no K. I think carjacker might be acceptable too.
“Don’t be a bad person. Get rid of you’re guns.” Really? Get rid of you are guns? Obviously not. The person meant “your guns”.
This poster looks like it was produced by an older student or adult, based on the handwriting. Our schools are in trouble if we cannot by the ending of the public education years get the students to understand how to spell basic words, and the difference between “you’re for you are” and “your” for your hat, your gun, your dog, your blog.
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Oh geez, I just looked at the poster again. The claim is it was made by a 6 year old. Well, then mom or dad wrote the words, and they can’t spell either.
Pathetic. When you want your message heard, attention to detail is important.
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It’s obviously an attention-getting piece, but its actual origins and authorship is, admittedly, a bit suspect.
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Law enforcement in schools is a good idea. It is called community policing. Our society has become disrespectful and intolerant of law enforcement officers. Placing Officers in our schools, especially high schools, young adults learn to properly respect the law and develop trust in law enforcement, but the officer should also have training in handling young people as they can be spontaneous and unpredictable in their behavior, because of their immaturity. I think of the “Andy Griffith” method of policing were law enforcement is more about helping people resolve their problems then just fighting crime. I speak from experience having been a Correctional Lieutenant in one of the largest correctional systems (California). You can not run a correctional system without the help and cooperation of the inmate population. Our school systems work the same way. The principle is the administrator, the teachers educate, the janitors clean, but where’s the law enforcement. Once these young people enter society they have to live and work by the laws set by their work place, local, state, and federal laws. We should consider it part of their education.
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“We should consider it (familiarity with law enforcement) part of their education.”
I’d take that idea one step further: educating our students about how to properly/ safely handle, fire (with accuracy) and respect firearms should also be a part of the education of students in the K-12 system.
As it stands now, the only “education” students receive on the topic is toward the attitude that “zero tolerance” of firearms is appropriate, except for official law enforcement.
The Oak Harbor School District lacks a firing range. They used to have one at the “old” Oak Harbor High School (which is now Oak Harbor Elementary).
At the end of World War II, in order to raise funds to build the ORIGINAL Oak Harbor School District Memorial Stadium (off of Midway Boulevard, where a soccer field now still exists), a Turkey Shoot was held at City Beach (aka Windjammer Park).
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As a recent example as to the absolutely absurd extremes to which the K-12 system has gone in creating a “zero tolerance” mindset toward “firearms”:
“A 6-year-old Montgomery County boy was recently suspended from school for making a gun gesture with his thumb and forefinger.”
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Yes…those evil guns, and hammers…and blunt objects…
Interesting story on Brietbart.com:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/01/03/FBI-More-People-Killed-With-Hammers-and-Clubs-Each-Year-Than-With-Rifles?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BigGovernment+%28Big+Government%29According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.
Statistics from the FBI”
http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_08.html
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