WHY DO SOME SCHOOL DISTRICTS EMPLOY ARMED RESOURCE PERSONNEL IN THEIR SCHOOLS WHILE OTHERS DO NOT?

A PSYCHIC DISTURBANCE PERVADES THE THOUGHT PROCESSES OF MANY SCHOOL DISTRICTS: A SINGLE-MINDED, ABERRANT ANTIPATHY TOWARD AND FOCUS ON GUNS PREVENTS THESE DISTRICTS FROM INSTITUTING PROVEN SECURITY MEASURES THAT DO WORK AND, IF IMPLEMENTED, WOULD PROTECT CHILDREN FROM THE DANGER POSED BY VIOLENT ARMED AGGRESSORS

MULTISERIES ON THE ISSUE OF SCHOOL SAFETY

PART TWO

There are 731 School Districts in New York.But how many of these Districts have established an effective security plan?An effective plan incorporates armed resource personnel. The South Huntington School District (SHUFSD) knows this and has designed a plan for school security utilizing armed resource personnel. On Wednesday, January 25, 2023, updated on January 26, 2023, two reporters, John Asbury and Craig Schneider, writing for “Newsday,” a leading news source for Long Island and New York City, discussed this plan. They said, “Armed guards will be stationed outside all South Huntington school buildings by the end of the month, one of several Long Island districts making that choice as school shootings continue to be a terrifying national trend.” The reporters added, that, “[t]he South Huntington school board voted unanimously Wednesday to implement the new security measure.” In a follow-up “Newsday” article, published on January 28, 2023, the reporter, Craig Schneider, cited remarks of Dennis Callahan, who heads the South Huntington Teachers’ Union, writing,“The head of the teachers union for South Huntington schools said Friday that his members have strong but very different opinions on the district's decision Wednesday to use armed guards at schools.‘I have members who are thrilled about it and others who are vehemently opposed,’ said Dennis Callahan, who also teaches AP Spanish at Walt Whitman High School in the district.The South Huntington school board voted unanimously to spend $750,000 to hire an undisclosed number of armed guards, who officials said will be stationed outside the seven school buildings by the end of the month. School Superintendent Vito D'Elia pointed to the long string of shootings in school settings in this country.On Friday, Callahan said teachers supporting the move ‘say we are in an unsafe world, and we need to do everything in our power to ensure that when students come to school in the morning, they get home safe.’Those opposed, he said, worry that ‘bringing weapons into school opens the door to more violence.’”How can the utilization of armed resource officers “open the door to more violence”? The idea is more than a trifle vague. Let’s delve into this.Are teachers who oppose armed resource officers afraid the officers would themselves turn on the students and administrators and staff, developing or harboring violent proclivities and thereupon becoming violent? If so, what evidence is there of any such incident ever before occurring in a school that utilizes armed resource officers? These teachers proffer none because there is none. Nothing like that has happened. And there is no reason to suggest an incident of this sort would ever happen. The idea does not merit serious consideration. It leads one down a blind alley.What then can one make of the claim that utilizing armed resource officers would open the door to more violence? Perhaps, teachers who oppose a school security plan utilizing armed officers simply abhor the idea of guns in the school or on school grounds regardless of the benefits derived from having armed officers in the schools and thereupon conjure up an unlikely scenario. If so, there is, in the assertion, a note of hysteria, grounded on a neurotic phobic reaction to the very thought of “guns” and gun-wielding guards. We explore this idea, infra.Perhaps, as a sop to those teachers who suffer from an irrational fear of firearms, or, otherwise, in spite of that irrational fear of firearms felt by many within the District, the South Huntington Board of Education said armed personnel would be stationed outside school buildings, never inside the buildings.A school district that refuses to utilize armed resource officers cannot effectively “harden” schools against a dangerous armed threat. This should be obvious to everyone. Apparently, it isn’t since many school systems refuse to acknowledge this. A fanciful notion, devoid of demonstrative proof or logical validity, leads one down a blind alley. All the more horrific to consider that irrational feverish beliefs inform a school district’s policy decisions. And it is the children who pay the price.Consider: One of the largest school districts in the Country, the New York City School District (UFT), has opted out of using armed resource personnel.“Too many elected officials, school boards, and teachers’ union leaders propose solutions that don’t work.They aren’t interested in listening to parents who, increasingly, have little voice in the matter of their children’s education and no voice in the matter of their children’s personal safety while in school.Their solution to school shootings proposed boils down to one thing: ‘Get Rid of the Guns.’” See the Arbalest Quarrel article, satirically titled, “How to Guarantee Future School Shootings,” published, on November 17, 2022, by Stephen L. D’Andrilli, CEO and President of Arbalest Group, LLC.The failure of some people to recognize the difference between lawful uses for guns and unlawful criminal misuse points to the evident effectiveness of an elaborate propaganda campaign perpetrated on the public and vociferously and monotonously perpetuated for the last few decades.It is a campaign that involves many actors—news media, pundits, politicians, antigun activists, and powerful health organizations, like the “American Medical Association” (“AMA”) and the “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention” (“CDC”).These multivarious actors are all focused on and draft narratives around this thing, “Gun Violence.”Well, there are “Guns” in our society and there is “Violence” in our society, too. All that is true enough.But the words ‘Gun’ and ‘Violence’ aren’t synonymous. It is only thinking of the two as inseparably linked that would make it seem so.Conjoin two disparate words ‘Gun’ and ‘Violence’ and, voilà, the propagandist has, in that, a shorthand rhetorical device, ‘Gun Violence,’ a neologism—one in service to an insidious agenda, centered around a nefarious end, injurious to a free Constitutional Republic: the disarming of the American citizenry.The aim is the elimination of the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms in defense of self and in defense of innocent others.Americans will not readily sacrifice their Bill of Rights. They must be urged to do so.It takes ingenuity and subterfuge to coax Americans to willingly forsake rights and liberties that no other people of any other nation on Earth possess.The phrase, “Gun Violence,” is a viral meme, infecting the psyche of the public. If the pursuit of public health and safety is the goal, the reduction of “Gun Violence” is the theme played and with little variation to get the public there. Or so the public is told. And many there are who swallow the lie.The American public is presented with the classic “false dilemma” fallacy narrative:TOTAL CIVILIAN DISARMAMENT AND A PEACEFUL, SAFE, WELL-ORDERED, WELL-ENGINEERED, HARMONIOUS, SOCIETY VERSUS THE WELL-ARMED CITIZEN AND CONTINUOUS, UNINTERRUPTED, SAVAGE, RAMPANT GUN VIOLENCE.THIS ONE OR THAT ONE ONLY: THE ONE OR THE OTHER, BUT NOT BOTH, AND NOT NOT EITHERBut the tension isn’t real. The armed citizen, which, in the context of schools, is the armed resource officer, does not aggravate the threat of criminal violence by virtue of being armed. This is contrary to the view of many teachers and board members. The officer mitigates and repels that armed aggressive threat. Similarly, the armed civilian citizen neither causes nor adds to criminal violence, but rather mitigates criminal violence.Many Americans fail to perceive this. Many simply cannot perceive this. But, perversely, many others have the desire not to perceive this.And, the UFT, for one, certainly cannot see this. That says much of the cunning of those who instigate this incendiary narrative of “Gun Violence” while being careful to omit any mention of “Criminal Violence.” There is a method to this madness.The propagandists emphasize the object “The Gun” while, at once, deemphasizing the agents of violence: “the Criminal” and “the Lunatic.”This false narrative has a profound effect on the policy choices that politicians see available to them. The policy choices made, invariably endanger, rather than safeguard, their respective communities.Similarly, this false narrative has a profound effect on the choices that school districts make when designing a security plan for their schools. Some districts eschew the “hardening” of schools altogether, single-mindedly focused, as they are, on their abhorrence of “Guns.” Focusing entirely on guns, they conclude that children cannot be safe until or unless all guns are eliminated from society. That is impossible, a ridiculous demand, and one that would not prevent rampant violence anyway, as long as criminals and lunatics run amok in society. And, they would continue to run amok. The forces that crush western nations and people realize the usefulness of sociopathic and psychopathic elements to destabilize nation-states if allowed to do so, and they are given free rein to do just that in the United States.Such absolutism compels one to believe falsely in the futility of securing schools from harm. But Progressives, who ascribe to this absolutism comprise the majority of these School Boards. They make all kinds of excuses for the behavior of the worst sort of deviant types, placating them, unable to comprehend that these same lunatics and psychopaths have no regard for the hand that feeds it, and will readily bite it off if given the chance. So, these Progressives, these smug do-gooders, vent their wrath on Americans who would dare exercise their right to armed self-defense to thwart the destructive elements allowed to pillage and destroy businesses, homes, people, and institutions, with abandon.  Progressives comprise the majority of these School Boards. They make all kinds of excuses for the behavior of the worst sort of deviant influences, placating them, unable to comprehend that these same lunatics and psychopaths have no regard for the hand that feeds it, and will readily bite it off if given the chance. Instead, these Progressive do-gooders, vent their wrath on Americans who would dare exercise their right to armed self-defense to thwart the destructive elements allowed to pillage and destroy businesses, homes, people, and institutions, with abandon.  These Progressives direct their energy against the average law-abiding, rational, responsible, gun-owners, and against the mechanism of their survival, the firearm, believing firmly, and nonsensically, that disarming the gun owner and destroying guns will safeguard society, secure the public schools, and protect the children. It will do no such thing.  Consistent with that belief system, Progressive members of School Boards believe safeguarding children is impossible where guns are prevalent in society. Knowing that they will not get rid of guns nor that they will be able to defeat the exercise of the natural law right to armed self-defense, these Progressive school board members, disgruntled, and enraged, but refusing to acknowledge defeat, forsake designing, and implementing any security measures, hoping and trusting or simply desirous that the life of their charges will one day, in a Golden Age, be safeguarded once guns all disappear from the face of the Earth. Till, then, they will do nothing to protect the children in their schools. It is a kind of Nihilism that sweeps through these School Districts, pervading all thought, a sickness hidden in plain sight only because the highest officials and functionaries of Government suffer from the same ailment, a psychic disturbance wrought by those poor sorts that have inculcated the psychotic dogma of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, a dogma incompatible with our Nation's rational historical, political-philosophical creed, embodied in our natural law rights, emanating from the Divine Creator, that the new false secularism repudiates out of hand.These school districts hope the children in their care will be safe but believe they really won't be, and that, since nothing can be done, to prevent, in their mind, harm to their charges, they feel it is senseless to even try. So, they won't.This bizarre position emanates directly from the thinking of the repugnant Biden Administration itself. And, unsurprisingly, but no less unfortunate, many school districts, including the UFT, take their cue from this Federal Government. See June 6, 2022, report in Breitbart.And, since the public psyche is infected with the false notion that the existence of guns invariably threatens the physical and emotional health and safety of children, many public schools around the Country have opted out of employing armed personnel in schools.So it is, that some school districts, apparently so disheartened, disillusioned, and embittered as a result of their obsessive fear over the “proliferation” of guns and this thing, “Gun Violence,” have refrained from undertaking instituting any measures whatsoever. Consider, e.g., a 2007 report from the “National Institutes of Health” (“NIH”), that must bear some responsibility for this.A long-running campaign of psychological conditioning, undertaken by a plethora of organizations over a broad landscape of institutions, often operating in concert, and on an industrial scale, has succeeded in causing psychopathy in the minds of many Americans.And this elaborate propaganda campaign negatively impacts the decisions political leaders make: Governors of States, Mayors of Cities, and Members of School Boards.So powerful is this propaganda campaign that many Americans do not distinguish, indeed cannot distinguish, between criminal use of guns on the one hand, and non-criminal proper, lawful use of guns by average, rational, responsible, law-abiding people, on the other hand.The founders of our free Constitutional Republic would be puzzled indeed to consider that such a failure of reason could gain such wide currency.The founders of our Republic, the framers of our Constitution were acutely aware of the profound importance of firearms to both the creation of and maintenance of a free RepublicThey were certainly aware of the profound importance of firearms to the creation of and maintenance of a free Republic where the common man would stand and must stand sovereign over Government lest tyranny arise, as tyranny must, where good men have neither the will nor the means to prevent it.Guns are only a tool, inanimate objects, but necessary ones. Like any tool, a gun can be utilized for good or ill, dependent upon the nature of the sentient agent who wields it. A “firearm,” being insentient, is incapable of engaging in harm initiated by itself but listening to antigun zealots, one tends to hear them argue otherwise.The founders of our free Constitutional Republic certainly were aware of the importance of firearms as the most effective means to successfully safeguard human life from predatory creatures, predatory men, and predatory Governments. Our Country would not exist without the will and courage of these men, our Founders, and the means required to repel tyranny.Knowing this, one is left to ponder that——The failure of so many Americans to recognize the utility of firearms (“Guns”) as a source of positive good must be by design.The danger to the life, safety, and well-being of innocent Americans, especially children, is palpable.Sadly, there are powerful, ruthless forces machinating against the well-being of our Nation and its people, and they exert that influence on politicians at all levels of Government, and on businesses, media, the Press, and school boards across the Nation—with devastating effect. The felt impact of this, demonstrated by the money and time spent to undermine the natural law right to armed self-defense, is too much in evidence to be reasonably denied.Inducing in the psyche of a person a deep-seated phobia toward “the Gun,” such that a person finds nothing salvageable in it, suggests a dark and sinister intent of powerful forces to disarm the citizenry. That influence manifests in poor policy choices of Government officials, across the board, leading inevitably to rampant crime in our communities, lax security in our public schools, and the collapse of our sacred rights, and liberties, and institutions.____________________________________Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHY MUST AMERICANS HAVE TO JUSTIFY THEIR RIGHT TO OWN AND POSSESS FIREARMS?

A ROAD TRIP WITH A HANDGUN: THE CASE FOR UNIVERSAL STATE CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY RECIPROCITY

PART FOUR: THE CONNECTICUT FIREARM APPLICATION PROCEDURE FOR ACQUIRING AN UNRESTRICTED CONCEALED HANDGUN CARRY LICENSE

THE CIRCUITOUS, TORTUOUS ROUTE TO OBTAINING MULTIPLE UNRESTRICTED CONCEALED HANDGUN LICENSES AS EXPERIENCED BY OUR INTREPID CITIZEN, MR. WRIGHT.

SUBPART ONE: RECAP

One year ago, the Arbalest Quarrel commenced a detailed examination of the perils, snares and frustrations the law-abiding American citizen encounters and faces for seeking no more than to exercise his or her natural right of self-defense. We followed an individual as he undertakes the time intensive, expensive, and exasperating task of acquiring concealed carry handgun licenses from multiple jurisdictions.The individual whom we followed in the exercise isn’t fictional. He is an actual person. We use a pseudonym for this person to protect his identity. We refer to this individual as Mr. Wright. Mr. Wright is an American citizen and successful businessman. He currently holds several handgun licenses. All but one are concealed handgun carry (CONCEALED CARRY WEAPON) (“CCW”) licenses.Mr. Wright conducts business in several States. The nature of Mr. Wright’s business involves the transporting of assets of considerable monetary value. Doing so, makes him a tempting target for armed robbers, jeopardizing his personal safety and well-being. A handgun provides Mr. Wright with the most effective means available for personal protection.

MANY JURISDICTIONS REQUIRE THE LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN TO JUSTIFY HIS NEED FOR A CCW.

Why should the law-abiding citizen have to justify the need for a CCW. After all, is not the right of self-defense basic, immutable, indisputable, and intrinsic? Did not the founders of the Republic recognize the primacy of the right of self-defense and, so, codify that quintessential right in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution? If so, why must the law-abiding American citizen have to justify the carrying of handgun for self-defense? Yet, a few jurisdictions, notably New York City—the City where Mr. Wright has his main business offices—require the prospective holder of an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license to do just that. An individual must convince, to the satisfaction of the NYPD licensing officer, why he or she feels the need to carry a handgun for personal protection.Establishing a rationale upon which to test the suitability for issuance of a concealed handgun license may, to some, may seem perfectly reasonable. It isn’t. The standards established may seem pragmatic and coherent. They aren’t. On close inspection, they are completely arbitrary and superficial. In existence in New York and in several other jurisdictions around the Country for many years—even decades in some instances—we may think the laws practical, necessary, “common-sense” application of the police powers of the State? But, are they? To grow accustomed to this or that law and practice and belief does not make such law reasonable, rational, or—if that law conflicts with our jurisprudence and with our Constitution —lawful. Thus we have "unlawful laws." That isn’t an oxymoron. An abundance of unlawful laws exists—and many of them are directed to firearms’ regulation, unlawfully restricting one's right to own, possess, and use firearms.

WHY MUST A LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN HAVE TO CONVINCE A GOVERNMENT LICENSING OFFICIAL THAT HE OR SHE REQUIRES A FIREARM FOR SELF-DEFENSE? WHY MUST A LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN HAVE TO JUSTIFY HIS OR HER RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS FOR SELF-DEFENSE IF SELF-DEFENSE IS A QUINTESSENTIAL, NATURAL, PRIMARY AND PRIMORDIAL RIGHT AND IF A HANDGUN IN THE HANDS OF THE LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN, TRAINED IN THE USE OF THAT HANDGUN, HAS, THROUGH THE POSSESSION OF THAT HANDGUN, THE BEST MEANS AVAILABLE TO SECURE HIS OR HER LIFE AND WELL-BEING AGAINST THOSE WHO WOULD THREATEN THAT LIFE AND WELL-BEING?

A business person who does most of his business in cash and who carries thousands of dollars on his person on his way to a bank, a few times a week, is a tempting target indeed to a robber looking to make a killing through little effort. But a drug addled lunatic may be perfectly willing to kill another person for a few bucks and think nothing of it. If, then, a rational law-abiding person must justify to the satisfaction of a licensing official why issuance of a concealed handgun carry license is warranted for him but not for myriad others—which a prospective holder of a CCW must do in New York City if he is to have any real chance of securing a license to lawfully carry a handgun concealed on his person on the streets of New York City—the ludicrousness of the exercise becomes, on even a cursory inspection, painfully apparent.It really comes down to the fact that one person asks, begs really, for the privilege of defending his or her life and makes the case, why he or she faces more danger to life than someone else and therefore ought to be allowed to carry a handgun for self-defense? What must a person do to prove he or she needs a firearm for self-defense in the City of New York, but that others do not? How might one prove that certain  factors in his or her life satisfactorily distinguish his or her life from that of others, justifying the issuance of a CCW? In so doing, the right of self-defense—quintessential and primary, and primordial—reduces to mere privilege, an exercise one must excel in to justify one's right to exist. The right to be free from threats to life becomes a luxury, bestowed on a few through Government largess. The Government becomes a gatekeeper, deciding the value of human life--by extending to one individual the coveted unrestricted, concealed carry license, and withholding it from others.Of course, some might disagree with this assessment, arguing, on behalf of the antigun crowd, that the right of self-defense is not at issue. They would argue either that a handgun does not make a person safer or that, if it does, the danger to society outweighs the value a gun provides to individuals within society. Let’s parse that.Certainly, a person trained in the proper operation of a handgun has the most effective means currently available to protect his or her life and well-being against imminent threats to that life. We need not debate that. The statement is self-evident, axiomatic, true. But, do guns in society make for an unsafe society? The antigun crowd answers that question with an unequivocal, "yes." Yet, the antigun crowd begins with their conclusion, "guns in society make a society less safe," and then attempt to gather statistics to support the conclusion they assume to be true before the fact. Their conclusion is really not a conclusion derived from true premises, then, but an assumption. They take that assumption, and attempt to find data to support it, excluding data that refutes it. By emphasizing the gun, as an implement of harm, they minimize the import of the agent, the causal factor, truly responsible for harm. They also ignore that the agent may use other objects to harm innocent life: knives, axes, bombs and, as we have seen of late, both in Europe and in this Country, trucks. So, the availability or unavailability of guns is beside the point.The problem of violence in society is a function of the agent of violence in society, not the implement. Implements are not agents. Implements are not sentient beings. But antigun proponents place little, if any, emphasis on the agent. The value of life to the antigun proponent is a function of utility. Antigun proponents consider life and well-being from the standpoint of maximizing utility. For them, the truth of that statement is a given. They reason that getting guns out of the hands of more people—namely law-abiding citizens—will, ipso facto, reduce the number of deaths in society. That assertion is conjecture, not fact and it is false.Antigun proponents know criminals and lunatics and terrorists will harm individuals with guns, knives—and, as we have seen played out recently—trucks—truly anything at hand; and they will use whatever it is that is available to maximum effect, devising ever more devious ways to maximize the harm they are capable of doing to innocent life. So, as antigun proponents attempt to maximize utility for society by zeroing in on guns, alone, the violent among us are devising ways to maximize harm to individuals within society--through anything that is available. Ultimately, it is individuals within society that are harmed. They are harmed by two agents: the violent among us--predominately, criminals, and lunatics, and Islamic terrorists--and by antigun groups that would deny to law-abiding individuals the best means available to the law-abiding citizen in which to protect innocent human life, the firearm.Ultimately, antigun proponents do not really care if an innocent life is lost so long as society in general—the collective, the hive—is secure. That idea is blunt, but true, for it follows logically from and is implicit in the philosophy of antigun proponents even if they expressly deny it. That idea plays out in myriad restrictive, ludicrous gun laws existent in federal and State Statutes and existent in County and City ordinances and codes and regulations. But, that idea of antigun proponents--that ethical position, utilitarianism, specifically, consequentialism--a moral theory that looks to the consequences of an agent's actions and not on the intentions of the agent, a theory that seeks to maximize utility for society as a whole, placing greater value on the well-being of society, the collective, the hive, than on the well-being of the individual in society--is inconsistent with the ethical position of the founders of our Republic who saw the sanctity of the individual as preeminent.The founders remarked in their writings, and, as we see, they embodied in the Bill of Rights and in the Articles of our Constitution the idea of the transcendent supremacy of each American, as an individual.The founders realized that Government must have limited powers and that, ultimately, it is for the individual to take responsibility for his or her own life, and responsibility for his or her own well-being, and responsibility for his or her own happiness.Restricting the individual's access to firearms--thereby prohibiting the individual from possessing the best means available to reducing threat to life and well-being--operates no less than a refutation of the sanctity of the individual. The founders of the Republic would not be pleased.In our next article, we take a close look at the procedures for obtaining a CCW in Connecticut. We follow Mr. Wright as he familiarizes himself with the procedures for obtaining a Connecticut CCW and completes his application for a Connecticut concealed handgun carry license.Copyright © 2017 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.