by Rick Olson
/ 26 February 2018 26 September 2018
Insanity. Often described as doing the same thing and expecting a different result or outcome. School Shootings. We do the same thing over and over and over and the outcome is the same: Dead kids. Lots of dead kids.
April 20, 1999: Columbine High School. 15 Dead, 21 injured.
March 21, 2005: Red Lake Senior High School. 10 dead, 7 injured.
October 2, 2006: W. Nickel Mines School, PA. 6 dead, 3 injured.
April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech, 33 dead, 23 injured.
February 14, 2008: Northern Illinois University, 6 dead, 21 injured.
April 2, 2012: Oikos University, Oakland, 7 dead, 3 injured.
February 14, 2018: Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, 17 dead, 14 injured.
Doug Wyllie, Police One
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, in an interview with Doug Wyllie over at Police One, made the point,
“How many kids have been killed by school fire in all of North America in the past 50 years? Kids killed… school fire… North America… 50 years… How many? Zero. That’s right. Not one single kid has been killed by school fire anywhere in North America in the past half a century. Now, how many kids have been killed by school violence?”
Lt. Col. Dave Grossman
Lt. Col. Grossman rams home the point that we’ve hardened the infrastructure of our school buildings, making them fire resistive, yet we have failed to harden our environments for killing sprees. Still, we do the same thing over and over, tweaking things as we go, yet with these small meaningless tweaks we falsely expect a different result.
I’ve rolled my eyes at the rants from the anti-gun community who claim that a shooter with an (AR platform) rifle is no match against an armed person with a handgun. Well, I call B.S. A person charging down the hall, shooting… Now has to instantly modify his attack when handgun bullets start flying his way. The attacker now has to deal with that armed person. Unless that shooter has thoroughly trained for that moment,( and I’ve seen no evidence where any has) the eye he has on his prize is carnage… Not the engagement by another with a gun.
The teachers are there already. The school staff is there already. Their reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. They can serve as your immediate violent response. Best case scenario, they engage and stop the attacker, or it bursts his fantasy bubble and he commits suicide. Worst case scenario, the armed staff provides a distraction, and while he’s concentrating on killing them, he’s not killing more children.
Correia also adds,
“Don’t make it mandatory. In my experience, the only people who are worth a darn with a gun are the ones who wish to take responsibility and carry a gun. Make it voluntary. It is rather simple. Just make it so that your state’s concealed weapons laws trump the Federal Gun Free School Zones act. All that means is that teachers who voluntarily decide to get a concealed weapons permit are capable of carrying their guns at work. Easy. Simple. Cheap. Available now.”
I would dare also say that Firearms Instructors are complicit in the problem. Many are reputable, knowledgeable experts who have actually put in the work, time, training and study to be a bona fide “expert.” Others? Not so much. One can figure out who they are by looking at You tube and measuring the time they spend tearing down and trolling other instructors/gun guys who post material. A number of Firearms instructors have become some sort of a club where they become the self-appointed arbiters of deciding and opining what kind and how much training is required to make a commitment to carry a firearm in our schools among our children. It’s all BS and self-serves the egos of those people. It doesn’t serve to train anybody.
The problem is now. There has to be some starting point. There has to be a baseline. Training needs to be done in building blocks. Nobody ever becomes competent with a firearm overnight. Those who have become the, “experts” have put in the time, the effort and the work. The first thing you don’t hear from them is their long list of credentials. Instead, what you “receive” from them is helpful, meaningful information about what they are good at. A valuable morsel.
Having worked in Church Life Safety Training for the last six years, I have witnessed an overnight break-out of “Church Security Trainers.” I don’t have any opinion on their value or their merit, but I can say this. Training I provide deals with shooter events occurring in a faith-based environment. We do not train people how to be cops or even to be cop-like. We train people to engage a deadly threat. We train people to use verbal skills to de-escalate agitated persons. We train people to hone their skills of observation and we train people in principles of the use of deadly force.
Training people to effectively use firearms is a difficult task. Some come to training with the notion they already know everything they need to know. When we work on grip, trigger control, trigger reset and learning to draw from a holster, I find that folks with little or no experience are far easier to train because we’re not spending extra time pushing through long-term habits formed sometimes over years.
We’re at a crossroad where we need to ask trainers to give back to the community. Provide some training for nothing. Start training with the basics: Grip, trigger reset drills, and some range time, coupled with some deadly force/use of force training. Start creating building blocks for people to be trained. Make the training palatable and set goals. People mastering small bits a pieces will motivate them to move forward.
Until many within the Instructor community come down off their high horses and start really making that commitment to train people versus, showing off their, “mad skills,” things will not change. The anti-gun constituency are not moving off their positions, but then again, we are not really stealing their nonsense. Training is always ongoing…Training is journey, not a destination. As for the anti-gun crowd? They don’t know what they talking about, so stop quoting them. Stop engaging them. When they call for the killing of families because of NRA Membership or he killing of NRA members, what possible value can come from that conversation?
Rick Olson is a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, and a graduate of Southern New Hampshire University with a BA in Social Science. Rick subsequently attended Massachusetts School of Law in Andover MA. Rick takes up second amendment issues on Granite Grok, as well as issues surrounding hunting, fishing, trapping and wildlife issues. Rick Olson is a former Police Officer and Deputy Sheriff.
He is Past President of the New Hampshire Wildlife Federation, President of the Londonderry Fish & Game Club Rick is a nationally certified firearms instructor and a Hunter Education Instructor. He can frequently be found teaching Urban Rifle and Defensive Pistol classes as an Instructor with Defensive Strategies in Goffstown, NH. Rick resides in Manchester with his wife Lisa. He has four children and ten Grandchildren.
