Beslan In America, Part 2: Changing The Mindset of Americans

I carry a gun. My job says I must carry a gun, and with a few exceptions, 24/7. I think guns are good in the right hands.

Statistics have shown that in states where carry-concealed laws are in place, crime has declined. The reasoning behind this is simple: Bad guys like easy targets. If some low life idiot wants to try to rob someone, he doesn't want resistance. If he thinks that a potential mark may be armed, chances are he'll move on to another.

Terrorists probe. They scope. They do their homework, gather intelligence, and find easy targets. Their goal isn't confrontation, it's striking terror in the victim's hearts. This is where our weakness is in school security and where guns would balance things out.

Anywhere you go, in any state, you see signs around schools denoting that it is a gun-free (And yes, drug free) zone. This has always struck me as a big advertisement for people with ill intentions: Come on in, we can't defend ourselves. There are very few schools in the United States that have armed security. They are mostly confined to large urban area schools with gang problems. Smaller schools in rural areas are more than likely not going to have any armed security, unless they happen to have a school resource officer or DARE officer.

In the absence of armed officers, I am wholly in favor of teachers being trained and going armed. The arguments against doing so are flawed and we won't discuss or debate this issue here. Just think about this for a moment: If only one teacher at Columbine High School had been armed, chances are the outcome would have been very different. I am not under the illusion that no one would have been injured or killed, but the casualties would have been minimal. One armed teacher, well trained with a side arm, could have eliminated the threat of two shooters in short order.

Just think of the advantage of having all teachers armed in any school. You basically have a platoon of armed soldiers. Even in small schools you would have ten to twenty teachers plus support staff.

At Beslan School Number One, there were 59 teachers plus a number of other staff. The Muslim terrorists who sieged the school numbered approximately 32. The terrorists were outnumbered 2 to 1. I think that the situation would have been much different if the teachers and support staff were armed and trained.

I also believe that armed parents should be welcomed at schools. We have to change our mindset when it comes to schools and guns. We cannot think of guns as something that just jumps up and kills people. Sure, there is a chance that someone with ill-intentions will come onto school grounds armed, but that has always been a possibility. When the good guys outnumber the bad guys it shouldn't be much of a concern. The concern, as I am trying to lay out, is multiple targets with ill intentions and the ability of someone to eliminate, or at least severely limit, the threat.

In my personal time, you will more than likely find me armed. This is the case even when I just run to the store to get some milk. I go to church armed. Unless it is practically impossible to go out armed, Mr. Glock and I usually have a date.

For those who cannot or will not go armed, there are things you can do also. There is an old saying in law enforcement: It is better to be a good witness than just another statistic.

We no longer live in an age where just a single school shooter is possible. That world is forever gone after 9/11. We have to start thinking in terms of small arms combat, close-quartered, on American soil, in our own backyard. To do otherwise is not only foolish but naive.

In part 3 I will discuss what to do and what not to do in case of a hostile takeover of a school.

Part 3: What to do if an attack occurs

Beslan In America, Part 1: Lessons Learned From Russia

I know that I have pounded away at this, almost ad-nauseam, for the last few weeks. This is important, though. Please bear with me while I try to get people to see the light.

From everything I've read, the perfect day scenario has been sugar-coated. As a matter of fact, it seems that anything terror related is glossed over and sugar-coated. I believe this has a negative effect on the way the American public prepares for any type of terror related incident. This is bad. It is going to cause a lot of casualties when (Not if) an attack does occur.

When the Beslan siege occurred, the world was not told the whole story. What we were told was that Chechen separatists had taken over 1200 children and women hostage. In the end, we were told that over 300 of them died as a result of an explosion and fire when Russian Spetsnaz stormed the school. This is not correct, at least not completely.

The true story was that the Chechen separatists were Muslim, and there is strong evidence that this particular group was being backed and/or supported by Al-Qaeda. Also, while true that Spetsnaz did storm the school, they only did so after one of the explosive devices detonated. One part of the story that was really glossed over was what these "Freedom Fighters" did to the children.

The media and the government walk a fine line when it comes to information. On one hand, the information has to get out to the masses. On the other hand, you don't want panic and chaos to rule the day. To this end, both media and government have a tendency to give facts, but not all the facts. I also know that political correctness plays a large role in reporting, especially when it comes to Muslim terrorists.

Now that the stage has been set, it is time for some brutal honesty.

If, God forbid, this does come to fruition, children will die. We cannot stop that once the siege has started. What we can do is prepare and keep the casualties as low as possible. By preparing, I'm talking about everyone; Fire, police, schools, school boards, parents, and anyone who lives near a school.

There are lessons that we have learned from the Beslan siege, and these lessons are not pretty.

First of all they will kill any adult male, as well as any younger male who may be old enough or big enough to resist. If anyone, including women and small children, try to run they will be shot and killed. The next step will be for the terrorists to fortify the perimeter and wiring explosive devices to prevent a quick action deployment by law enforcement.

Terrorists will not negotiate. Although they may appear to want negotiations of some kind, their intent is not to trade off. They will use this tactic to buy time, and for many reasons. One, it will give them a chance to "dig in". By digging in I mean organizing the hostages into manageable groups (Women, children, elderly) and separate them.

Once the terrorists have set the perimeter and have everyone under control, the real horror begins. They will deny their hostages food and water. The Beslan siege lasted for a little over three days in hot weather. Water became such an issue that children resorted to drinking their own urine. They were not allowed to go to the bathroom and had to relieve themselves where they were.

If any child, or adult for that matter, cried incessantly, they were shot and killed in front of the others. To discourage others from crying, the terrorists held the corpses in front of the children.

The female children were raped. After some had been raped they were killed and thrown out of windows. Actually, most, if not all, that were killed were thrown out windows. This has a chilling effect on bystanders and that is one goal of terrorists.

The Beslan siege ended when one of the terrorists accidentally detonated one of the explosive devices. When the explosion occurred it caused enough chaos and cover that hostages made a run for it. When this happened Spetsnaz stormed the school, first gathering any of the hostages they could while identifying the bad guys and either killing them or taking them into custody. This was not the way it was supposed to end. The end result was to execute all hostages, then set off the devices as the school was stormed.
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We have good intelligence that such an attack is being planned here. Unlike Beslan, though, the attack here will probably be a multi-target, time coordinated effort. American military personnel have uncovered training videos from Al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan that show this is being planned. They also discovered that some targets had already been reconned in Texas, New Jersey, and other places. We also have uncovered training compounds here in America where school buses have been used for training by terrorists.

The targets will be schools in rural or remote areas. Areas such as these have small town police departments without many internal resources. They would have to rely on larger outside agencies for reinforcements and tactical teams. This would be an ideal scenario for the terrorists, as it would give them enough time to fortify their mission.

There have been reports of "dry runs" in various area of the country. One such incident happened in Florida, where two middle-eastern men boarded a school bus. These dry runs don't mean that an incident is imminent, but that the bad guys are probing.

Like any well trained soldier, the terrorists will perform surveillance runs on schools and school buses. This is called reconnaissance, or Recon. This is where the public and parents come in. Trust your gut and report ANYTHING that seems suspicious or out of the ordinary. If these terrorists find that people are alert and willing to inform the authorities, they may just move on to an easier target.

In part 2 I will discuss in more detail of what can be done to deter an attack.

Part 2: Changing the mindset of Americans