Paul Johns, Sports Reporter, for the ‘The Anaconda Leader’ wrote a thought-provoking article and submitted it to Montana 1st News to be published. ‘Hats off’ to Mr. Johns whose well-penned piece should be implemented and quickly.

“What if I told you that we could eliminate or greatly reduce school shootings and it wouldn’t cost any extra money? The plan would please both sides of the aisle and should be bipartisan. No more gun laws would be added and taxes would remain the same.

The plan would include requiring every school in the nation to have an armed police officer in the school at all times during school hours. That police officer would have a secure office located near an entrance of the school. In addition to being armed at all times, the officer would have a fully-equipped AR-15, substantial ammunition, body armor and a shield in a secured locker in his secured office. The only time that locker is to be opened is if there is an immediate threat to the school. Since most schools are closed in the summer, those officers would be part of the routine patrol, when more police officers are needed. There would also be mandatory training during the summers specifically relating to schools.

How often do you hear about deranged people walking into a police station, shooting people? Rarely, if any, because they know the people in that building are well-trained and will shoot back. The exact opposite is the reason these psychopaths target schools. Schools have vulnerable targets and nobody will shoot back.

Now how do we pay for this? It sounds expensive and believes me, it is. With roughly 115,000 schools in the United States and an average police officer salary is around $60,000 this would equate to almost 7 billion dollars per year plus another billion or so to equip the officers. However, in the fiscal year 2020, the United States sent out around $50 billion to foreign countries across the globe and $30 billion strictly to Ukraine in the last 13 months. Isn’t it feasible that we could fund this program by slightly reducing the number of handouts that we give to the world? Isn’t it time we start using that money to protect our citizens who can’t protect themselves?

The latest school shooting in Nashville is another horrendous, senseless act committed by a deranged, mentally-unstable individual but the brave officers of Nashville responded swiftly and neutralized the shooter quickly. Unfortunately, it was not soon enough as three adults and three children lost their lives.

Imagine the difference if just one police officer had been stationed in that building.”