Read the DOJ's Root Cause and Corrective Action Analysis on the Worst Mass School Shooter Law Enforcement Failure in Modern US History
The DOJ has just released its Critical Incident Review of the Active Shooter Massacre at Rob Elementary School in Uvalde Texas. This comes just two weeks after I had published my conceptual design for a proposed National Child Defense System initiative called "For Every Child a Shield, to Every School a Dog," with the laser-focused mission objective of driving mass school shooting deaths to zero in 4 years nationwide.
The First Paragraph in the DOJ's Executive Summary
"On May 24, 2022, a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, shook the nation. With just two days left in the school year, a former student armed with an AR-15 style assault rifle took the lives of 19 students and two teachers, physically injured at least 17 others, and left countless families, friends, and a community grief-stricken for their unimaginable loss. You can download the full DOJ report here.
For Every Child a Shield, To Every School a Dog
My proposal, which I have entitled: "For Every Child a Shield, to Every School a Dog as a slogan, envisions an integrated, all-domain, comprehensive defense and interdiction system that would be child-friendly and would include a combination of a multi-layered defense technologies already pioneered in the aftermath of 9/11 and in military for force protection, and by our intelligence agencies in the war on terror.
It will include deployment of weapons-sniffing dogs with handlers at every school, an AI-driven ISR overwatch with pattern recognition and behavioral recognition algorithms, and more. And yes, we will pre-position enough ballistic shields and vest to make a difference at strategic locations in the schools, just like we already do with fire extinguishers, first aid kids, and life preservers and lifeboats.
From KIDS-SOC to Classroom
It's to be a national strategic defense system that will stretch from a National Strategic Child Defense Command Center which I have dubbed "KIDS-SOC, all the way down to the armoring of classroom doors and the prepositioning of common-sense personal protection equipment suitable for use by staff and children in the offices, gyms, auditoriums, and classrooms.
The goal is to give the children and staff the literal physical shielding they need to survive long enough for armed response to arrive and take down the shooter, or even to take down the shooter themselves while armed and/or shielded. Better yet, the system design provides for early warning, detection, and interdiction technology designed to intercept and defeat approaching school shooters before they even breach school doors. It also will provide for early detection and reporting on the behavioral warning signs of emergent student insider threats and threats within the greater community that are considering targeting schools. It also provides for the mental health support as a psychological and emotional shield in its way.
I propose to combine these measures with more muscular gun safety legislation, harsher sentencing, and gun-safing technology. All designed to thread the needle between the two polar extremes on guns that are paralyzing our nation and are preventing us from incremental investments required to drive the school shooting death rate to zero in just 4 years.
Excoriation, Laughter, and Woodenheaded Thinking
Since publishing my proposal on January 4, 2024, I have been excoriated and laughed at on Facebook. On the extreme left are those who cry "seize all the guns like New Zealand and Australia and the UK you idiot." On the far right extreme it's comments like "issue every adult in school a gun. That's the only way to do it." Thanks a lot Wayne LaPierre you idiot.
I've been accused of being an NRA shill and of unleashing attack dogs upon our children on the left. I've also been accused that my solution would turn our schools into prisons and would traumatize our children. I've been accused of secretly planning to seize all the guns.
For all you naysayers and name callers on both extremes, I'll answer you with a psalm I learned in Catholic school as a child:
Be Not Afraid
If you walk through raging waters
In the sea, you shall not drown.
If you walk amid the burning flames
You shall not be harmed.
And if wicked men insult and hate you
All because of me, blessed, blessed are you.
Be not afraid.
I go before you always.
Come follow me.
And I will give you rest.
My Summary Assessment of the DOJ Report
I consider this DOJ report mandatory reading for every single adult and high school student in America. It is a gut-wrenching, tear-jerking, horrific account of what would be a brutal one-hour and 15-minute-long massacre. All this from a lone gunman bearing arms in the form of a legally purchased semiautomatic rifle that's been specifically manufactured, as a marketing strategy, to look like a military assault rifle that is a fully automatic machine gun used in war to kill as many enemies as possible as fast as possible.
In all, from time of arrival of police to shooter takedown, the children and teachers at Robb Elementary cowered defenselessly like sitting ducks as the shooters' bullets mowed them down, while the police dallied under incompetent and cowardly command leadership.
My way is how we solve this problem in just 4 years. Funding my initiative is possible by tapping the richest of rich, the mega-corporations, and the NRA and the gun manufacturers and you, to pitch in.
Yes, we're going to "Build the Shield." Yes, we're going to "Field the Dogs," and yes, we're going to pass tougher gun laws. We're going to do it all, and we're going to make the NRA pay for it: And they'll be happy to do it.
A vote for me in the August Democratic primary here in Florida, and another vote for me in the General election against Anna Paulina Luna, represents a two-vote swing in Congress for saving children's and teachers lives. It will, in 4 years, serve to bring about the end of America's mass school shooting problem. That's the school shooting moonshot and we must do it, to quote John F. Kennedy, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
The contrast between myself and Anna Luna as to solving the school mass shooting problem couldn't be starker. While I propose a workable solution to the school shooting problem that can actually be passed on a bipartisan basis, Anna Luna, like that Putin swallow Maria Butina who compromised the NRA leadership and the Republican party at the 2016 Republican National Convention using sex as a weapon, Luna poses with bare midriff in a push-up bra toting two AR-15s in what is a craven effort to pander to male gun enthusiasts and raise campaign funds - All in the aftermath of Uvalde.
How dare she.
Any society that turns a blind eye to the mass murder of its children while worshipping at the altar of the gun, will be relegated to the ash heap of history by the next generations' survivors.
For the last 8 years those of you that have been idolizing Donal Trump and idolizing guns, you've been violating God's laws by placing Trump and your guns above God and your Christian beliefs and over the safety of our children.
For those of you on the left that are suggesting that if you can't stop 100% of mass school shootings with legislation alone, which would require the suspension of the 2nd and 4th Amendments, that you would literally deny a child and teacher a cheap, prepositioned physical shield and an armored classroom door due to dogma.
I say shame on you all for suggesting that we continue to leave our children and teachers with easily-breached doors, and with nothing at all to protect themselves from a hail of bullets, while they cower with hands raised, waiting for the police to save them.
To those on the left, right, and the middle I say this to you all:
I have the solution.
Come. Follow me. And I will give you rest.
Liccione out.
John Liccione for Congress
For Every Child a Shield. To Every School a Dog
For media inquiries contact John Liccione at 443-698-8156 or [email protected]