Protect Schools Like They Do In Israel

Americans intent on ensuring a school massacre like the one in Newtown, Conn., never happens again could learn a lot from Israel, where the long menu of precautions includes armed teachers.

The Jewish state, which has long faced threats of terrorist strikes in crowded locations including schools, takes an all-of-the-above approach to safety in the classroom. Fences, metal detectors and armed private guards are part of a strategy overseen by the country’s national police. And the idea of armed teachers in the classroom, which stirred much controversy in the wake of the U.S. attack, has long been in practice in Israel, though a minority of them carry weapons today.

Oren Shemtov, CEO of Israel’s Academy of Security and Investigation, noted that attacks typically happen in a matter of minutes, and said gun-toting teachers could, at the very least, buy time for kids to escape while police race to the scene.

“Two (armed) teachers would have kept (the Newtown shooter) occupied for 45 seconds each,” said Shemtov, who is one of 16 people in Israel authorized to train those who instruct school guards.

Shemtov, a veteran of Israel’s security services who has been teaching security methods for 22 years, praised the Newtown teachers who gave their lives trying to protect children, but lamented the fact that they weren’t able to shoot back when gunman Adam Lanza opened fire, killing 20 children and six adults before shooting himself in the head as police converged on Sand Hook Elementary School.

“We need to give them the tools to be heroes,” Shemtov said. “No one wants to be a hero. They did what they had to do.”

Security consultant Dov Zwerling, an Israeli counter-terror police veteran, believes armed guards are crucial for school security.

“From what I know of almost all of the active shooter events in the U.S., almost all of them conclude with the shooter taking his own life the moment he is challenged by the first officer on the scene,” Zwerling said. “Why not challenge him earlier?”

Shemtov said the two most critical keys to protecting schools are armed guards and armed teacher response teams. But, as in the U.S., the idea of teachers carrying guns raised some objections in Israel, he said.

“At one point the Interior Ministry mandated that a certain percentage of teachers be armed but because, over time, fewer teachers carried weapons, for a number of reasons, including philosophical objections, and due to increased terror attacks, private guards were mandated at all schools," he said.

School security in Israel is an extension of the comprehensive approach authorities there take to protecting all public places. According to National Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, police work with the Israeli Defense Force and the private security companies that protect such places as malls, bus stations, schools and universities. A centralized command system allows for quick dissemination of intelligence to every police officer and private guard in the field, he said.

A collective effort among police, private guards and teachers requires that the civilians involved in armed security receive rigorous training. Private guards undergo at least three weeks of advanced training with a 9mm weapon and guards employed for school protection must pass criminal, mental and physical checks.

“A long course, at a minimum of 40-60 hours, is needed so that the instructor can feel out the student,” said Shemtov, noting that not all teachers or guards are suited for school protection. “Course candidates should be a certain age, emotionally mature, of a certain mentality, physically healthy - and from there move to training.”

In order to station armed guards in U.S. schools, an idea advocated by the National Rifle Association, America could tap a ready pool of qualified candidates, Shemtov said. U.S. soldiers returning from overseas are well suited for school protection, he said, and “instead of returning with nothing to do there’s a sea of work” as school guards.

“They’re the elite of the American people,” Shemtov said. “You have people obligated, morally and ethically to the state, to the flag - this is a soldier. It’s a person who went out to do this. All you have to do is give him the appropriate training to do this in the private sector....This is the best of the American people, like they’re the best of the Israeli people. They’re people who took it upon themselves to help others.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/1...y-to-school-security-in-israel/#ixzz2GIBlO31g

 

The National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre continued his efforts to oppose gun regulations and to install armed security guards in US schools. LaPierre spoke Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press and trumpeted what he said was Israel’s model for dealing with school violence.

LaPierre claimed that Israel had “a whole lot of school shootings,” until they did what the NRA is advocating.

Some Israelis have called the comment ludicrous.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said there was no “series” of attacks at schools, and that security has been beefed up over the years to deal with terrorism, not senseless shootings.

 

JERUSALEMIsrael's policy on issuing guns is restrictive, and armed guards at its schools are meant to stop terrorists, not crazed or disgruntled gunmen, experts said Monday, rejecting claims by America's top gun lobby that Israel serves as proof for its philosophy that the U.S. needs more weapons, not fewer.

Far from the image of a heavily armed population where ordinary people have their own arsenals to repel attackers, Israel allows its people to acquire firearms only if they can prove their professions or places of residence put them in danger. The country relies on its security services, not armed citizens, to prevent terror attacks.

Though military service in Israel is compulsory, routine familiarity with weapons does not carry over into civilian life. Israel has far fewer private weapons per capita than the U.S., and while there have been gangster shootouts on the streets from time to time, gun rampages outside the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are unheard of.

"Israel had a whole lot of school shootings until they did one thing: They said, `We're going to stop it,' and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then," LaPierre said on the NBC News show "Meet the Press."

Israel never had "a whole lot of school shootings." Authorities could only recall two in the past four decades.

Gun lobbyists who might think Israel hands out guns freely to keep its citizens safe might be less enamored of Israel's actual gun laws, which are much stricter than those in the U.S. For one thing, notes Yakov Amit, head of the firearms licensing department at the Ministry of Public Security, Israeli law does not guarantee the right to bear arms as the U.S. Constitution does.

"The policy in Israel is restrictive," he said.

Gun licensing to private citizens is limited largely to people who are deemed to need a firearm because they work or live in dangerous areas, Amit said. West Bank settlers, for instance, can apply for weapons licenses, as can residents of communities on the borders with Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. Licensing requires multiple levels of screening, and permits must be renewed every three years. Renewal is not automatic.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57560761/israel-rejects-nras-guns-in-schools-claim/?pageNum=2

 

The fact that liberals will reject this out of hand demonstrates that their real objective has nothing to do with school security.

In fact, you would have expected this sort of article to be all over the mainstream media this weekend, but this is the first I'm seeing of it. Wonder why? I guess a lot of weeping and handwringing and attacking the NRA is more productive.

 

LOL, this could be one of the dumbest things i have ever read, i guess terrorists are not crazed or disgruntled gunmen.

 

Ha ha ha ha. You caught FC being stupid. Oh, well, that's nothing new.

 

The fact that conservatives reject even any discussion of gun restrictions demonstrates that their real objective has nothing to do with school security.

I think ol Wayne Lapierre is a tool, but I'm for armed protection in schools also.

 

Odd, I was under the impression most terrorists ARE crazed and or disgruntled.

Is there no limit to the absurd rationalizations you're will to fabricate or embrace to avoid facing reality?

 

Horse shit. Besides, we ALREADY have 22,000 federal state and local gun restrictions. If restrictions were the answer we wouldn't even have a problem to begin with.

 

guns dont kill people who do