Former TSA Air Marshal on schools-guns debate: Split the bullet: Modified firearms in schools

The vast majority of teachers will not volunteer to conceal carry loaded pistols, and our education system cannot afford to hire a long-term professional armed security nor physically secure our schools as we attempt to do at our airports. The most cost effective and common sense solution to the "school/guns" debate: Modified firearms secured in classrooms. Installing expensive security surveillance camera systems, fences, security vestibules, dead-bolts, etc., will not stop a determined suicidal gunman from attacking students on playgrounds, or before and after class crowding schools' exit/entry bottlenecks. School officials need some ability to protect themselves and/or neutralize a threat before law enforcement can be contacted, and until responding law enforcement officers can assess the danger, enter, and safely respond with the proper equipment and weapons. The National Rifle Association's only proposal to hire armed security officers would be huge expenditure our schools cannot bare. The Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Federal Air Marshal Service costs almost a billion dollars a year and barely covers a single-digit percentage of daily U.S. flights. All six U.S. flights attacked by terrorists since the September 11, 2001 attacks did not have any armed pilots, air marshals, or other law enforcement aboard. More, low-paid, bored, armed, uniformed, or even undercover security officers, are a gunman's first targets to ambush and disarm. For this reason, myself and other TSA Federal Air Marshals compelled Congress to end the TSA's four-year policy to make us highly visible to the general flying public. Any armed security officer program would be a minimally effective multibillion dollar program our schools cannot afford. Some suggest that former military and law enforcement can volunteer to be armed security officers. Any police or sheriff's department will attest to the fact that their voluntary reserve officer program has significant training and equipment costs. Any voluntary program would be problematic due to scheduling and absenteeism. Although such a program would receive instant attention, volunteers will eventually grow weary. Getting paid is always a better motivator than a pat on the back.

Some have suggested allowing school officials to voluntarily be screened, trained, and armed with sidearm pistols. Almost identical to this proposal, lawmakers passed a knee-jerk law that sailed through Congress after the 9/11 hijackings. The Federal Flight Deck Officer program allows an airline passenger pilot to volunteer to be screened, trained, and carry semiautomatic .40 S&W caliber an very high velocity bullet pistol as a sidearm, all while flying and desperately trying to quickly their aircraft for law enforcement assistance. With the exception of training, and issuance of their weapon and travel lock-box, the pilot must bare all other costs and train on personal leave. At all other times outside the flight deck, armed pilots are required to have their pistol in a TSA-issued lock-box. The program expects armed pilots to thwart a suicidal killer inside a crowded, fueled, aluminum tube going 500 miles per hour, 40,000 feet in the sky, and with no law enforcement to immediately respond except the extremely rare case of air marshals on board. During any pistol gunfight, the pilots would also be attempting to quickly land their jet. Armed pilots may not expect to land their aircraft and have law enforcement board for several hours. An airborne jet is an extremely more dangerous environment compared to wide-open classrooms and playgrounds where law enforcement can arrive much faster. The politicians who voted for the ongoing program to arm pilots, will have a hard time justifying that it is safer to have pistol carrying pilots in "a missile" than secured modified shotguns wide open school grounds with law enforcement minutes away. Despite many with past military experience, most pilots did not apply for the program. It should be expected that even less school officials would apply for a similar program. I propose a short-barreled 12-gauge pump-action shotgun with a duel pistol grip system and collapsible polymer stock. Such a weapon is very light, can be well controlled since the user can retain and operate it with both hands, and all recoil can be absorbed into the upper body as opposed to one's hand. Compared to a pistol, a shotgun is much easier to retain from an attacker since two hands can independently grip it. A shotgun can also be used as a nonlethal blunt weapon against an unarmed attacker.

Bottom photo shows stock unfolded, but without duel pistol grip system The shotgun can be stored in a push-button combination safe that would be bolted down into the floor in discreet areas. A school official in an emergency situation can go down low into a relatively concealed or covered position, punch in the combination, and quickly arm his/herself until law enforcement response. These shootings often occur and end before law enforcement arrives. This solution is easier to implement and safer than the suggestion to arm school officials with concealed pistols. Even if they decide to volunteer, arming themselves 24/7 requires initial and recurring training, a hidden holster system, and constantly concealing and maintaining security of their loaded pistol. While mostly preoccupied with controlling their students, trying to carry conceal pistols makes them further susceptible to being ambushed and disarmed by a surprise attacker. The U.S. Air Force already has a shotgun in every nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile silo full of rocket fuel. Male and female airmen were only required to take eight hours of annual training. Not only is the shotgun is the easiest of all firearms to operate, but one of the most accurate due to the wide diameter of buckshot sprayed on a target, the ability to doublegrip it, and barrel length. A miss with a shotgun results in scattered buckshot, whereas a miss with a ballistic bullet round like a .40 S&W from a semi-automatic pistol can dangerously over-penetrate or ricochet.

As a parent of two in the third and forth grades, I believe that if most of the Sandy Hook victims' loved ones could go back in time, they would give their school officials a fighting chance, until law enforcement arrived, to protect their children from a determined suicidal gunman. One who so methodically executed 27 people, that there was only one wounded survivor. Beware of career politicians being influenced by large security contractor companies trying to turn our schools into airport sterile areas. More multi-billion dollar post-9/11 TSA security theater programs will do little to stop a mentally ill gunman on a suicide mission. Finally, we should be exploring that there are better alternatives on how to treat the mentally ill without expecting that they become medicated until catatonic or incarcerated. By Robert MacLean

I am a Former Air Force nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile technician, U.S. Department of Justice (legacy) Border Patrol Agent, Department of Homeland Security Transportation Security Administration Federal Air Marshal, and private security executive protection officer. U.S. Senators John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, and fifteen other Members of Congress publicly supported my past actions of thinking too much like a suicidal hijacker: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_MacLean