OPINION:
The tragic school invasion at Sandy Hook Elementary School and other murders across America call for a proactive plan of action to protect our children from continued atrocities.
Some schools are talking of hiring police as guards. Unfortunately, the reality is that a uniformed officer openly carrying a gun would be targeted first in an attack by a gun-wielding monster and very likely shot down in the split second after he realized the school was under attack.
What is needed are plainclothes guards carrying concealed weapons, people already working at the schools and scattered about the school building and grounds. I would propose that our school boards and school administrators meet with our law enforcement personnel and develop a school reserve officer program using existing school employees.
At least 25 percent of the adults working in our schools each day — administrators, teachers, custodians and school bus drivers — should be fully trained as school reserve officers, working as they normally do in plain clothes, armed with concealed weapons, trained, sworn and commissioned to defend our children in the event of the unthinkable happening.
LARRY HAGEDON
Keosauqua, Iowa
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