Pro-2A Columbine Shooting Survivor Asks Beto A Question, Beto Assumes He’s Anti-Gun

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

Pro-2A Columbine Shooting Survivor Asks Beto A Question, Beto Assumes He's Anti-Gun

When an attendee at Beto O’Rourke’s town hall in Aurora, CO identified himself as a Columbine High School shooting survivor, it was assumed be was anti-gun.  But he’s not. In fact, Evan Todd is an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment. He only asks Beto one thing – if he thinks it’s time to ban all semi-automatic firearms. Evan prefaces this with the fact no so-called “assault weapons” were used in the Columbine shooting.  And in 1999 when the devastating massacre took place, the country was smack in the middle of the Clinton Era Assault Weapons ban.

Beto’s response is a must-see.  WATCH!

Initially members of the media used this clip to claim a Columbine survivor was there pleading with Beto to ban all semi-automatic firearms.  As soon as that same media discovered Evan was not anti-gun and did not support the proposals Beto is pushing, they went silent.

Beto’s response makes it clear he is perfectly open to removing the means of self defense from millions of people.

Evan’s story of survival is a gruesome one. The day of the Columbine High School Shooting, he was the first person shot in the library, and the last person to speak to the shooters before they took their own lives. He was a sophomore at the time. 

Evan watched as the two killers murdered his classmates, execution-style.

“One of them kneeled down and put a gun to my head and said, ‘Why shouldn’t we kill you?'” Todd told KUNC during a Columbine anniversary interview. “And so when they came up to me, I really thought, this is it, this is the end of my life.”

They didn’t pull the trigger. And Evan survived, although forever changed.

Evan’s experiences that day have shaped his thinking on school safety and guns. Evan believes a teacher who is trained and allowed to carry a firearm can make a difference during a school shooting. He is a gun owner and a concealed carry permit holder himself. He has testified in favor of a bill that would allow people to conceal carry on school grounds, has testified against Red Flag laws, and he is outspoken in his support of the right to keep and bear arms.

Listen to his story in the video below.

Evan Todd is currently the spokesman for Bullets Both Ways, an organization dedicated to firearms and trauma training for school staff and church personnel. He spoke at our Take Back The Second rally last May.

Man, these town halls sure aren’t turning out as planned for Beto.

 

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Sandy Hook Promise Glamorizes School Shootings With New Back-To-School PSA

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

Sandy Hook Promise Glorifies Mass Shooters With New Back-To-School PSA

In a back-to-school PSA so disturbing you’d think it was made by the school shooters themselves, Sandy Hook Promise shows how the anti-gun community capitalizes off of fear and does not care about unintended consequences.  The TV ad was premiered Wednesday on the TODAY show.

The purported goal of the PSA video is to encourage people to learn the signs of would-be school shooters so they can help stop them before they start, a noble goal.  But digging deeper into their website, it is clear they are simply another anti-gun nonprofit as they parrot similar claims that have been called out by even NPR when citing the number of school shootings that happen each year, and they are pushing for dangerous Red Flag ERPO laws like was recently passed here in Colorado. Nowhere is it mentioned that Connecticut already HAD a Red Flag law in place when Sandy Hook happened.

The perverse video, which begins with students showing off their newest back to school essentials, quickly turns dark when a school shooting begins and suddenly those back to school essentials are used to defend and save lives by soon-to-be victims. It ends by simply telling viewers to visit the Sandy Hook Promise website, but undoubtedly triggers a deep and unnecessary fear in parents, teachers, and especially students.  I personally would never let my children watch it, and would be furious if they saw it elsewhere.

WATCH IT HERE

School shootings are unusual, horrifying and dramatic – which is exactly why they get so much media attention.  According to FactCheck.org there have been 64 deaths from school shootings between the Sandy Hook tragedy in December 2012 and the end of 2018. This includes not just mass school shootings, but “students who died after being shot on school grounds, during school hours or after, being shot on college campuses—or at student housing—where they were enrolled for classes.”

Students are 370 times more likely to die in a car accident travelling to or from school than they are to die by firearm at school.

In addition to the unnecessary and distressing emotion this video aims to evoke, I must question if it would have the opposite effect on a could-be-school shooter who will undoubtedly be the first to watch it over and over and over, enjoying every moment, fantasizing about what “could be”.  The video portrays exactly what drives certain students to commit such atrocious acts.  They get off on the fear instilled in their fellow classmates and teachers.  It depicts the emotion potential school shooters are wanting to elicit from their victims.  So does glorifying it in a $100,000+ production video do more harm than good?  What happened to “no notoriety”?

Evan Todd, a Columbine High School shooting survivor and spokesman for Bullets Both Ways, had this to say in response to the PSA video:

“Policies and security protocols that leave gaps in protection are not acceptable any longer. Ignorance nor apathy will protect our schools. There are ways to prevent and there are ways to defend. We should demand both.”

There are evidence based solutions that prevent and stop school shootings.  There are policies that fuel potential shooters while leaving our kids and teachers defenseless.  And then there is crap like this which serves to do nothing good.  It breeds unreasonable paranoia, re-traumatizes victims, and acts as school shooter porn.  It is completely irresponsible.

 

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Arming Teachers In Colorado: Everything You Need To Know

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

Arming Teachers In Colorado: Everything You Need To Know - Rally for our Rights

 

Since the recent remarks made by the Douglas County, CO School District Superintendent, Dr. Thomas Tucker, vowing to remove any school, even a charter school, from his district if they wanted armed school staff to be part of a security plan, the amount of misinformation I’ve seen about “armed teachers” has been astonishing. The idea that people like myself, who support school and community autonomy over school security, wants to see every teacher in every school “packin’ heat, gun slingin’ like the old west” is downright ridiculous.  Hell, some of the stuff I’ve heard you’d think we wanted to arm kids (we do not, trust me)!  So let’s look at the facts…

Colorado is one of dozens of states that legally allows individuals to carry a concealed firearm on school grounds during school hours with specific conditions.  The laws in each state vary to some degree.

Here is exactly what Colorado’s CRS 18-12-214 (3) (b) states: “A permittee who is employed or retained by contract by a school district or charter school as a school security officer may carry a concealed handgun onto the real property, or into any improvement erected thereon, of a public elementary, middle, junior high, or high school while the permittee is on duty;”

So, what does that mean?

It means that school district boards or charter school boards can authorize individual school staff members to conceal carry a firearm on school grounds, even if that person does not work for a security company.  When a decision is made to allow a school staff member to carry, the district will contract with the employee to add the “school security officer” designation to their primary job duties.

Do these staff members have to be insured? Are there training requirements?

In most cases when a staff member is designated on their contract to be a school security officer, a “rider” is added to their insurance.  This insurance rider requires 24 hours of firearm training over the past year, four hours of classroom instruction on firearms safety and use of deadly force, 14 hours of live fire range training exercises, six hours of school active shooter training, and the shooting range test police officers need to pass, among some other things.

Where do they receive the training? 

As more schools are looking into this option, almost all are working with FASTER Colorado.  FASTER stands for Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response.  They are dedicated to training school staff with an all of the above approach.  Their training goes far beyond what insurance requires, adding in a trauma class and a psychological portion.  The trauma skills ensure they’re equipped to not only stop a shooting, but save lives as well.  In some of the most tragic school shootings, it is apparent had someone in the school been equipped to stop the bleed, the fatality rate would have dropped – often times substantially.  The psychological portion discusses how to interact with a school shooter and asks the question “Can you handle what you may one day have to do?” To graduate from the FASTER training, tactical skills must exceed that of law enforcement.  You can watch a 90 minute FASTER presentation here.

Who knows which staff members are armed?

This is entirely up to the school district, but in most cases it is only a select few within the school and local law enforcement.  It is critical armed staff works with local law enforcement to develop a strong communication plan should an active shooter situation occur.

Won’t kids get a hold of the guns?

Part of the training is deep concealment techniques.  This means authorized staff does not simply carry a handgun holstered to their hip or in a conceal carry purse.  It means they have learned and practiced using concealment techniques that are “on-body” 100% of the time, and invisible to even a trained eye.

Isn’t this expensive to the schools?

The insurance rider does increase cost, but it is only a fraction compared to the expense of hiring a SRO or private security.  In addition, there are private grant programs available to schools who cannot afford it.  The FASTER Colorado training is offered at low or no cost when needed.

Are any schools in Colorado already doing this? 

Yes, over 30 school districts in Colorado have authorized personnel.  Many of these districts are rural.  For example, Hanover, a small community southeast of Colorado Springs has authorized staff because in the case of a school shooting, it would take at minimum 30 minutes for law enforcement to arrive.  But more suburban schools are also adding this as part of their security plan.  It is a decision that should be made by parents, teachers, and community members.  It may not be for every school, but for many it’s a great fit and requested by parents.

Many teachers say they don’t want this responsibility.  Will they be forced to carry a firearm if their district does this?

Absolutely not. This is 100% volunteer. No one is forced to do it, and no school is either.  But it’s also important to remember some staff members DO want this responsibility, many of them individuals who already conceal carry on a daily basis outside their regular job and train on their own time as a hobby.  We have seen again and again a teacher, or a coach, die while trying to protect their students with their body. That same individual could save not only their life, but the lives of others, if they are given a fighting chance.

Teachers need to focus on students, not security.  Wouldn’t this affect student education?

First, “school staff” does not mean “teachers”.  It means janitors, cafeteria workers, school counselors, coaches, and/or teachers, etc.  Admin makes up a large contingent of staff.  Many of them are volunteering to take on this role.

Second, there is nothing as distracting as a school shooting.  It leaves life long trauma.  Children don’t survive.  Their safety should be a #1 priority.

Final thoughts…

I’m a single mother of three.  One of my biggest fears is that my children will be in class when a depraved student chooses to create a Columbine copycat – but what I fear even more is that there will be no one there to protect them.  There is no one-size-fits all security plan.  It’s important that school boards and superintendents listen to what parents and the community want.  As parents, we have every right to be critical of our schools and to ask they do a better job protecting our students.  If you want your child’s school to consider allowing well trained and authorized armed staff, the best place to start is the school board.  Email them.  Call them.  Attend their meetings.  Find out where they stand.  And if you need direction, contact us.

You can help Rally for our Rights continue to be at the forefront of defending gun rights while advocating for a safer society by making a contribution today.  Your support is greatly appreciated.  DONATE HERE.

CO School District Threatens To Shut Down Charter School That Allows Armed Staff

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

Douglas County CO School District Threatens To Shut Down Charter School That Allows Armed Staff : Rally For Our Rights

In Colorado it is legal for public schools and public charter schools to have armed staff if the school board (or in the case of charters schools, the charter board) authorizes the specific individuals.  More than 30 districts in the state already have some form of armed staff.  Reference: CRS 18-12-214 (3) (b).

Douglas County School District in Colorado has 91 schools under their control with ONE school, Ascent Classical Academy – a charter – who is implementing a new security plan this year that includes some staff members being legally authorized to carry. These authorized individuals are volunteers who went through the extensive teacher training program called FASTER Colorado.  FASTER not only teaches tactical techniques, but also has a focus on psychological and trauma skills as well.  For a teacher to graduate from the training program, their tactical skills must exceed that of law enforcement.

Last week during the second “Interim School Safety Committee” hearing at the Colorado State Capitol (a committee put together after the tragic STEM School Shooting at a charter school in Douglas County last May), district superintendent Dr. Thomas Tucker emphatically stated that no schools in HIS district were allowed to have armed staff, that it was a violation of district policy, and if any of them tried to do it, they’d be asked to leave the district.  This included charter schools.

Watch the video here for the complete exchange:

The superintendent’s position has nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with anti-gun ideology.  Under state statute, charter schools have autonomy over their security plans. Reference: CRS 22-32-109-1 (2).  Ascent Classical Academy has a contract with the school district that allows them to implement their new security plan, and they also have a waiver from the district policy GBEB, which talks about armed staff.  In December 2018, the newest anti-gun school board adopted a new policy ADD, that fundamentally changed the previous policy from a mere statement to a directive. They took restrictive language on armed staff from policy GBEB and inserted it into this new ADD – which NO ONE has a waiver from since it wasn’t even applicable to anyone until it was suddenly created last December.  This was an underhanded move to prevent Ascent Classical Academy from implementing their new security policy, even though that policy was developed at the request of parents and teachers of that particular school which does not have the funds to hire a full time SRO.

Ascent Classical Academy is negotiating a transfer to the state charter oversight board but are they insisting the local tax funding the Douglas County kids currently receive continues to support their education – and rightfully so.  The Douglas County school district has been resistant to allow ANY funds to continue to support the school and has even threatened to shut it down if the school will not comply with their new terms.

Parents and community members can attend the Douglas County school board meetings, as well as contact board members and the superintendent here.

They can also voice their concerns to the Interim School Safety Committee by clicking here.

And they can attend the next School Safety Committee hearing on Sept 20th at 9am in the Old State Library of the Colorado State Capitol in Denver, CO.

Help Rally for our Rights continue to attend and document these legislative hearings and bring the information to light!  CLICK HERE TO MAKE A DONATION.

Parkland One Year Later: The Government Has Blood On Their Hands

Posted on by Lesley Hollywood

Parkland One Year Later: The Government Has Blood On Their Hands Rally for our Rights Colorado
Today marks one year since the United States saw a school massacre that broke the hearts of a nation, ignited a fire in new activists, and if you’re paying attention – shattered your trust in government.  That massacre being the Parkland, Florida school shooting where 19 year old Nikolas Cruz took the lives of 14 classmates and three teachers.

On February 14th, 2018 Nikolas Cruz took an Uber with a backpack equipped with an AR-15, grenades, and ammo to his old school.  He walked past the school security monitor, Andrew Medina, who knew he wasn’t allowed on school grounds and found his presence “suspicious”, although did nothing.  Cruz walked past the building where school resource officer, Scot Peterson, was talking with another student.  Peterson was employed as a sheriff’s deputy with the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, but his charge was to protect the students at Parkland High School.  It should also be noted that Peterson was the only armed person permitted to be on school grounds.  Cruz walked through the unsecured school doors into his former high school from which he’d been expelled.  In this gun free zone not one person attempted to stop him, nor was there any security measures in place.  At 2:21 pm he opened fire.  It was a rampage that would last at least 20 minutes before Cruz simply walked out of the school and into a nearby neighborhood, where he was eventually captured and confessed.

Heartbreaking.  How can this kind of tragedy happen?  It shouldn’t have.  And it wouldn’t have if the government had done their job.  

The Parkland High School Shooting spurred a gun control movement this country hasn’t seen in decades.  March for our Lives formed under umbrella groups Moms Demand Action and Everytown For Gun Safety, all which are funded by Michael Bloomberg, have taken to the streets and the halls of congress.  Frantic and misguided students, parents, teachers and individuals have exploited the Parkland tragedy calling for massive gun control across the nation – from city ordinances to federal laws.  What they should be acknowledging instead is the complete and utter government failure that allowed Parkland to happen in the first place. More laws were not needed. The current laws simply needed to be enforced.

The government has blood on their hands, and as a mother I say that unapologetically.  

• Nikolas Cruz was not a stranger to Broward County law enforcement.  In fact, police had been called to his home at least 37 times over the course of only a few years. 37 TIMES!  The reasons ranged from harming animals (shooting chickens with a pellet gun), assault on his mother, assault on his siblings, harming himself, threatening to harm himself, threatening to harm others, and more.  Not once was he charged.  Not once did the police take any action, even though action on almost all of these would have required his name to be entered into the NICS database preventing him from legally being able to purchase a firearm.

• In addition to the 37 reports law enforcement did follow up on (although ultimately ignored in the end), in February 2016 a tipster called Broward Sheriff’s Office to say Cruz ‘could be a school shooter in the making’ and had been making threats on Instagram, but deputies did not write up a report on that warning, instead they forwarded it to School Resource Officer Scot Peterson. That report came just weeks after a relative called urging Broward Sheriff’s Office to investigate if he should have the weapons he had, and possibly seize them.  In the end, both reports were ignored.

• Late in 2016 a “peer counselor” reported to School Resource Officer Scot Peterson that Cruz had possibly ingested gasoline in a suicide attempt, was cutting himself and wanted to buy a gun. A mental health counselor advised against involuntarily committing Cruz.  In Florida, such action can be done under the Baker Act, which allows the state to involuntarily commit individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others. People committed under the Baker Act are legally barred from obtaining firearms.  This event was followed up on by Florida Department of Children and Families, and even though he had fresh cuts from “cutting” and his mother shared her fear that he constantly talked of wanting to buy a firearm, he was deemed stable and, once again, ignored.

• In September 2017 a YouTube user named “nikolas cruz” postsed a comment stating he wanted to become a “professional school shooter.” The comment was reported to the FBI in Mississippi, but was not followed up on.

• In November 2017 a family member called Broward County Sheriff’s Office to report that Nikolas Cruz was dangerous, had made legitimate threats, and had weapons.  Her concerns were ignored when Cruz told them he’d give the weapons to a family friend.  This again would have been a legitimate use of the Baker Act.

• Also in November 2017, after Cruz’ mother died, he was taken in by a Palm Beach County family.  They contacted the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office to report a fight between Cruz and their 22 year old son. A member of the family said that Cruz had threatened to “get his gun and come back” and that he had “put the gun to others’ heads in the past.” The family did not want him arrested, so the report was ignored.

• And again in November 2017 a caller from Massachusetts reported that Cruz is collecting guns and knives and was threatening to be a “school shooter in the making.” A Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy advised the caller to contact the Palm Beach sheriff.  If the caller ever did contact Palm Beach, it’s not on record.

• In January 5, 2018 a report came in to the FBI’s tip line claiming that Cruz has “a desire to kill people” and could potentially conduct a school shooting. The information was never passed on to the FBI’s office in Miami.  The FBI has even publicly acknowledged their failure.

And these are only the failures BEFORE the incident.  Since the incident it has come to light that:

• The only other armed person on school grounds, resource officer Scot Peterson, hid behind a concrete wall during the rampage.

• School Security Monitor, Andrew Medina, had a long history of sexually harassing female students, all which was swept under the rug.

• Broward County Sheriff took 26 minutes to enter to the school.

• Nikolas Cruz was easily able to walk out of the school, blending in with other students and walked into a nearby neighborhood, where he was later arrested.

• After a lawsuit against the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, the school district, and Parkland High, a judge determined that NONE of these entities had a responsibility to protect the students.

You would think after all of this, those closest to the tragedy would be asking why – and how – this kind of failure is possible.  You would think that in the change they wish to see, the government would be the last place they’d be seeking it.  I mean, what makes them think anything will change?  History shows it won’t and it doesn’t, and, in fact,  nearly every mass shooting the US has seen government failure like this exist behind it.

Even last summer during a counter protest Rally for our Rights held while March for our Lives was staging a “March on the NRA”, a conversation afterward between myself and the organizers of the other event resulted in agreement that these failures exist, and that before we discuss new laws, we should be discussing why our current laws are failing.

What is the solution?  We need to acknowledge our society has a violence problem and a suicide problem, but to call it a gun problem is disingenuous.  To create gun control laws that disarm and effect only the law abiding is a false sense of security.  Mental health is a strong component of this issue.  Any individual who will walk into a school and execute students is mentally ill, even if not previously diagnosed.

We have soft targets in schools such as Parkland, where someone like Cruz can simply wander in with nothing in his way, and not one person inside the school is legally given the ability to defend the students they care for as their own.  Programs such as FASTER Colorado provides no cost or low cost intensive training to school staff who voluntarily choose to be armed and is approved by their school board.  They are also provided with deep concealment training, trauma training, and psychological training.

In the end, we will never eradicate evil, but we can defend ourselves from it.