Joe Doakes fromComo Park emails:

The shootings in France are the latest in a long line of Soft Targets. America has our share of them, too. How to provide better security? And what kind of security?
People in a soft target fall into the same four categories as those in a bar: staff, non-violent customers, drunks and criminals. The first two create no security problems, the last two fall within the expertise of bouncers. Ah, but what if a couple of mass murderers sneak in? The fastest way to neutralize a Bad Guy with a gun is for a Good Guy with a gun to shoot him. Soft Targets need an immediate, on-site armed response. How to provide it?
Cops are too expensive and too well-skilled to waste standing around at football games, rock concerts, movie theaters. Yes, I said too-well skilled. Sworn officers are the law enforcement equivalent of Marines – full time professionals trained at their craft. They know how to clear and search buildings. They know what facts to allege to support a search warrant. They know the current case-law on Reasonable Suspicion and how it differs from Probable Cause. They know how many grams of which drugs are contraband. None of that is required when the bullets are flying.
I’m thinking of a way to swell the ranks of effective immediate responders in places they’re usually absent: football games, rock concerts, worship services, shopping malls, county fairs. I’m trying to think outside the box, spit-balling, throwing out ideas, help me out here.
America has a long tradition of using volunteers to fill public service needs. Small-town volunteer fire-fighters and part-time police officers. Justices of the Peace and Conciliation Court Referees. Civil Air Patrol flying search and rescue. Ham radio operators relaying messages after Katrina. Weather watchers and tornado spotters. Absolutely critical work, thousands of lives and billions of dollars of property at issue, with mistakes irreversible, and yet we rely on volunteers for all these jobs, have done for decades. Volunteers may not be as experienced as full-time professionals who do the job every day, but we accept that shortcoming because they’re already on the scene. An amateur helping now is better than an expert helping an hour after it’s too late.
One reason permitted carriers are distrusted is fear of their response. Will they shoot blindly? Will they make things worse? And there’s some validity to the concern. In all honesty, the weapons skills required of permitted carry holders is a lot closer to once-a-year deer hunters than to sworn police officers. I recognize that it’s a Constitutional right and I’m all for open carry, machine guns, too, yada, yada, but we’re not talking about how to convince the choir, we’re talking about how to get people to consider coming into the church.
Could select civilian permit holders volunteer to be trained to a higher level, to serve as Police Supplements in a limited support role? Something higher than an unarmed Police Reserve officer directing traffic, something less than the full-time officer? Maybe one day a month and one week a year – a scaled down version of the National Guard, focused solely on weapons safety, training, shooting skills, movement, cover. You’d have no arrest power. No handcuffs. No pepper spray, Tazer or baton. You don’t go on patrol looking for troublemakers. You only work when and where assigned. You only have one tool – a firearm – and like a Sky Marshal, you have one mission: shoot the killer.
Obviously, there are details to work out. Police Supplements must pass the same background check as sworn officers (they already do, to have a permit to carry, but it doesn’t hurt to remind the public these are law-abiding citizens not yahoo cowboys). Some might volunteer for even more training, to be Police Supplement Warrant Officers, leading groups of Police Supplements in times of civil unrest or natural disaster, all under the supervision of sworn officers. There are thousands of Gulf War vets, could they help? The possibilities are endless – if we have the imagination to make them possible.
Probably 99.9999999999% of the time, you get a free pass to watch the game and that’s it. But the one time we need you . . . .
Joe Doakes

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Thursday, November 26th, 2015 at 5:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.