A Police presence in every school across our beautiful country?

Antique gun collector Richard Kravarik poses with an antique hand gun during the East Coast Fine Arms Show in Stamford, Connecticut, January 5, 2013. (REUTERS/Carlo Allegri)

Dear Readers,

This morning, I bring you an article by Kim Palmer, verbatim of Reuters with additional reporting by Drew Singer in Pittsburgh; (editing by Greg McCune and Lisa Shumaker) as published in the Toronto Sun about 'Ohio town allowing guns in school'. Below is my response and below that is room for your comment, unless you want to email me directly but please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent.

A small town Ohio school board voted unanimously to allow four employees who have permits to carry concealed weapons to bring their guns to school once they have some tactical training, the school superintendent said on Friday.

Jamie Grime, superintendent of the Montpelier Village schools in western Ohio, would not identify the four employees but said they are not teachers.

The Ohio decision comes as school boards and administrators across the country grapple with how to keep students safe following the massacre of 20 small children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last month. The National Rifle Association, which advocates for gun owners, has proposed putting armed guards in every school. President Barack Obama and some other politicians want more controls on the possession and purchases of guns and ammunition.

While some schools nationwide have armed guards or a police presence on the grounds, allowing teachers or school support workers to bear arms is more controversial. Ohio law leaves the decision of who can carry a gun on school grounds up to the individual districts, provided those who are armed have proper state concealed carry permits.

“It’s a crazy world; it’s crazy out there. We lock the doors of our school and we pretend it’s secure,” said Grime, whose three children go to the Montpelier Village school that houses kindergarten through high school students. The school board in Montpelier Village, a town of 4,100 people, also cited in its decision on Wednesday the shooting at a high school in the town of Chardon near Cleveland last February that claimed the lives of three students.
“The recent shootings have made me re-evaluate my thoughts on how to ensure that our students have a safe place to learn.” said Debra Clum, a Montpelier school board member. Grime said the plan will not go into effect for at least six weeks to give the school district time to conduct an education campaign. At least two other Ohio school districts — Tipp City and Springboro — said they have begun discussing whether to allow armed employees but no decisions have been made.

“We had an organizational meeting last week and we are looking into the legality of the issue of arming employees,” said John Kronour, superintendent of the Tipp City school district. The school board was split on the issue during the discussion last week, Kronour said of the district with five buildings and 2,680 students.

“We would be looking for feedback from the community and wouldn’t make a decision without input first,” he said. Springboro school board member Jim Rigano put the topic on the agenda for Thursday night’s meeting, he said. The debate showed that people were on both sides of the issue though perhaps leaning in favor, said Rigano, who has a concealed carry permit and favors arming school employees.

Since the meeting, Rigano said one employee of the school district with 5,700 students has asked to bring a weapon into the school. “I wanted to at least start a discussion, a serious discussion,” Rigano said. “If the conclusion is that we look at our safety plan and everyone feels that we are safe enough then OK but some people think that conceal carry is a good answer.” Rigano believes that allowing employees to bring guns into schools could be a deterrent to shootings.

“If the shooter believes there is a good chance of encountering someone with a gun that will stop them,” he said. “Shooters come in knowing schools are a gun free zone.” In the neighboring state of Pennsylvania, the Butler Area School District, outside of Pittsburgh, had decided to arm security guards four days before the Connecticut shooting. But after the attack, the district accelerated the process, Superintendent Mike Strutt said.

The 14 schools in the district were already monitored by retired police officers. The school district got permission from a judge to allow the officers to carry personal firearms while on school grounds.
“We don’t think we’re security experts,” Strutt said. “We simply did what we thought was best for our school district.”

                                                                 High School Kids.
my response......

Despite pressure being applied by the usual suspects, it appears that reason is winning the day as more and more school boards are coming to the conclusion that Wayne Lapierre of the NRA has made a valid and apparently indisputable point when he reasoned that 'the way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun' when he called for armed guards in schools, laying much of the blame for the shootings on media conglomerates and prosecutors unwilling to enforce existing laws, according to Dan Bigman, Managing Editor for Business News at Forbes.

                                                           More High School Kids.

It should be no secret that 'Gun Free Zones' are hunting grounds for innocent people! Just think about a violent, homicidal madman, looking to claim his 5 seconds of fame and hoping to go from a disaffected loser to the most infamous person in the world, if only for a brief period of time. One way to accomplish this goal is to kill a whole bunch of innocent folks. So where’s the best place to go shoot all these people? Obviously, it is someplace where nobody can shoot back. That 'No Guns Allowed' sign is not a cross that wards off bad men. It is pathetic wishful thinking foisted on an unwary public. The only people who obey 'No Guns Allowed' signs are people who obey the law. People who obey the law aren’t going on rampages. As is always the case, people who want to commit a crime...well they don’t care about our laws!

                                                           and More High School Kids.

Liberals may whale that it is unrealistic, if not impossible to have trained folks in our schools. They even attempt to back this up with all sorts of terrible worst case scenarios about all of the horrors that will happen with a gun in the classroom. Incredibly, some folks even called for the federal government to ban handguns in Canada after the shooting death in May 2007 of 15-year-old Jordan Manners at his school, C.W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute but after this disgusting school shooting led to School Safety Committee to explore options to protect our children that led to some Toronto schools allowing for armed Police in school.

                                                           and even More High School Kids.

By 2009, the total number of Toronto high schools with officers grew to 50, as each were assigned a Police officer who worked full-time with students under the School Resource Officer program. The program was the result of the Toronto District School Board's plan to increase school safety following a 2008 report on school violence by Toronto lawyer Julian Falconer, who headed a school community safety advisory panel established after the fatal shooting. The report made more than 100 recommendations, including buying sniffer dogs that would seek out guns in student lockers and other hiding places. Chief Bill Blair says having officers in schools has produced results, such as a drop in the number of criminal charges, but he said that's not the point of the program. "We're not going to measure our success by the number of charges laid or drugs and weapons seized. The success of these programs is to prevent crime and prevent victimization"

                                                             and another High School Kid.

So the answer is yes, we have had optimum protection for our children in a few Toronto High Schools for several years now and there hasn't been another killing since but a Police presence is not in every school across our beautiful country, and that worries me!





                                    
                                                             -30-
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 Today's tweet......

 
Guns and gangs in our schools can be prevented! http://bigdaddyharley09.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-worst-case-scenario.html?spref=tw A worst case scenario? #yorkregion #toronto #yeg