Guns, schools & safety, Texas style

Is the NRA serious?  Armed guards at all schools?

One week after the tragedy at Newtown where 20 children and 6 adults were killed, the powerful rifle association spoke out, saying our country needs to put an armed guard in every school in the nation. Just as our country does at banks, shopping malls and public facilities.

Can you imagine? Guards with guns don't fit the image of what a school should be: safe, a place of learning, young minds and budding ideals, right?

Yet the tragedy of Newtown is indeed a wake-up call that can't be ignored. We must keep our children safe! It's time to find a solution. The crazies with the assault rifles apparently aren't going away. Until our country bans citizens from having such, armed guards may be the best answer. And in Austin, Texas, just such a program has worked for more than 25 years.

The Austin Independent School District established its own police department as far back as 1986. With 68 officers, the department is charged to keep the 125 campuses, centers and adminstrative offices safe. The patrol division operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, year round. In 2008, the department became a recognized law enforcement agency under guidelines set by the state of Texas.

Beyond protection, the AISD Police Department also has a Junior Police Academy, which works with middle school students to motivate them "to be outstanding citizens through law enforcement education. An expansion of community policing, JPA transform the traditional role of the police officer into one of mentor and friend, while encouraging our young citizens to be partners, not adversaries, in building safer schools and communities."
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• Cherubs For Children, Inc.

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The canine unit adds safety of another level,  working to detect the odor of illegal narcotics and nitrates and components of explosives -- certainly threat issues to the safety of students.

While many across the country on Friday afternoon absorb the words of the NRA, some will be against it and others support it. Even some residents of Newtown said it's "off the mark."  One parent's reaction was that it will instill more fear in the children.

I beg to differ.

Had there been police on campus, would the gunman have been so ready and able to burst his way in and kill? Did not that horrific event of Dec. 14 "instill fear" in the Sandy Hook Elementary School children, especially now the young survivors, who may be terrified of going back to a classroom, scarred for life?

Police and security are there for protection. It seems to work well at AISD in Austin. I suspect most students feel confident that any violence will be acted upon by those trained officers -- and teachers won't have to step into the line of fire as the first defense.

It may not be a perfect solution, guards in schools, but from this part of Central Texas, a police department focused on the safety of students seems to be working out just fine.

It's not the NRA that is killing our children.