PRIORITIZING CHILDRENS’ SAFETY WHILE IN SCHOOL SHOULD BE THE AIM OF ALL SCHOOL DISTRICTS, BUT IT ISN’T

CHILDREN ARE PAWNS IN A DANGEROUS GAME PLAYED BY THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION AND BY MANY STATE GOVERNMENTS*

MULTISERIES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SAFETY

PART THREE

SUBPART ONE

The Nation’s public schools exist for one salient purpose: to sharpen logical-thinking skills in our Nation’s youths so they become confident in their abilities and productive members of society.

Something hinders the effectuation of that purpose: school shootings.

Board members, administrators, teachers, support staff, and children cannot concentrate on the core purpose of education when they fear the next school shooting incident.

There were four major, widely reported tragic school shooting incidents (K-12) in the past 20+ years:**

Columbine in 1999, Sandy Hook in 2012, Stoneman Douglas in 2018, and, most recently, Robb Elementary in 2022.

These incidents were devastating, profoundly affecting both the children and adults directly involved and the Nation.

Each incident is unacceptable. Yet, all were preventable.

What are the States doing about this? Some States are doing much; many others little to prevent the next school shooting. See the ecs.org report. 

States generally, but not invariably, delegate the responsibility for developing and implementing school security plans to the school districts and many have enacted statutes dictating policy in that regard. Id.

There are 13,349 School Districts in the Country, and 731 are in New York.

The largest School District in New York and in the Nation is the New York City School District, and it has an enrollment of 1,007,610 (K-12 Public Schools) as of June 30, 2021. 

The New York City School District has 1,400 schools, one-third of all the public schools in the State.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) is the sole bargaining agent for teachers, non-supervisory educators, and paraprofessionals for the City School District. 

A rational person would think that given the size of the NYC School District (the City is divided into 32 geographic districts and 2 Citywide districts), and given the severity of violent crime in the City, and a host of related societal problems, the District would be a leader in “hardening,” (fortifying) schools against armed attack. But that isn’t true. See articles in the New York Post, the Washington Times, and the National Review.

The UFT, taking its cue from the Biden Administration and from the National Education Association (NEA), adamantly opposes implementing the “hardening” of schools, claiming that it doesn’t work. 

Yet, this notion is at loggerheads with the position of the New York State Legislature that passed, in 2018, a bill funding schools specifically to use armed personnel “To strengthen security and help keep students safe.” 

The view of the Huntington School District, on Long Island, aligns with that of the State’s Legislators in Albany. The view of the UFT does not.

See the Arbalest Quarrel companion article, posted on January 30, 2023.

The Huntington School District has implemented a school safety program that makes use of armed staff to protect children, teachers, and staff. See the article in Newsday, and wshu public radio.

The use of armed guards has stoked resistance even though such use of armed guards is authorized “on school grounds” but not “in the school.”  That has done nothing to placate deep-seated antipathy on the part of some parents and teachers who oppose all use of armed guards, notwithstanding that the armed school resource officers (SROs), not police officers.

But what explains this strong resistance? 

There is a reluctance, even a hysterical reaction, to the use of armed police or armed school resource officers (“SROs”) at schools even as their effectiveness in protecting students, teachers, and administrative officials from aggressive armed assault is clear. See the article from the rand corporation.  

This is a disturbing trend. And it is illustrated both in the New York City School District, and some of the other largest school districts in other areas of the Country.

This reluctance must be attributed to a concerted attack on “guns” generally, by groups always opposed to guns, and a hyped-up fear of armed police and armed school resource personnel, particularly.

Although the UFT is adamantly opposed to any armed personnel in the City’s schools, apparently the District cannot prohibit NYPD from entering the schools in pursuit of their lawful police functions. This has led the ACLU to provide guidance to students when interacting with the police, suggesting a strained relationship from the get-go. See the article, titled, “How to Interact with the Police in New York City Public Schools.”

The Legacy Press, itself, abhorring guns and contemptuous of those who choose to exercise their natural law right to keep and bear them, does nothing to alleviate the public’s phobic reaction toward guns.

Instead, the Press exacerbates that irrational fear, exploiting shooting incidents—especially those taking place inside schools or outside, on school grounds, involving harm to children.

Stoking fear of and concomitant hatred of guns furthers a political agenda. It is an agenda aimed at weakening and eventually eliminating the fundamental, unalienable, natural law right of the people to armed self-defense.

The Press uses the alarmist expression “epidemic of mass shootings” to stoke public anger and rage toward guns, suggesting, falsely, that “mass shootings” are commonplace. They are not. See the article in the City Journal. And the term ‘epidemic’ when tied to shootings falsely alludes to a public health emergency. It is not.

Criminal conduct involves public safety, not public health.

The implement used by a sociopath, or psychopath, or lunatic to commit mayhem doesn’t define the event.

 A sentient agent’s use of a gun to commit a crime does not convert that act, a public safety matter, into a public health matter.

Similarly, an epidemic or pandemic, like the outbreak of the Spanish Flu, the Bubonic Plague, or the recent CCP Chinese Coronavirus (COVID-19) doesn’t transform a public health matter into a public safety matter.

Society doesn’t place a “virus” on trial for a crime. And Society doesn’t place the “gun” in a hospital because it, “the gun,” is deemed “ill.” That is discordant. Yet, the public doesn’t stop to think about the irrationality of the messaging so caught up it is in the cacophony on display.

Publications like Time show no reluctance in treating a criminal matter as a health issue when that criminal matter involves guns. See the article in Time.

One would think the medical community wouldn’t fall for this. Not so. 

Many medical practitioners and medical organizations are happy to shoehorn the misuse of guns, a public safety issue, into a presumptive public health issue, and even a public health epidemic.

How can this be?

Many in the medical community, apparently, are blinded by their own loathing of guns and therefore fail to perceive the irrationality of the presumption. Still, some medical practitioners, realizing the problem, try to make a case, nonetheless:

“Advocates believe a public health approach is warranted not only because of the aggregate numbers of death and injuries, but also because epidemiological analysis suggests gun violence may share features with communicable diseases; exposure to gun violence can predict other incidents, and gun violence often diffuses like a contagion through connected social networks. Physicians also are being asked to step up. Various medical groups including the AMA and the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued policy statements calling for greater physician involvement in combating gun violence.” “Physicians’ Elusive Public Health Duties,” 99 N.C.L. Rev. 923, May, 2021, by Richard S. Saver, Arch T. Allen Distinguished Professor, UNC School of Law; Professor (Secondary Appointment), UNC School of Medicine

This is sophistry. The author of the above article equates “gun violence” with “communicable disease” or “contagion” because he mistakes his metaphor for a literal representation.

If “gun violence” were really “like” a “communicable disease,” then this would mean that guns, as “viruses,” or “contagions,” would transform all people who happen to come into contact with a gun as having within them the seed of pathological criminal violence. That’s not only patently false, it’s also nonsensical.

But, in fact, many in the medical community ascribe to this. And politicians and the legacy Press run with it.

 Many in the medical community, therefore, contribute to this hysteria over guns, rather than being a voice of reason. And a half-hearted debate over the matter does nothing to allay the tendency to hysteria. See Tulane University article.

The desire to treat “guns” per se as a health matter informs all subsequent discussions on the matter. The result is disastrous public policy decisions. 

Fortunately, not all members of the medical community have jumped on the bandwagon. They do not treat “gun violence” as a public health matter, let alone a public health emergency. They perceive this notion as wrongheaded and illogical. See the website Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership.

On the matter of guns, the Press, politicians, and many in the medical community are not serving the best interests of the Nation, least of all the best interests of and safety of our children.

Children have become useful pawns, sacrificial lambs, in a high-stakes game, where the survival of the Nation as a free Constitutional Republic is at stake.

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A GENERAL ANTIPATHY TOWARDS GUNS MEANS TREATING CRIMINAL USE OF GUNS AND LAWFUL CIVILIAN CITIZEN USE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE

SUBPART TWO

The refusal of many school districts to consider utilizing police or armed resource officers as a necessary part of an effective school safety plan arises from both an antipathy toward guns, culminating in an outright phobic reaction toward “guns.” 

 An irrational abhorrence toward guns has pervaded the Country. It has not come about by chance. It is all part of an elaborately conceived and orchestrated campaign aimed at disarming the American public.

In this effort to affect the desired outcome, a child is viewed as a useful pawn, whose life is deliberately placed in mortal danger.

This says everything an American need to know about the value the legacy Press, and many school districts, including the New York City School District and the Biden Administration place on the life of our Nation’s children.

It is just a matter of time before another tragedy that need not occur will occur in a school. The usual cast of characters will piously declare how horrific that is and why it is that civilian citizen possession of guns must be drastically curtailed. This will do nothing to prevent another mass shooting incident to occur in a school or outside it. In fact, the contrary will ensue.

A mass shooting incident is guaranteed to occur, demonstrating once again, ever again, that the goal of ending criminal violence with guns is not, and never was about guns.

Consider the ubiquity of the hyper-alarmist expression “gun violence.”

New York Governor Kathy Hochul incessantly goes on about this thing “gun violence” and “hypes” her package of restrictive gun legislation to “fight gun violence epidemic.” See the article on her website. But few people stop to reflect on her lengthy, convoluted package of gun legislation. They should. 

The legislation has nothing to do with stopping criminal conduct. It has everything to do with repressing the ability of average, responsible, rational, law-abiding Americans to own and possess a firearm—the only truly effective means available to safeguard one’s life against a violent, vicious aggressor. Such random, unprovoked attacks have increased exponentially in recent years, in New York, as reported by the New York Daily News, and the City Journal Magazine.

Violent Crime is surging in major Cities, including New York, as reported by the New York Post. 

Back in January 2022, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared, “Gun violence is a public health crisis that continues to threaten every corner of our city” and he claimed to have the plan to deal with it.

Do you remember: “The Blueprint to End Gun Violence.”

How well is that working? Strange, the Mayor has said little to nothing about it since he rolled it out with great fanfare early last year.

The answer to violent crime, as the legacy Press and the politicians explain is to constrain and eventually curtail the natural law right of the citizen to provide for his own defense. That is their answer. That is their only response. And why is that?

Apparently, the law-abiding citizen gun owner is an easy target and a useful one.

And, the Press and politicians point to the many guns in the hands of the law-abiding citizen. So? So, what?

Conflating guns held by law-abiding gun owners with those held by violent criminals, the seditious Press and duplicitous politicians make a pretense of serving society, while stepping all over the Bill of Rights. Gun owners are perceived as “the other”—not representative of true law-abiding Americans.

Although not expressly stated, the rationale, is this——

Restricting the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense of the former, the average law-abiding citizen, will serve to distract from the problem of misuse of guns by the latter, the rampaging psychopathic and psychotic killer.

Through this sleight of hand, the Destroyers of a free Constitutional Republic can methodically whittle away at the natural law right codified in the Second Amendment. This, of course, is and was their primary aim all along: erase the natural law right to armed self-defense ostensibly for the well-being of the greater society. It is all a ruse. But, it plays well.

Thus, the more often that violent crimes occur—preferably through the use of guns—the more likely the public will be to embrace a policy whose end goal is a “Gun-Free” America. That is to say, the elimination of the lawful possession of firearms by civilian citizens. That, of course, has no impact on the criminal.

But, witnessing the casual way in which many City Governments treat crimes and criminals today, tackling crime isn’t a matter of concern for them; disarming the average, honorable, rational, responsible civilian citizen is.

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A GENERAL ANTIPATHY TOWARDS GUNS MEANS TREATING CRIMINAL USE OF AND LAWFUL CIVILIAN CITIZEN USE OF GUNS FOR SELF-DEFENSE AS A DISTINCTION WITHOUT A DIFFERENCE

SUBPART THREE

All this focus on guns has affected the way much of the Country views the discussion of and treatment of guns, including, most despicably, how many school districts treat their charges. A life that has value only as a commodity in service to a higher aim: 

But the refusal even to consider a school safety policy using armed resource officers may place the lives of children, while in school, in mortal danger. Is not the lack of a truly effective school safety policy stark evidence of the lack of value that the Government, today, places on the life of a child—the lack of value that the Government places on the life of the average American citizen in our Country?

But the refusal even to consider a school safety policy using armed resource officers may place the lives of children, while in school, in mortal danger.

We had pointed this out in an Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on November 17, 2022, writing about this stubborn attitude of the New York City School District, we said,

“The UFT isn’t interested in hardening the City’s schools. And it is particularly resistant to employing trained and armed resource officers in the schools.

This stubborn stance is an ominous sign of bad things to come. This lax attitude invites school shooting incidents. It may be only a matter of time before a New York City school suffers this horror.

I hope it never happens but, given the sheer size of the NYC school district and given the amount of criminal violence afflicting New York City, coupled with a casual attitude toward crime, demonstrated by New York Governor, Kathy Hochul, and New York City Mayor, Eric Adams, I am fearful that it is just a matter of time before a tragedy, at the hands of an armed lunatic, visits a City school.”

Less than two months after we wrote this, our prognostication, unfortunately, came true. A Charter School in New York City, East-Williamsburg in Brooklyn was the site of a shooting incident. The New York Post writes,

“Three people — two of them students — were shot outside a Brooklyn high school on Wednesday afternoon, police and law enforcement sources said.

Bullets flew just past the 2 p.m. dismissal time after a fight erupted outside the Williamsburg Charter High School at 198 Varet Street, cops said.

A 15-year-old girl was shot in the right leg and a 17-year-old boy was shot in the left thigh, cops said. A 37-year-old man — a security guard at the school — suffered a graze wound to the neck, according to police.

The students were taken to Bellevue Hospital, and the staffer to Elmhurst General, all in stable condition.

This started as a dispute, a physical fight,” down the block from the school, near White Street, NYPD spokesperson Lt. Paul Ng said in a press briefing.

About 15 men got into the melee, and one of them whipped out a 2×4 stick — which is when the shooter opened fire, according to Ng.”

We would be remiss not to point out that, although Williamsburg Charter High School is located in New York City, it does not come under the purview of the New York City School District and the UFT.

The Guide to Charter Schools in New York State, says, in part,

“Charter schools are completely independent of district school boards. What allows a charter school to provide education to the public is a “charter,” a type of contract, between the school’s board of trustees and a chartering entity (also known as an authorizer). According to the terms of the charter, a school agrees to meet rigorous academic, operational, financial, and legal standards. The authorizer oversees each charter school to ensure it is meeting the terms of its charter.”

Yet, despite their independence from district school boards, 

“charter schools must follow the same health and safety, ci rights, and student assessment requirements as other public schools, but they are exempt from all other laws and regulations, except for Article 56 of the Education Law. v 6” Id.

The Safety program appears to be one-dimensional, though, essentially limited to the use of metal detectors to scan for weapons. And “School Safety Agents” appear to be limited to being versed in the use of scanning techniques. Nonetheless, the school safety program falls under the auspices of the NYPD. But, there is nothing that we can decipher from the material we perused to suggest that NYPD officers or armed safety personnel are utilized.

In a document involving “A Collaboration Between the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and the New York City Department of Education,” effective July 21, 2016, school safety seems directed to and limited to scanning for weapons coming into the school:

“Since the late 1980’s, metal detectors have been used in New York City public schools in order to maintain a safe and secure school environment and prevent weapons from being brought into the schools. The scanning program continues to be a vital security initiative and significant deterrent to weapons and violence. Furthermore, when weapons are found, schools can implement appropriate supports, interventions and follow up measures to reduce the chance of recurrence and address underlying factors that affect the safety and security of the school community. In accordance with established procedures and protocols, including Chancellor’s Regulation A-432 on Search and Seizure and the NYPD Patrol Guide 215-18 on Search Protocols for School Safety Agents, all students and visitors entering a school facility where scanning takes place are subject to scanning. School staff may enter the building at a non- scanning entrance designated by the principal/designee, which is monitored by school safety agents. NYPD personnel who conduct the scanning are trained to respect students’ rights and to ensure that scanning occurs in the least intrusive and most respectful manner possible. A principal or his/her designee must be present whenever scanning occurs. Scanning is only conducted at High Schools or Middle Schools which includes grade levels 6 through 12. When an Elementary School is present in a Middle School or High School where scanning occurs, a separate entrance will be provided for Elementary level students to enter the building without being scanned. . . .

The Role of School Safety Agent School Safety Agents are trained to treat all individuals entering a school facility with courtesy, professionalism and respect. School Safety Agents overseeing scanning in a school must: • Properly set up/dismantle equipment and test the scanning equipment daily to ensure it is in proper working condition. • Greet students and provide them with clear, concise instructions in a professional manner • Be aware and alert to the walk-through metal detector signals and correctly utilize the hand-held metal detector while carefully observing, interpreting, and reviewing the x-ray machine screen for any suspicious objects Conduct sweeps (searches) for weapons, contraband, and other prohibited items periodically throughout scanning operations each day on the perimeter of the school site. • Adhere to the established methodology for scanning procedures . . . .”

Obviously, the shooting incident that occurred on Wednesday, February 8, 2023, involving multiple shots fired and several individuals being shot, on the school grounds of Williamsburg Charter School, suggests serious deficiencies in security, on many levels. That incident may be replicated in any other school in New York City and could lead to more severe consequences. It is just a matter of time.

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THE VALUE OF THE LIFE OF AN AVERAGE AMERICAN IS NOW REDUCED TO ZERO! WELCOME TO “THE NEW LIBERAL WORLD ORDER”!

SUBPART FOUR

What is evident today in New York City in the mammoth New York City School District and in many School Districts across the Country that develop deficient school safety protocols grounded on the biases of the Biden Administration and the NEA are disasters in the making. The crassness is quite remarkable. We reported on this before, in our AQ article posted on November 17, 2022, and it bears repeating:

In a May 2022 Press Briefing, reported in the New York Post, prompted soon after the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Biden’s Press Secretary pointedly said:

“ ‘I know there’s been conversation about hardening schools, that is not something he [Joe Biden] believes in,’ Jean-Pierre told reporters at a White House press conference. ‘He believes that we should be able to give teachers the resources to be able to do their job.’” 

This wasn’t a mistake by the Press Secretary. The next month, on June 2, 2022, as reported in Breitbart, Joe Biden, himself, confirmed he doesn’t support hardening school buildings.

“President Joe Biden delivered a 20-minute prime-time address about gun violence on Thursday in which he mentioned a litany of gun control policies without mentioning the need for hardening school security . . .” [and] nowhere throughout his speech did he mention the need to place armed security guards on school campuses or bettering school security overall.”

Since the Biden Administration is adamantly opposed to the use of armed security officers in public schools and explicitly discourages the application of any steps to harden school buildings to protect children, this serves to dissuade the UFT leadership from pursuing “hardening” as a solution for New York City schools. And, many other school systems across the Country follow the Biden Administration’s policy.

One is left to ponder the forces at work in this Country who have little if any regard for the life and well-being of the average American: whether man, woman, or child. The Biden Administration is merely a reflection of the monstrous claim that these shadowy, powerful forces have over our Country and its people.

The goal of these forces with their toadies in the Biden Administration and in several State Governments across the Country is control over the Country and over the American citizenry.

Gaining control over the Country and its people requires capturing the weaponry of Americans to affect absolute control over the populace.

Propaganda plays a critical role in that endeavor. Capturing weaponry in this Country requires first capturing the minds of the majority of the people. The lives of Americans, and especially children, count for nothing to these ruthless forces.

Rather, loss of life, through criminal misuse of guns, plays a central part in that effort.

Regardless of what the politicians and the organs of the Press and media spout, it is control over thought and control over firearms that is essential to the dissolution of a Sovereign, Independent, Nation-State; essential to the dissolution of our Free Constitutional Republic; and essential to the subjugation of a sovereign and proud people. That is the endgame.

The Biden Administration and much of Congress, and many of those in State Governments, have no reason for existing other than to carry out the will of their benefactors. And those benefactors have lavished money and power on their toadies to secure their compliance and their loyalty. And they have served their masters well.

And what of we, the commoners, the sovereign people of a once Great Nation? We are destined for the yoke if we don’t demand an accounting, long past due, of those scoundrels who have sold us out.

For the sake of our children, for the founders of our Republic, the first Patriots, and for the many Americans, down through the years, decades, and centuries, who placed their lives at risk, and for those who paid the ultimate price to secure our freedoms, we owe it to all of them to make a stand. Otherwise, all that came before was in vain.

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*This article updates and complements our article posted on January 30, 2023.

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**AQ has corrected an earlier account of school shooting incidents where we stated that there were four school shooting incidents in the past thirty years. We wish to clarify that remark. An astute reader of this article explained to us, on February 9, 2022, that the assertion is inaccurate. We stand by the salient point but acknowledge its vagueness. Therefore, we add this clarification: There were four major, i.e., widely reported school shooting incidents (K-12), from 1999 through 2022; one from the last decade of the Twentieth Century, then two through the first two decades of the Twenty-First Century, and, at this moment in time, one during the third decade of the Twenty-First.

The website, Statista, does report many more “mass shootings,” overall, from the time frame, of 1982 through January 24, 2023. Also, we note that the site Statista does not formally define the phrase, ‘mass shooting,’ saying only that “Mass shootings happen when there are several injuries or deaths from a firearm-related violence.” Id. 

What, then, is a “mass shooting”? The newspaper, USA Today, which has a clear Anti-Second Amendment left-wing bias, writing about it in an article published on June 11, 2022, and that is upfront concerning its abhorrence of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, calling for the outright repeal of it in a subsequent article, published one month later, on July 11, 2022, allows itself, unbidden, to proffer its own non-legal definition: 

“There’s no single consensus on the definition.

The Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit research group, defines a mass shooting as an incident in which four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter. 

In contrast, Everytown currently defines it as a shooting in which four or more people are shot and killed, again excluding the shooter – but Burd-Sharps noted that they are moving toward expanding the definition to also include four or more injuries in the future.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t have a mass shooting definition. Instead, the FBI defines “mass murder” as an incident where four or more people are killed, which can include gun violence.

USA TODAY defines a mass shooting as an incident where at least four people are hit with gunfire, even if there are no fatalities. Mass killing refers is an incident in which at least four people are killed.”

The organization, The National Mass Violence Victimization Resource Center (NMVVRC), whose mission, as stated, is directed to serving victims of “mass violence” points to a plethora of definitions for similar expressions, in an article, “Definitions of Mass Violence Crimes.”  

AQ refuses to be pigeonholed, focused on terminology cunningly devised by propagandists. The use of argot designed by propagandists ensnares a person, traps him, and compels him to adopt a particular viewpoint, even a philosophy through which to view the world.

Expressions, like ‘assault weapon,’ ‘gun violence,’ ‘gun culture,’ and ‘mass shootings,’ to name a few, direct a person to view firearms and anything associated with them, including, and most especially, the fundamental, unalienable, natural law right codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, to a particular and decidedly peculiar way of thinking, a way of thinking at once antithetical to our Nation’s history, heritage,  cultural ethos, national identity, and to the philosophical underpinnings of a free Constitutional Republic.

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**This article updates and complements our article posted on January 30, 2023.

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Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.