Veterans Can Help Keep America’s Schools Safe
Michael R. Pompeo
Fox News
June 10, 2022
Nineteen precious children and two caring adults were murdered by a lone shooter at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Our country cries for answers, not political rhetoric. We must do all we can to prevent this horror from happening again. To do so requires pertinent action and the application of time-tested principles adapted from our nation’s military.
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While focused programs to foreclose the opportunity of individuals with a history of violence or who are mentally ill and have demonstrated dangerous behaviors, should be a priority, general gun control is an ineffective means to curtail attacks at schools, which may also be carried out using a vehicle or a bomb. Our Navy protects its vessels through the adoption of a layered defense.
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Our Navy protects its vessels through the adoption of a layered defense.
We must protect the precious vessels that are our schools and our children this way. The first layer is the formation of a defensive zone to obtain advantage; the second layer is intelligence gathering; the third, interception; the fourth, point defense. Many of these individual layers are already in place in our nation’s schools. What is needed is the systematic application of all layers of defense in each school, for each layer reinforces and is dependent upon the others.
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These two types of assessments, using different institutional skills and vantages, must form a continuum. Trained veterans would fortify this endeavor, while lending a perspective concerning the anticipation of violence that is obtained through military training. Such a national program would be affordable and could employ 200,000 veterans, whose salaries could be covered by a mix of federal, state, and local funds.
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The introduction of armed veterans, supplemented by a hidden-carry program for teachers or the addition of more armed guards or officers attached to schools, should be considered as a key component of any time-urgent point defense, for experience shows that school assaults may end before any outside police force can arrive on school premises, much less make entry to apply force. In every case, it is imperative that all those armed in schools be subject to routine psychological screens designed by professionals.
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Read the full op-ed HERE