Flying in the face of the mainstream media’s nonstop coverage of gun control activists’ protests following the Florida high school shooting that killed 17, students in a West Texas school district contend that they “feel safe” on campus because the school staff is armed and ready to protect them.
Campuses within the Claude Independent School District (CISD) are reportedly among the last places a mass murderer would want to target. This is because many of the administrators in the district are Second Amendment advocates who believe that highly trained teachers equipped with concealed weapons are well-prepared to prevent a mass school shooting from occurring on their campuses – an arsenal geared to provide a new level of safety and comfort for students.
Tried and tested
Increasing campus security by having an armed staff is not just a theory, but a fact, as CISD began implementing its staff’s concealed gun plan more than a year-and-a-half ago, and the results show that gun-toting teachers are an asset to school safety – not a deterrant.
Mass shooters approaching CISD campuses should be aware that there are numerous staffers at each school who are trained to protect their students with their firearms – and they aren’t afraid to use them. In fact, before entering any of the campuses, ill-intentioned gunmen can expect to read prominently posted signs emblazoned with the following warning in red, bold letters:
“ATTENTION: PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE STAFF AT CLAUDE ISD IS ARMED AND MAY USE WHATEVER FORCE NECESSARY TO PROTECT OUR STUDENTS,” the posted signs read.
This is in stark contrast to schools dominated by gun control activists, who advertise to gunmen that they are entering “gun-free zones” – meaning that their attack will be virtually uncontested … except by those sacrificially using their bodies as human shields.
CISD Superintendent Brock Cartwright is more than confident that his trained staff can effectively keep his schools safe if their security is breached by active shooters.
“Mainly – if we can locate the person and try to keep us safe at the same time – when the DPS and officials get here, we back off,” Cartwright told KFDA-TV in West Texas.
The program has been implemented by CISD since the 2016 schoolyear, when its staffers were professionally trained to carry and fire concealed weapons – and do whatever necessary to keep an active shooter from harming students and fellow colleagues on campus.
“Staff members who carry are required to practice at a shooting range once a month,” KFDA reporter Kristy Gerlett explained. “They also train with the Armstrong County Sheriff’s Office and the Department of Public Safety.”
Boosted confidence and assurance …
The parents of students enrolled at CISD schools are confident and very comfortable about their children’s safety while on campus, feeling assured that the armed staff is more than prepared to protect the student body in the event of an attack.
“It makes me feel really, really safe that we have staff on hand if anything happened,” Sarah Hughes – a mother of a CISD student – told the local TV station. “It brings me peace of mind.”
The peace of knowing that students are protected by armed and professionally trained staff is priceless to parents, who are relieved that their children will not be at the mercy off cold-blooded assassins who can have their way with unarmed and helpless staff members in gun-free zone schools.
“I don’t know who carries, but I do know that if they’ve taken that dedication, they’re going to do everything in their power to keep our kids safe – even if they’re in harm’s way,” Hughes continued. “So, what can you ask for more than that?”
This level of comfort and security is also shared by CISD students, who are confident that a mass shooting such as the one that took place in Florida last week will never happen within their school gates.
“Students say they feel safer on campus knowing their staff is armed, and despite the tragedy in Florida, they have no nerves coming to school,” Gerlett reported.
All around, the common consensus is that guns placed in the right hands on campus make for a better, more relaxed and safer school atmosphere.
“To put it mildly, staff, students and parents feel much safer with [CISD] teachers who pack heat and signs warning any would-be shooter,” TheBlaze pointed out. “Students also said they have no reservations about their safety at school knowing there are teachers around them ready to act if push comes to shove.”
Another pro-gun campus safety success story
Also implementing an armed staff school policy in Texas, the Medina Independent School District (MISD) has had a prominent sign on its school gates getting out the same message that CISD sends to would-be threatening gun-toting intruders.
Only 300 kindergarten through 12th-grade students are enrolled in MISD located in the small rural town of Medina – about an hour outside of San Antonio, Texas – but the fact that they are generally much safer than children attending inner-city schools has little effect on locals’ resolve to make sure a mass shooting does not take place on their campuses.
MISD administrators are not sold on gun control activists’ arguments that school massacres would be avoided if stricter gun laws were enforced – a message that has bombarded mainstream media’s news coverage since the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that claimed 26 lives. Instead, most Medina residents believe that such a massacre would have been avoided if school personnel were packing heat – to end the shooting before it started.
Taking to heart the Lone Star State saying, “Don’t mess with Texas,” state legislators joined a national movement to arm teachers back in 2016 – but progressives belonging to the gun control agenda pushed back.
“[I]n the same state the Medina ISD calls home, lawmakers made it legal for teachers and students to carry concealed weapons in university classrooms, outraging some campus groups, particularly at the University of Texas at Austin, where students have launched several colorful protests over the past year,” the Washington Post reported in September 2016. “[The same week, singer Ray LaMontagne canceled a concert on the UT-Austin campus over the campus-carry law.”
But parents in Medina with a vested interest in the safety of their children have not agreed with college campus politics geared to forward the politically correct anti-gun agenda – including Jillian Sides, whose two sons were enrolled in a MISD school during the 2016 schoolyear.
“Schools have been a target for – for lack of a better word – crazy people,” Sides told ABC affiliate KSAT 12 at the time. “I’m perfectly fine with it.”
Medina residents attending a Medina High School football game at the time overwhelmingly supported MISD’s program arming teachers.
“I think it’s a good idea,” a man donning a cowboy hat told the local news station KENS 5, according to the Washington Post. “I have no problem with our teachers being armed.”
Women in the stands were of the same sentiment concerning armed school staff members.
“I thought, ‘Well, it’s good that our kids can be protected,’” one woman interviewed at the game expressed.
Another local, Genie Strickland, believes that students must be protected – even if it means enforcing politically incorrect policies supporting citizens’ right to bear arms.
“I think you’ve got to do whatever you’ve got to do,” Strickland told KSAT 12.
Not wanting to compromise the effectiveness of his district’s armed staff policy, MISD Superintendent Penny White would not divulge how many teachers were packing heat on her campuses.
“We don’t divulge anything about our safety plan because it would compromise the plan,” White informed KSAT 12 before explaining why she thought such security measures in her rural town were necessary. “You never know if there’s a transient or someone who has zeroed in on harming a child.”
And even though gangs and other urban dangers present in metropolitan areas are not a particular problem in Medina, she impressed her desire to be prepared and ward off any threats – especially since her community cannot rely on a quick response from the police in its remote location.
“Her hope … is that potential bad guys might ‘think twice’ before entering her school to harm someone,” the Washington Post’s Katie Mettler noted. “The school is rural and remote, she said, about 20 to 25 minutes away from the nearest law enforcement agency in Bandera – the county seat and ‘Cowboy Capital of the World.’”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
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