Devin Standard is an NRA Certified pistol instructor, a semi-skilled hunter, a defense industry executive and a family many who strives for Liberty rather than security in his life-time. He wishes the same for you and yours.
(Editor’s note: This article was a submission by GunsAmerica contributor Devin S. Standard, a high-tech defense industry executive, counter-terrorism consultant and volunteer NRA firearms instructor who writes about his adventures with firearms. Mr. Standard wishes you Liberty rather than security in your lifetime and he is willing to help you find weapons and tactics training for your family, your school or church group.)
Senseless violence, bloodshed, mayhem and death, mostly preventable, darkened the doors of another college campus this week. Whether the evildoer was a terrorist, a criminal, mentally ill or a spurned lover, it makes no difference as we must stop giving them the time and opportunity to spill the blood and splatter the brains of innocents.
I have a son in college, a daughter who is a high school senior and a son who is a high school freshman. I love them, as you love your children, and as such am seriously concerned about the criminally negligent liberal logic, policy decisions and mentality, which all help to create gun-free zones, passively naïve students and teachers, as well as insufficient and inadequate responses to active shooter attacks.
It is time to stop creating nearly cost-free, killing zones on campuses around the United States. The government has proven that it cannot protect you, and your loved ones 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per yea. In a nation of 320 million people with 1 million sworn law enforcement officers, a couple of million security guards, 12 million hunters, 22 million veterans of the armed forces, 11 million licensed concealed carry practitioners, 5 million NRA members and 99,000 schools, our students and their parents, deserve better.
I suspect, that 99.9 percent of law-abiding gun owners, carriers, competitors, and enthusiasts would gladly engage in a gunfight with a child-murdering madman (or madmen) at the peril of our own lives, if we could mitigate the slaughter of innocents. Note: I say mitigate because I am talking about reducing the body count from 30 to 20 and 10 down to 5, 2, 1, or less and not eliminating them entirely. Perfection should not be expected in this, or any other endeavor, and we must be realistic.
Leftwing Democrat dreams of creating “safe” institutions of learning by the creation of laws, regulations and “Gun Free Zone” signs is an abject failure; proven by the deaths of far too many. It is time we Americans act like our brave forefathers and take an active role in the vigorous and armed defense of innocents. It is time to understand that all adult Americans are obligated, as a duty of citizenship, to participate in the day to day defense of our families in concert with law enforcement.
If we want to stop the escalation of the body count at schools, churches and other “safe” places we need to relegate gun control and its related theories to the ash heap of history.
We need to immediately undertake the following 12 actions:
- Eliminate “Gun Free Zone” laws from all schools, churches, playgrounds, parks, and other public properties.
- Deputize all able-bodied, and willing, American adults and train them, and equip them for active shooter response. Community Emergency Response Teams (CERT) is an effective and existing model of citizen disaster response volunteers working under the auspices of FEMA and trained by local firefighters and police. Firearms training and active shooter response should just be another series of training modules undertaken in concert with local 1st Responders.
- Invite these new Volunteer American Deputies, part of CERT; or not, to assist school and church security in armed patrol and armed response to active shooters.
- Indemnify these volunteers, as we indemnify Good Samaritans who render first aid to traffic victims, during the course of active shooter incidents.
- Create a FRS radio network, and a badge identification program so police, firefighters, school staff and Volunteer American Deputies can easily identify and communicate with one another during any future incidents.
- Make all existing concealed carry licenses good nationwide and welcome law-abiding gun carriers as opposed to scorning them. If you come from a state with no license requirements, such as Vermont, you would have reciprocity as well.
- Create a nationwide action shooting league which competes in Counter-Active Shooter contests thereby giving these Volunteer American Deputies a place to practice and hone their life saving skills.
- Create Counter-Active Shooter Merit badges for Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Explorers and teach them how to defend themselves and their school mates.
- Teach marksmanship and firearms safety in all schools so the children will be familiar with firearms, able to understand what they do, how they operate, when they are empty, jammed or malfunctioning. Make it a graduation requirement. There are plenty of NRA certified instructors who would be happy to donate time to this effort.
- Require law enforcement and military members, retiring after 20 years of service, to serve an additional 5 years in school security in order to qualify for their pensions. I suspect most of these honorable folks would be proud to serve in this capacity.
- Harden all class rooms. NIJ IIIA armor defeats most handgun and shotgun rounds and is inexpensive. Armor all class room doors and school exterior doors.
- Teach every child to be vigilant and to be ready to fight instead of allowing himself/herself to be slaughtered like an animal. Make unarmed self-defense, escape and evasion part of gym curriculum.
Having worked in the defense and law enforcement industries for a decade, as well as having participated in competitive shooting sports and having attended a large number of firearm training schools, I am certain that the vast majority of our industry partners would gladly step up and help in the equipping and training of our new Volunteer American Deputies.
Let’s stop creating victims and start, personally, participating in the defense and safeguarding of our loved ones together with law enforcement and other responsible adults. Let’s teach our children to actively participate in their own self-defense rather than allowing them to be passively herded to their deaths. Go out and convince your congressman, your school board and your local sheriff or police chief. We can stop the madness with American courage and action. We are not a nation of sheep.
How about controlling the psychiatrists and therapists and others who have prescribed various psychotropic drugs to most of the non-terrorist mass shooters in the USA and other countries?
Any such prescriptions should be required to be reviewed by a medical doctor for any potential effects combined with any other medications the patient is taking. Patients taking psychotropic drugs need intense monitoring for undesirable side effects – which in many of these mass shooting cases seems to be committing violence followed by suicide. Despite being ’round the bend’ it’s possible for people with mental problems, caused by drugs or not, to make extensive, long term, complex, plans for mass murder.
If a person who sometimes has thoughts of doing violence is kept from acting on them due to an inability to concentrate long enough on a plan, or has fear or anxiety about the consequences – what may happen when such a person is given drugs that help them concentrate and relieve their crippling fear and anxiety, without treating the underlying violent tendencies?
They could be come a hyper focused, happy and carefree mass murderer.
I could only wish that the above programs could be put into place and our Children would be safer in schools, churches, playgrounds, malls, and on our streets, etc. A 20 year Retired Veteran I am, A 8 Degrees of Black Belt Martial Arts Senior Instructor I am, A former Professional Security Officer I have been, A loving Father and Grandfather to my Family I am – who is sickened by our Society that lets these incidents happen in the name of PC or budget constraints that then provide the opportunity for someone to be able to cause such incidents to happen. I have seen schools with no screening of students, persons, staff member when entering a school, doors left open to areas of the school that someone could just walk into to do harm, and a society that is unwilling to accept the concept of Proactive, Preventative actions that would make our whole society safer. Go to some other countries in the world and you will see Security personnel all over the places where people are going about their business daily with no problem with the security personnel in place, knowing that the security personnel will do their best to protect them from someone that is willing to cause an incident. Armed personnel walking around places cannot prevent all incidents from happening but it sure beats the alternative. Sorry I am just an old man that has seen too much in his life of stupid politicians, government officials, administrators, action groups, etc, etc, I think you get the point – that let incidents in our society happen.
Excellent article.
I think that the expectation of the people in the US is for the government to provide safety to all citizens through the Local, State or Federal level. This is what people that are against firearms count on, and where their ideology rests on. The expectation that government can provide such is not real. Can’t figure out why they defend that point (as in the government providing such = unicorns) Sounds good and politicians get the votes of some.
In contrast, one can take the example of the State of Ohio, where the AG encountered an opportunity to provide some safety in schools, and the private community pitched in to make training available to those teachers so that they can be armed in schools. Coming from a conservative State, this is a good example of how to deal with the issues, and provide an opportunity for the community to get involved in public safety through programs of training (excellent trainers-research what they did for teachers) and for the private community to pitch-in with resources to help.
I agree with the author, I can say that anyone that keeps their firearms training skills honed will likely reduce the body count greatly, and before the police can get there. This is not an emotional issue, but one of logic. Proposing that gun control and gun free zones will vanish the school shootings (and other examples of violence) is an astonishing example of ignorance by choice. Gun control is ignorance, and no one can empower those who chose to remain ignorant. Ignorance is broken by self-empowered people who welcome difficult conversations. The so-called “gun control” followers don’t welcome difficult conversations.
I agree with all these ideas but I have some things to add.
Safety should be not only be proactive but also muscle memory. You can read and know all you want about hitting a baseball but if you only have one at bat per year you’re going to strike out. Schools need to practice lockdown and disaster drills more often. Substitutes and maintenance guys that travel from school to school within a district could easily never be in a drill with how often we practice now.
The bells should be standardized. This is where FEMA could actually help. Bells that designate fire drills, lockdown, disaster, should be standardized across the country in schools and all buildings where people work and gather. When I hear a bell I should not have the question “Do I exit because there’s a fire or do I hunker down?” I should be able to learn these bells when I’m little and take that safety knowledge with me throughout my life and know what to do immediately.
Large school districts should have someone who oversees lockdown and disaster drills. That person could travel from school to school to watch, critique, and grade the administrators and create a sense of urgency to take safety serious. Too many administrators just go through the motions. In areas of small school districts they could get together to use someone who travels district to district to oversee these drills.
While the points are valid they play into the left’s game of ignoring the root causes of violence. These points are rreactive, not proactive. A proactive response would be to avoid the situation in the first place, better parenting, stop over medicating our children, foster better community relationships so when the warning signs go up (and there have been ample warning signs in EVERY multiple victim shooting) neighbors and community members act BEFORE something happens. Get people jobs, lay off the video games, get kids outside. These are tougher to do but the a left hates them because (A) they can’t be legislated and (B) it highlights the responsibility of the individuals.
This THE best forward thinking plan I have ever seen. It will discourage crimes on many other levels as well as mitigate active shooter situations.
Honestly, I don’t think this plan will work. Hardened schools with armed guards spells prison. Boy scouts, and girl scouts with combat patches are children soldiers. Any Military and LEO veteran with 20 years of service and ready to retire, that are “required” to deal with adolescents to receive their pensions are going to tell you to jam it. This plan is merely a finger in the hole of the leaky dam.
Society and community are breaking down. Guns and training are not going to solve that. The recluse in his mothers basement will still feel dejected and scorned. While the socially adaptable and pre-occupied people have their daily activities set before them. Those that are not, have suffered irrevocably from the hermetically sealed social bubbles created by electronic media. Generally, people don’t care about each other, and don’t have to now in order to survive.
The simple solution to the “mass shooting” problem is to have ATF add a couple of questions to the 4473.
m. Do you still live at home?
If yes, answer question n.
n. In the basement?
If yes, the transfer cannot be completed.
Wow…actually sane reasonable solutions. But you can hear the liberals and dems screaming already! This will not have a chance in our PC society!
This old conservative would gladly give his life for any young child…wonder if the PC crowd would as well.
Excellent analysis. These 12 points would drive the psycho-killer problem into near extinction. These rules would also cause a grave set-back for Islamic terror antics.
Instead of sending our Military all over the world to be the “Police of the World” ( and getting slaughtered) , post trained, armed G.I.s in every school in the country. This would discourage some bastardly shooter from sneaking into the school and could mitigate casualties if the prick shooter did start a rampage.
Think about this: what would some nutty shooter think if he rounded a corner in a school and came face to face with a fully armed, body armored military man with a loaded and cocked M-16?
Being military and having over 20 years service, I would gladly serve in a school security role as this would help free up certified law enforcement personnel for their job duties elsewhere. I would recommend a two-person rule for those retired military school security personnel. Also, as most of us – these days – have served in a combat zone, we could help with the weapons and other life-saving training (certify us either with NRA or local Parks and Wildlife as Hunter/Firearms Safety Instructors). Shoot – Move – Communicate
My Congressman, Sen. Jeff Merkley, has said he will not vote for a nationwide CCW license. With nothing but Democrats representing our state, any sane legislation will never be put in effect for the people.
This guy doesn’t propose a national CCW……and no one should. His exact words are “◾Make all existing concealed carry licenses good nationwide” In other words, program stays as is(with the states), but we have nationwide reciprocity. I’m sure you know what that means. This is what I got out of his article anyways. I don’t know of any sane person who would advocate the US Govt create another program (especially for CCW’s) that they can’t manage…..they can’t properly manage the programs they DO have. But I fully agree…..No National licenses…..for anything!
Many fine declarations have been made by this contributor not only in favour of a founding ideal and Firstly Constitutional Law but a common belief of fellow Americans who abroad our may differed States wilfully support solving this current easy attack on our globally integrated learning, entertaining and general populace attractions. If we as a people, continually want a feeling of freedom in our public national boundaries, we as a good people need to focus on simply true solutions for the simple defined task of self preservation.
Fully Agree! As I have already stated on GA….I have always learned and been of the mindset that security is EVERYONES business and responsibility…..whether its a 1st responder(not a necessarily a cop/LE but the first person who CAN take appropriate action) or someone reporting suspicious activity…..or those that may do both. Everyone needs to get involved, whether its drawing your concealed carry weapon or escorting people to safety out of a danger area….or at least how to be a good bystander if aren’t the take action type of person! Have drills, just like they used to practice for nuke attacks or natural disasters. Have a national active shooter training day! Have FEMA start being useful and do this type of training instead of building remote prison camps…and what else do they do?…Oh…nothing! But yeah, good ideas…..actual ideas of positive things to do instead of just trying to pass more useless laws. Not sure about the boyscout thing….not sure about them since they have adopted new policies. They may not be up to much with their newer more “feminine” regulations. But I digress…..Good ideas!!! Will copy and paste these into an email to my reps.