In light of the shootings in Parkland, Fla., I need to put my thoughts on paper and trust some folks will agree with my thinking.
Seventeen years ago, our country was attacked in New York City and the government started Homeland Security and put the air marshals program into effect. This program selects random flights and assigns a trained armed marshal to ride along and possibly stop any terrorist actions aboard. This has been a relatively successful program, and hopefully has saved lives by deterring bad people from doing harm to our citizens.
I feel it is time for our government to address gun violence in our schools. The "gun free zone" has not worked and makes an easy target for any coward type to attack our children because these gunmen don't expect any defensive opposition in these school districts. These shooters could be deterred if we had unmarked/plainclothes officers with concealed weapons.
If these gunmen knew we had a special force/system in place for shooting back, they may never think of entering a school. Certain teachers could be trained to conceal carry and could be an additional line of defense.
Doing nothing will only allow these evil people to continue shooting up our schools. It is time to do something constructive and not just sit back. We cannot afford to waste more lives.
There are many veteran organizations that could be of assistance since many of these former military have some experience and could be retrained to help with their local schools. These men and women could be a roaming team and rotate to different schools so as not to give their identities to any local threats.
Maybe it is time for new thinking about protection of our young students. Something has to change. Guns will never go away, but maybe we can set up a protection force to deter the evil ones and safeguard the lives of future generations.
Bill Gaeckle
Lewes
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