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(Lander, WY) – Over 5 years ago the Fremont County School District #1 (Lander) passed a concealed carry firearms policy that allows qualified and competent staff to volunteer to provide an additional layer of protection and security for our students. For over 5 years, without incident, the children in our schools have been protected by these volunteer members of staff.
School shootings have become an all too common occurrence in our country. Although the likelihood that such an event happening in our community is very small, the consequences would be so catastrophically great that we must take every reasonable precaution to ensure our kids are protected.
Our schools implement many different strategies to protect our kids in such an event. We have School Resource Officers, physical security measures, and periodic training for staff and students, and we have armed staff prepared and ready to save the lives of children and others. This last measure is a critical component of the security plan. In most active shooter incidents, the killing stopped only when the shooter was confronted with armed resistance.
The more time a shooter has free reign in a school, the more children they will kill. Of course, police officers will respond as fast as they can, so will our school resource officers, but every moment counts. If we have qualified and competent staff who are prepared and equipped to respond and already there they will be able to save lives that would have been lost if we had waited for police to respond. Every moment counts.
This election please don’t leave our schools unprotected. Three candidates for school board have publicly declared their opposition to this policy believing it is best to just leave it to the police to respond. This is not sufficient. Every child’s life matters. We have veterans and former law enforcement officers working in our schools as well as others who are more than capable. Please allow them to be equipped to save lives if the worst thing were to happen here.
Please vote for Virginia Arbery, Taylor Jacobs, and Scott Jensen. We have and will continue to support this policy protecting our kids.
I am a veteran of the US Army, a 19 year Law Enforcement Officer, and former SWAT team operator. I have been trained in both the law enforcement and civilian response to active shooters. I am very qualified to speak on this topic.
Scott Jensen
Lander, WY