Debate Over Ways To Improve School Safety
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-19/debate-over-ways-improve-school-safety
Last week’s horrific attack inside a Connecticut elementary school has sent a wave of anxiety among parents across the country. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut had a very good security system in place, and the teachers and staff there were well trained, but no system and no amount of training can create a completely secure environment. By every measure students are safer in school than anywhere else. Still, many parents are asking if schools in their own neighborhoods have adequate protections in place for their students: Please join us to discuss school safety.
Guests
Kenneth Trump
president of National School Safety Services.
Lucinda Roy
alumni and distinguished professor at Virginia Tech, and author of the novel "Lady Moses" and several poetry books.
Christine Bailor
safety and security coordinator for Henrico County Public Schools.
David Osher
vice president of the American Institutes for Research (AIR), AIR Institute fellow and co-director of the Human and Social Development Program.
Comments
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The FBI has all of that data, data the fully supports the effectiveness of CC upwards of 700,000 times a year civilians successfully defend themselves and their families with a firearm more often than not never discharging the weapon. Compare this to the 10 or 11,000 homicides with a firearm and the numbers speak for themselves. Also put into perspective 11,000 deaths. We are a country of 350,000,000 people. Do the math.
Please study American history, world history, the second amendment and why it is so imporntant. This is America not a police state.
The Diane Rehm show has been among the absolute worst offenders in biased media during this tragedy, showing me that without question no taxpayer money should go to programming as Orwellian as this. I've listened to NPR for many years daily and have always accepted their slightly left leaning broadcasting on account of the quality of their shows; no longer. I can't support broadcasting that is treasonous and poisonous and false. This is our country. Liberty and freedom are too precious and should never be stripped away due to knee jerk reactions and a mind controlling nationally broadcast publicly funded media. I am truly sickened. Shame on you Diane Rehm.
Oh, how I agree with you!! I do think it's something school communities could get behind. We spend huge amounts of money on fire safety for schools which is of course extremely important and should be done, but the last time anyone died in a fire in schools was like 50 years ago. Literally not one death from fire. We can put sensible resources into school security if we prioritze the way we do fire.
Let's just start with having single entry points to schools and really making front doors very difficult access, just that one step is so doable and important...
As a line, first repsonder, police officer in a good sized city in the midwest I am struck with the focus on gun control and school security since last friday's events. I am struck by what is lacking.
My fear is that we are looking at the easy issues rather than what I see is the true root of this high profile problem which is, as Roland pointed out, the state of mental health treatment in the US.
The seeds of our next tragedy have already been planted in the mind of some other ill person and we are not going to be able to deal with it completely if we only look at the narrow, easy fixes that have been discussed this far.
We need to keep the issue of mental health treatment as high or higher in the pecking order of national discussion as we have the discussion of gun control, and school safety.
Mental Illness drove this terrible event and that made national news, but untreated mental illness tears relentlessly away at far more areas of society than just this one event. The lives that are devastaed by mental illness are greater in number than the staff and children in that school.
The devastation of mental illness spreads much farther and deeper than this one event. It is so insidious and causes so much damage both physical and emotional.
Even though in this instance one can see the blood, the death and the suffering, there is even more damagehidden in the scores of homeless mentally ill, the hundreds of suicides both attempted and completed, the emotional pain carried for life in a child's heart, from an ill parent's words and actions.
Please let us speak at length about that, along with the guns and metal detectors. Even more so!
gerard0183: We don't know yet, and may never know, the motives that drove the shooter to commit this heinous act in Newtown, CT last week. However, it is clear that it was the byproduct of a deeply disturbed mind.
I personally feel that each and every person in society can choose to contribute to the healing of the mentally ill, by meeting these people with compassion, understanding, kindness, and love.
Unfortunately it seems that many, if not most people, do the opposite. People who are "shy" or "introverted" or "quiet" are too often ignored, ostracized, teased, bullied, or worse. Kids who have trouble controlling their tempers are locked away, punished, medicated. This approach clearly does not work.
There is a stigma associated with mental illness. People fear the mentally ill, and this tragedy is exacerbating those fears. Imagine what life would be like for you, if every person you met avoided you, ignored you, looked upon you with suspicion, feared you. How would you feel? What if your mother had done that too?
I do not say this to in any way excuse the horrors that were committed. However, I think that we are looking in the wrong direction for solutions to mental illness. We should work on supporting the mentally ill, understanding them, helping them. A school psychologist is in no way equipped to cure students who have deep spiritual and emotional deficits.
nancy5000 wrote:
"Let's just start with having single entry points to schools and really making front doors very difficult access, just that one step is so doable and important"
I don't mean any disrespect, but this is the kind of shallow thinking that springs up around incidents like this. Single point entry? Seriously? OK, let's concrete up all the other doors in the school. Now, the school needs a new airhandler for the HVAC system. How is that going to come in. The principal needs a new desk. Are you going to haul that in through the front door? A building with the size and services of the normal school needs multiple access. How do you think the fire department is going to feel about everyone having to pile out the front door?
I heard the President's press conference earlier today. I don't think there was one thing in there that would have prevented what happened last Friday - including the additional background checks for resales. Mrs. Lanza owned her guns legally. Unless we go back to muskets where it takes you a minute or two to reload, you're not going to eliminate large-casualty incidents like this. Sorry. But Congress will probably pass some convoluted law that, in the end, won't help, but it will please the public and make them think they're doing something.
As I've been saying, bad s- happens. It always has and it always will. Other posters have hit the nail on the head where it should. Our country is SPRITUALLY sick and that's where our focus should be.
Fortress America.
That's what the gun lovers want for themselves....and, unfortunately, for all the rest of us. We seem to always have the tail wagging the dog.....the one percent dictating the level of freedom and peace that the rest of us must accept (endure? )
Australia, like the US, was populated by immigrants, many of whom arrived without their own consent. Australia was at one time used for penal colonies. The US had slaves and indentured servants here in droves. But Australia decided that more stringent gun controls were worth the effort. And most of those from there welcome the greater safety. And isn't it ironic that during the Bush years the righties were against any changes in security? Even W resisted any in depth investigation of 9/11 for a while. Short memories!!
Gunfights must be entirely outlawed at all schools and public venues. NO arms allowed at all. Signs in English defining no-weapons areas should be printed in multiple languages and cartoon figures if necessary. The comment about having a single ENTRY point is valid....with the emphasis on the word entry, but multiple exits for fire/safety. Anyone who has tried to enter a military base or manufacturing site or pharma site or critical lab knows that this principle is in place....no entry or exit without in depth guarded scrutiny.
Yesterday a Bloomington, IN high school student bragged that he was excited about the CT shootings and literally felt challenged to "top that score"; six weapons and ammunition were confiscated from his home, though "most" of the ammo was in locked storage. The kid is in custody and being examined for his aberrant feelings.
A small beginning to a task long left undone.
"Yesterday a Bloomington, IN high school student bragged that he was excited about the CT shootings and literally felt challenged to "top that score"; six weapons and ammunition were confiscated from his home, though "most" of the ammo was in locked storage. The kid is in custody and being examined for his aberrant feelings."
"Our country is SPRITUALLY sick and that's where our focus should be."
Thanks for the great example that makes my point, HA.
"Gunfights must be entirely outlawed at all schools and public venues. NO arms allowed at all. Signs in English defining no-weapons areas should be printed in multiple languages and cartoon figures if necessary."
Brilliant! That will do it! Tell me, Abe, would you put up a "No Gun Zone" sign on your house? If not, why not?
"The comment about having a single ENTRY point is valid....with the emphasis on the word entry, but multiple exits for fire/safety. Anyone who has tried to enter a military base or manufacturing site or pharma site or critical lab knows that this principle is in place....no entry or exit without in depth guarded scrutiny."
It's utterly ridiculous. One way exit doors are fine. Did you ever have your buddies sneak you in the movie theatre when you were a kid? Are you going to post an armed guard at every exit in every school in the nation? Uhh ... before you answer, there are roughly 140K of them including post-secondary schools.
I repeat, "Our country is SPRITUALLY sick and that's where our focus should be" but you barely hear that mentioned.
That's sort of like saying you shouldn't protect your house from crime with alarms or locked doors, you should instead focus on the root societal problems. We should do both but it is only sensible to take reasonable measures to protect your home from crime with simple deterrents like alarms and locked doors and windows.
By single point of entry I meant a single main door that is used for people to move in and out during the school day. Other doors used for maintenance and fire exits, etc. can simply be locked. Laminated glass doors with an alrm would slow someone down, metal doors would be even better. Office buildings are protected with similar measures.
It is clear that he accessed the building through a reception window that was easily broken and that a closed, locked door saved some of those children and a teacher as he knew it would take time and ammunition to try to open it and so did not try. Slowing a madman down while waiting for police could very possibly save lives.
Hoping for a spiritual cure but in the mean time I want to protect kids in practical effective ways that are achievable in the short term.
"Did you ever have your buddies sneak you in the movie theatre when you were a kid?"
Do you think little children who are supervised all day long are somehow going to open a one way exit door for an intruder to come in??? They don't need guards, just alarms so that they go off when opened. Even hotels are secured in this way.
Sorry but securing schools a bit more in order buy time for the police to arrive is just not as crazy and shallow as you seem to think. There are common sense precautions that are used in government buildings, hotels, office buildings, etc. It's just logic.
SIMPLE solution.
Arm the teachers, Arm the Principal and staff. Arm the custodial staff.
Make sure they have the latest and greatest kill-the-most-folks-in-fewest-seconds weapons so as to not be bested by would -be assassins. Plant some snipers around the playgrounds.
More guns for everyone- Arm the students, what the hey?
We’ll all be REALLY safe then.
Or?
Perhaps it would make more sense to act some common sense legislation to ban easy access to “weapons of mass destruction”?
In Israel, every school and most establishments have armed guards.
Every adult, men and women, are trained in combat and use of firearms.
This is necessary because of the state of their nation, where terrorism
by their Muslim their neighbors is an ever present threat.
What we have here in the US is terrorism perpetrated by our own citizens.
But the ultimate outcome is likely the same, that is, if we are not able to
change the course of our nation, our culture, a “martial society” will
be necessary, but it won’t be enough.
As always, addressing the root causes will ultimately be most effective,
but doing this is a long term proposition, not a short term one. It will require
deep changes to our moral and financial values.
Congratulations on the words of Dr. Roy. It is a relief to hear that we are to take responsibility for even an extreme case like Sunnybrook.
Besides politics, extreme views on either side of the issue of gun-control etc. We are in desperate need of a cultural shift. I too am optimistic that we are safer and more aware today of so many underlying issues in our societies. Let us just have more people like Dr. Roy and Diana Rhem to remind us and constantly bring up these conversations.
I work with governmental agencies, including teachers and law enforcement, on a regular basis. Knowing that this terrible incident will be the topic of discussion at many future conferences and training sessions, I began a survey earlier this week asking teachers and administrators 10 questions about security in their schools. There is a huge gap between the response that I receive from teachers and admins on these questions which indicates that their priorities may differ. Also, on the issue of 'armed teachers', you might be surprised to know how many were concerned that some of their fellow teachers have "EMOTIONAL ISSUES!" and therefore "shouldn't carry firearms in school."
nancy5000 wrote:
"Do you think little children who are supervised all day long are somehow going to open a one way exit door for an intruder to come in??? "
Do you think primary schools are the only place where shootings take place???
These are complete knee-jerk reactions. Ban guns, lockup anybody who might be crazy, build fortresses with armed guards. There's very little thought or practicality that goes into these ideas.
I hesitate to point this out because it would only broaden left wingnut demands for gun control. A recent PBS documentary on Jesse James illustrated how members of the Confederate guerrilla marauder group he joined wore at least three revolvers, giving them at least 18 shots without reloading. I believe these were single-action black powder cap and ball revolvers that had to be cocked for each shot. The guerrillas used them with deadly effect on Federal troops armed with single-shot rifles, producing more than one massacre. One might expect that unarmed small children would be a much softer target. With four cap and ball revolvers, you have four more shots than a 20-round rifle clip, just a few short of the number killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Evil will always find a way, no matter what "reasonable" laws you pass. You can assume that someone bent on destruction will find the means. He could just as well have constructed a fuel-air bomb with a propane tank. Or two, and killed even more. The only effective safeguards will be those that identify the evil and frustrate it.
If we're going to get serious about making schools safer, locks, signs and calling 911 aren't going to do it.
School personnel need to be trained and equipped to cope with threats. Arming key personnel with tasers would be well worth considering - they're (usually) non-lethal, and will temporarily disable a person long enough to disarm them.
A proactive approach to identifying, treating and tracking people with serious mental health problems is needed.
Restrictions on law-abiding gun owners will not make us safer. Government can't keep drugs out of our country. We've been invaded by 12 million illegal aliens. We have to take responsibility for our own personal safety - government can't do it.