The following opinion piece was submitted for publication by Trent Rosser
Last week, just after the school shooting in Florida, I received a phone call. It was from an old friend that I haven’t seen in over 20 years. To say that he was upset would be an understatement. He sat and watched the events in Florida unfold with his two daughters. One is in elementary and the other is in middle school. They were scared. With our conversation, he asked me, “Do you remember back when we were in Jr High? All we had to worry about was possibly getting into fights. Now look what our kids have to deal with now a days.” I naturally agreed with him. Children have much more to worry about than what we did. When we went to school we were disciplined, and we feared getting swats with a paddle from a teacher or principle of the school that we were attending. Now with social media, everything is different.
So, my old friend is not the one to sit back and watch what happens next. Romie Behunin started a petition aimed at the A.I.S.D. This petition is geared to arming teachers with guns for the defense of our children and faculty alike. He said “ I am thinking of the safety of the staff as well. Those in the lunch line are just as important as the teachers in the room and those kids: every soul in that school deserves the right kind of security. Our next president could be sitting in one of those class rooms, so in my view every single soul in that school should have a presidential level of security.” I asked if he had spoke with any of the teachers in the area and he said that he has spoken to a few and they were very will receptive of what he had to say. He said that he has not spoke with any of the board members yet. He wanted to get more signatures of people that feel the same way and want to take the same action. That would be the better time to take it to the board. He received the idea from Buddy Freeman, a former superintendent from Highland Park I.S.D. and he implemented the same type of program. “I quite latterly plagiarized his program. I loved what he did. It made sense. It was economical, but it was also safety conscience. I loved his approach”
“The petition is open to volunteers of the school faculty; these volunteers would send in an application to the board of trustees and apply to be a defender of their school. The approval would be up to the board. They may choose to physiological evaluation, experience with the military. If approved that person would move on to obtain their license to carry, take the course, take the test, on the range and off, um and obtain that as issued by the Department of Public safety. From there, they would be required to complete 80 hours of intensive shooter training, training in crisis intervention and management of hostage situations.” I asked how many per school would be armed. He replied that the number and the person themselves would remain anonymous. “We wouldn’t want any kind of potential threat to be able to predetermine who was armed, where they are in the school, how many there are. Those things need to be confidential. Students themselves would not see faculty with a weapon. Another thing the Highland Park I.S.D. did was install classroom biometric safes. Gun vaults that require hand print identification to gain access to any weapon inside the safe. We don’t want a gun falling into a child’s hands. “Another thing he mentioned was a single point of entry. He said that he loved the elementary in town that you must ring a buzzer, they let you in, then you must show I.D. and sign in to their visitor tracking system and then you can gain entry. “Of course, this isn’t a “one size fits all” type of thing you have to consider larger campus where there detached building. This too needs to be discussed. Mainly with other districts that have already implement this program. How did they do it? Did they increase security? What numbers do they go by and why?”
Mr. Behunin said that it is great that at least the community is talking about it. He said of the 20 percent that do not agree with him, still have good ideas and he is open to all of them. On person did not want the guns but offered bullet proof glass. The one person that really wasn’t disagreeing with him, but ask him “Where is the money going to come from? This just can't happen overnight.” And Mr. Behunin agrees stating “Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s not going to happen overnight but were talking about it. Even if the board says no, they will be thinking of security.”
I asked Mr. Behunin what his opinion was on what has caused the shootings in schools. There have been so many school shootings since Columbine and he answer was something else that I agreed on. “Lack of discipline. That and parents not taking responsibility to raise their children. Parents not listening to their children. No child is born evil. Something dark happened to make someone say, “Enough is enough, I will take a gun and shoot people at my school.” I think it all snowballs into one bad thing!” We talked about bullies as well. He believes that parents should listen and be more involved. He stated the he himself had to go to the school to get the bullying of one of his girls stopped. He also said that the ones that are bullied feel sad, ashamed, embarrassed and if any one sees it, they need to report it. The victim will not always say something.
I left after talking to Mr. Behunin and went to the nearest school. I wanted to try something, I wanted to see if anyone would notice me walking in without checking in first. I walked in the side door, walked past 4 classrooms and decided that this was probably a bad idea. I turned around, walked back out the door and into the front door. Before I reached the office of the principle, I past 4 adults and numerous kids, (I am assuming it was between classes) and not one person asked who I was or what I was looking for. I reached the principal and was informed that I would have to go to the administration building. When I walked in there, I spoke the lady at the information desk and she told me to sit and wait for someone. I was there for no longer than 7 mins and at least 4 people asked me, who I was. What was I doing there? Who was I waiting on? I wanted to get the opinion of the petition from someone with that A.I.S.D. but I was informed that I must go online to submit a question. I have yet to submit a question, but this will be an ongoing issue.
To see the petition and or to sign the petition go to https://www.gopetition.com/petion/aisd-child-defense-program.html.
“The key is, a shooter in our schools needs to be handled in a matter of seconds and not minutes. And I commend the Amarillo Police Department whom I believe will probably be there in 4 minutes flat, tops. And that is a heck of a response time. But most of these tragedies are finished in 5 minutes” Romie Stated.
