To the Editor:
It’s not about gun control or Second Amendment rights. It’s about reaction time at the scene and collateral damage containment while stopping the attack.
My military background won’t allow me to expect that teachers and supervisory staff can be trained to the extent that they can react to surprise circumstances such as the recent tragedy in Florida with a gun of any kind even if they had military training and volunteered for the responsibility.
What it takes to pull the trigger, knowing that if you miss you might kill an innocent, takes valuable seconds of tactical judgment and very few gun owners are equipped to do so.
Those seconds can cost many more lives and the life of a well-intentioned protector. Most adults would react immediately to defending innocents in threatening circumstances if they had a short-range accurate tool that would not kill but stun an attacker to the point it disarms the predator’s ability to continue his/her objective, physically and mentally until they can be subdued alive.
Tasers with laser-targeting capability are a logical short-range effective response tool. I have had taser training and I believe it can be effective when it’s incorporated into a school-hardening plan.
This is a close-range offensive-defensive tool. We also need armed security visible on campus and trained to act under certain predefined circumstances but not an army of armed teachers, even if they individually want to.
Each campus needs to develop a custom simple tactical plan to apply. The whole solution to an event like Florida’s takes more than tasers but all municipalities must act to insure parents, teachers and school administrators that they can and will take action at the school district level without waiting for politically inspired media debates to define the problem.
I have had military background as an infantry battalion commander and an international airline captain during 9-11-01. I hope readers will pass this opinion on to leaders they know who are open to outside input.
George Braun
Johnsburg