Enough is enough, says an armed U.S. Army veteran in Indiana who has decided to take student and teacher protection into his own hands after the horrifying Florida school shooting and threats of school violence rocked his own town.
Mark Cowan says he is keeping watch outside North Side High School in Fort Wayne with his AR-15 and a handgun – at least until added security is in place. Cown told WANE-TV 15 that he’s standing guard to protect students and defend them against anyone who might threaten their safety while they’re in school. He has been in contact with local police and the school resource officer.
“I [decided] to get my butt off the couch and come out here and keep an eye on these kids and teachers. They deserve it,” Cowan told the news station. “They all deserve a right to go home every night without fear of what’s going to happen during the day.”
In addition to being an Army veteran, Cowan is a member of Oath Keepers, an organization of former police officers, first responders and veterans.
“These kids mean a lot to me,” Cowan told WANE-TV 15. “These teachers mean a lot to me … this is my community, and they need protecting. And our law enforcement, as good as it is, can’t be everywhere. So it’s people like myself and the other Oath Keepers that say, ‘I’m gonna take up that slack.'”
However, the school district doesn’t appear to be thrilled by Cowan’s efforts to provide more security.
“We take the security of our schools very seriously,” Fort Wayne Community Schools spokeswoman Krista Stockman told WANE-TV 15. “We understand he has a right to be out there, but we do not believe it adds to the safety of our students. At North Side, as at all of our schools, we have security procedures in place. In addition. at North Side, we have armed police officers in the building every day.”
As WND has reported, the idea of having armed military veterans and law-enforcement officers act as guards to improve school safety is not new. Action star Chuck Norris, an Air Force veteran, has promoted the idea for several years in his exclusive weekly column.
“Which one of our fine law enforcement or military personnel (in any branch) wouldn’t consider it their greatest duty and honor to take a paid or volunteer shift as a guard infront of our schools protecting those precious souls?” Norris asked in his Feb. 19 column.
And in 2013, Norris pointed to Israel, arguing that it’s a “beacon of light for how to protect our children in public places.”
“Israel mandated armed guards at the entrances to all schools in 1995, and those guards are backed up by special police forces,” he wrote. “Despite that school defenses are primarily intended to thwart terrorists, they also deter any would-be psychos who would cause harm to their children.”
Norris continued: “Back at the home of the brave, the U.S. faces multiple mass shootings on academic campuses and the majority still refuses to post any type of armed guard or even unarmed security at schools to protect our children. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 70 percent of public schools do not have a police officer, and more than half (57 percent) have no security staff. There is an old-fashioned term for that lack of security response in these times: stupid.”
I find there is no psychological check run on Oath Keepers members to determine their mental condition and no criminal background check either. If they are ex- military, there is no determination made to see if they suffer from severe PTSD.
Shockingly, someone doesn’t’ even need to have any current of prior service in the military, police or first responder to join. Any John Doe can receive “huge discount on Oath Keepers memberships.”
Instead of paying $40.00, for just $29.95 per year....you get:
Official Associate Member status
Membership certificate suitable for framing
Laminated membership card with sequential member number
Access to our members-only national forum
2 Oath Keepers bumper stickers and 1 back window sticker
Color Oath Keepers brochures and Oath Keepers “push” cards (size of business cards) as an outreach “start up kit.”
Oath Keepers DVD
Pocket Constitution.
And the right to stand across the street from a school with an Oath Keepers patch on your cap while armed with an AR-15 and a pistol.
Reading their membership application, the best I can determine that even the school shooter Nikolas Cruz could have joined and stood across the street from the school with an “Oath Keepers” patch and his AR-15.
A quick search of 82 shootings on the internet shows that at least 28 of the shooters had been in the U.S. military.
Military veterans are more than twice as likely to be mass shooters.
So what we have here now is an individual sporting his “Oath Keepers” patch who has not been vetted in any manner dressed in civilian clothes and wearing sun glasses with a pull-down cap standing across the street from a school with an AR-15 and pistol.
Is this what you REALLY want….is this what we REALLY need?
Reading their membership application, the best I can determine that even the school shooter Nikolas Cruz could have joined and stood across the street.
What a colossal load of steaming bullshit! It's unbelievable what your fevered delusional mind comes up with.
Reading their membership application, the best I can determine that even the school shooter Nikolas Cruz could have joined and stood across the street. What a colossal load of steaming bullshit! It's unbelievable what your fevered delusional mind comes up with.
Is it?
I would be extremely grateful to be proven wrong. See if you can do that by going right now and use a pseudo-name with all other false information to join. You will find that you can join the Oath Keepers as a “John Doe.” I have shown you their membership application….NOW, you PROVE me wrong.
I have shown you how Nikolas Cruz could have joined Oath Keepers and become an Associate Member. Stop with the insults and show me where I am wrong.
PLEASE….show me how Oath Keepers members are vetted with background checks in any form or fashion….PLEASE.
You have no fricking clue what their vetting process is Parsons.
I admit freely that I have no clue about the vetting.
I made my point earlier. The group should co-ordinate with local police departments who can check out the volunteers to make sure they don't have any past indiscretions.
Gatlin has continually misrepresented my position on this issue.
His claim that the Oathkeepers would allow a nutcase like Cruz to guard a school is just more evidence of his rampant senility.
Granted - some members in the group have been somewhat unsavory, but as I pointed out to him - just as he has stated about cops - there's a few bad apples in any group.-
