The royal palace guards debut their new bullet catcher.[/caption]I am a 6 year veteran of the Navy and a high school English teacher. The only people in my school who have more weapons training than I are a few subs who are retired police officers. I carried a firearm several times a week for years, frequently went to the shooting range, and taught others how to shoot. I also ran force protection for 1/4 of my ship. Basically that means I was responsible for improving the security of our ship and ensuring personnel were properly trained to implement our security protocols. One of my jobs was to analyze the ship's weaknesses and develop methods of securing those weaknesses, or limiting damage caused by a group exploiting those weaknesses.
One thing I quickly learned is that total safety is an impossibility. We had armed guards at every entrance. Multiple layers of security at every access point. We ran drills every four days. Even so, if someone really wanted to attack us, our reasonable goal would be to limit casualties and damage. Total prevention is impossible.
In response to the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the NRA is calling for armed guards at all schools. I'm not sure proponents of this idea have thought everything through. First of all, many school districts have been cutting teachers. I'm not sure where districts are going to find the money to hire armed security. I'm sure that you could just eliminate another teacher or two. You know, the ones who are fresh out of school, burning with a passion to help students. That's an excellent trade-off for the illusion of safety.
