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  • Matt Martin
    Matt is a former Army Sergeant and infantry team leader. He was wounded twice in Afghanistan, receiving two Purple Heart medals as well as the Army Commendation Medal with Valor for his actions during an ambush on July 11, 2011. After completing his service, Matt enrolled and completed his MBA at Indiana University – Kelley School of Business.

    After the most recent school shooting, this time at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a 19-year old gunman was charged with killing 17 people, debate flows freely, yet again, on how to best prevent these tragedies from ever happening. Anyone with a heart can surely agree this is the overall goal. The morning after the shooting, NC State Representative Larry Pittman (R-Cabarrus County) stated that he wants to work with police to train and allow teachers to carry guns in attempt to limit the death and destruction caused during a school shooting.

    “We have to get over this useless hysteria about guns and allow school personnel to have a chance to defend their lives and those of their students,” Pittman said during a meeting of the Joint Legislative Emergency Management Oversight Committee, as reported by the News & Observer.

    Defending children is a must, but putting a firearm in the hands of even the most trained teacher isn’t the answer. Anyone suggesting this solution has clearly never experienced a situation like the one seen in Parkland because it oversimplifies the complexity of an active shooter situation, especially in close-quarters. It is not as easy as a “good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.”

    I ask that you take a few minutes to understand my perspective and why I feel strongly about this matter. Before recently moving to Charlotte, I served for three and half years as an Army infantryman, stationed at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks, Alaska, and I deployed to Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province in 2011. By the time my tour was over, I left a place that claimed two members from my company, cost six others at least one limb, wounded over 25 percent of our total force, and left me with shrapnel in my face and a bullet hole in my left thigh. When I saw the news flash of another school shooting I couldn’t help but think of the firefights I had been involved in and how these students and teachers just encountered their own version of Afghanistan.

    Make no mistake, the fear and chaos they faced is no different than what my fellow soldiers and I faced in Afghanistan—a fear and chaos that I still remember like it happened yesterday.

    “Martin! MARTIN!” is still audible in my mind six and half years later. I turned and saw three members of my platoon pinned down in the field behind me. Their screams still clear as day, as they called for help. A routine patrol in the Panjwa’i District had turned into an ambush, with us taking fire from three enemy positions, some as close as 20 yards (the distance of a pitcher’s mound to home plate). I, along with some of my fellow soldiers, began to return suppressive fire. Just as the first man safely reached us, the feeling of Arnold Schwarzenegger swinging a sledgehammer into my leg rushed over my body. That’s what being shot by a high-powered assault rifle felt like to me.

    Assisted by an extremely calm and poised Sergeant, I was able to move to cover in a canal, as bullets cracked and whizzed by my head and exploded in the dirt around me. The sound a bullet makes as it passes mere inches away is another sound that will forever stay with me.

    Luckily, or so I thought at the time, a medic was already there to start administering aid. There was only one problem. The medic froze.

    The medic, who had spent at least the last year of his life training for this exact moment, could not move. When this news made its way down the line to the other medics, they came to my location and ensured I received proper medical attention.

    The bullet traveled through my left thigh, shredded my left hip flexor, moved through my left butt cheek before ultimately stopping halfway in the right one (there’s a Forest Gump joke in there somewhere). Big picture, the bullet missed my colon and spine by a half-inch and traveled over a foot inside my body.

    Now, I share this story not to draw attention to my actions during this firefight or as a condemnation of the medic. I simply want to illustrate how even the best trained members of the military react differently when bullets start flying. Someone shooting at you, specifically trying to kill you, is probably the most terrifying life event a person could ever experience.

    Regardless of training, you don’t know how people will respond in life and death situations until the moment comes. You don’t know how people will react when they hear gunshots. You don’t know how people will react when the person next to them is shot. You don’t know how a person will respond when their task is shooting someone they know or taught. You just don’t know.

    And now we are expecting teachers, even with training, to perfectly handle this situation. I say perfectly because anything less could mean even more tragedy and death. This isn’t a movie where bullets always miss the hero. These teachers aren’t action stars. These are average people, who more likely than not, have never come close to experiencing anything like this.

    Few people actually run towards gunfire. Most search for cover. Some can’t function. Fight or flight. Adrenaline floods your body. Time doesn’t exist. Your heart beats outside of your chest. Fine motor skills stop working. People urinate and defecate themselves. Good luck holding steady aim at a moving target. Even the simplest of tasks, such as reloading can become difficult. Your hands shake for hours afterward. It’s chaotic on a level that is beyond comprehension until you experience it.

    This what I want you to consider when the discussion moves toward Rep. Pittman’s assumption that allowing teachers to arm themselves is the proper action to take.

    “There is barely enough time in the school year to train teachers on basic lesson planning and data use,” a friend who currently works for CMS told me. “So adding weaponry is just so absurd.”

    Members of the military and police spend hours, days and weeks at a time training with their weapons. They train on close quarter tactics with partners, teams, squads and platoons. Safety and awareness is ingrained in you from day one. Dry runs are the norm. You practice and train methodically, going door by door, hallway to hallway, communicating and marking cleared rooms as you pass.

    You do this over, and over and over. Why? Because no two professions better understand the devastation of a gun when things go wrong. No two professions better understand the actual stress of being shot at and the absolute need to remember and implement the months and years of training for these exact types of situations. The margin for error in close quarters combat, such as a school environment, is razor thin. There is a reason it’s already part of a profession that involves life and death decision making and not placed in the skillset of a high school math teacher.

    The only responsibility a teacher should have during a school shooting is ensuring the safety of the students in their classroom. Period. They should be barricading doors to ensure the shooter can’t enter and leading the students by example as they implement active shooter lockdown procedures.

    Further, Rep. Pittman totally disregards that a person or teacher with a gun, even with the best intentions, can create a tragedy on their own. There are what ifs on top of what ifs. What if during the chaos of an active shooter situation a teacher shoots an innocent student? Are we willing to accept this as a society? What if the teacher is shot (a very likely scenario)? What if the shooter knows exactly who the armed teachers on campus are? What if on a regular day a teacher goes to break up a fight in the hallway and the firearm is accidentally discharged?

    According to an FBI study about active shooter situations, police officers who engaged the shooter were wounded or killed in 46.7 percent of the incidents. We’re talking about individuals who are specifically trained to respond to these situations and not teachers trained over the the weekend or during summer break.

    The potential collateral damage is not worth it. There are just too many possible negative outcomes and risks that so severely outweigh the small chance that they stop an active shooter threat, where most of the death and destruction is carried out in the first few minutes. If you don’t believe me, watch here to see what can happen in this exact situation.

    This piece is not meant as a knock against teachers, nor am I by any means questioning their bravery in these situations. God knows our country has seen example after example of teachers and students shielding others from gunfire. Heroic doesn’t begin to fully explain the bravery of the person behind those actions. I’m completely certain there are teachers willing to volunteer for this role and almost positive that some have already secretly brought a firearm into school. I don’t question a teacher’s commitment toward protecting their students.

    My goal here is to bring the reality of the situation to the forefront. Politicians who are blas? about the complexity and rigorous training required for these types of engagements and who underestimate the physical, physiological and psychological toll a combat environment brings to those involved, should be forced to place themselves in these types of simulations.

    Ultimately, I’m saddened by the fact that we’ve reached a point where people in this country want teachers to arm themselves as moonlight deputies. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m confident that arming teachers isn’t the answer—now or ever.
    I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it on

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    • [ame]https://twitter.com/DavidBegnaud/status/967621750887460864[/ame]

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      • Onky thing stupider in the world are those that voted for him..
        [ame]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967538684789739520[/ame]

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        • Originally posted by The Oracle View Post
          Onky thing stupider in the world are those that voted for him..
          https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...38684789739520
          Something to remember on the differences in the two memos...Trump released the Nunes memo in spite of objections from the FBI that some redactions were needed. Trump chose to completely declassify the information instead, because it was a document designed to push his narrative. For the Schiff memo, he demanded that the Democrats comply with whatever redactions the FBI asked for, which they did. So I think the version we got yesterday didnt even require Trump's approval in the end because it contains no classified info. Yet still has more substance.

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          • Diane Feinstein loses her own partys endorsement for her reelection bid lol

            Time to hang it up

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            • Up to 300,000 military service members to get the boot.


              The Pentagon has released new policy on retention of non-deployable service members, setting a deadline of Oct. 1 to start separating those who can't be deployed.
              “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

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              • Comment


                • Up to 300,000 military service members to get the boot.


                  https://www.upi.com/Defense-News/201...&utm_medium=18
                  But who will march in General Deferment's parades?

                  When I was active duty, there was a requirement to be available for "world wide assignment/deployment" can't say I saw it enforced very often, though.
                  I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it on

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                  • The Bone Spur Coward will rent uniformed crisis actors and then claim the largest parade in history. Bigly largest.
                    “Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.” - Groucho Marx

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                    • I can speak to this with some knowledge and experience. Stationing troops abroad has been a cornerstone of US Military policy since the 50's. No country does this to the extent the US does.... not even close.

                      The reason is ostensibly rapid response to military crisis. Mattis viewed non-deployables as a drag on the system and the reason for additional money that the DOD could use elsewhere. While cutting the military always appears to be politically unappealing, there is a large amount of fat associated with military pay. It's an obvious way to cut costs. You may remember base closures in the '90s. Huge cost savings obtained from this. People lost jobs, communities surrounding the closed bases collapsed but military readiness survived. This sort of thing - reduction in troop strength by shedding non-deployables, is similar.

                      OTH, as a matter of policy, you could greatly reduce the scope of deployments and save a shit ton. The counter to this, especially from the Marine Corps and Mattis was Commandant before he became SEC DEF, is that reducing deployments impacts readiness. I don't agree with this. I fought a USMC policy of over-deploying key personnel leading to a personal decision to leave after their term of service ended. In certain operational specialties the loss of experienced personnel due to over-deployment affects readiness to a far greater extent than deployments increased it. I lost that argument.

                      I'd support shedding non-deployables. There may be a cost savings in one pot to do that but for the injured who could qualify for VA disability pay, the cost is shifted from the DOD to the VA. Probably little net gain overall. I'd say the move is mostly cosmetic.
                      Last edited by Jeff Buchanan; February 26, 2018, 08:19 AM.
                      There is such a thing as redemption. Jim Harbaugh is redeemed at the expense of a fading Ryan Day and OSU. M wins back to back games v. OSU first time since 1999-2000​ - John Cooper was fired in 2000!!!

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                      • China has done away with term limits which presumably clears the way for President Xi to serve until he dies or is overthrown.
                        Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
                        Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.

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                        • Is it Post Like DSL Day today?

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                          • I'd support shedding non-deployables. There may be a cost savings in one pot to do that but for the injured who could qualify for VA disability pay, the cost is shifted from the DOD to the VA. Probably little net gain overall. I'd say the move is mostly cosmetic.
                            It may be a way to kick transgenders out without actually making a new policy.

                            One (of many) thing I learned in thirty years, is that there is usually an underlying reason that the military does something.

                            "We're looking out for your health, so we will be tightening and enforcing fitness and weight standards" really means "Retention is too high and we have to boot some people"
                            I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it on

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                            • And lord knows that they could not cut into the defense contracts which are padded beyond belief.
                              2012 Detroit Lions Draft: 1) Cordy Glenn G , 2) Brandon Taylor S, 3) Sean Spence olb, 4) Joe Adams WR/KR, 5) Matt McCants OT, 7a) B.J. Coleman QB 7b) Kewshan Martin WR

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                              • Dead weight is dead weight.
                                I feel like I am watching the destruction of our democracy while my neighbors and friends cheer it on

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