Disarm All Cops, Instead Use "Woke" Defense Tactics - Prof

WASHINGTON - Sept. 28, 2023 - PRLog -- A professor of peace studies who suggested that GWU protect its students from an armed shooter on campus by using "holistic" or "woke" tactics - including "dignity of all people," "deep empathy," "nonviolent communication," and "bystander intervention skills" - is demanding that it disarm the 2 officers specially trained to carry handguns.

He says it should establish an "unarmed civilian community safety unit," rather than doing what the overwhelming majority of universities have already done - having all or at least some of its police carry handguns; both to deter crazed shooters looking for easy (soft) targets to kill, and to very quickly end a shooting spree once begun.

As an example of the former, a crazed and well armed White Nazi gunman, intent on killing Black people, was very recently forced to leave the target-rich environment of a historically Black University by an armed police officer.  See, e.g.,  Florida Gunman Thwarted at Black College Before Store Shooting [miles away]

Public interest law professor John Banzhaf argues that relying upon "nonviolent communication" and "bystander intervention" to deal with crazed shooters is nothing short of kumbaya - defined as "a term of derision, having been associated with what are considered naïve and unrealistic attitudes."

Moreover, as Banzhaf points out, deranged-shooter-on-campus situations elsewhere have had to be resolved by the use of deadly force – either to neutralize the shooter or to pressure him to shoot himself – and not by deep empathy, dignity illumination and enhancement, intervention skills, nonviolent communication, restorative justice, or  weaponless civilian protection units.

There is also no support for McCarthy's claim that having a few GWU police armed is "more likely to reduce safety rather than enhance it."  Indeed, with all the school shootings which have occurred over at least the past 20 years, those insisting upon disarming a few GWU police cite only one situation in which a campus officer shot someone on campus.

But the victim, who had left behind several suicide notes, was coming at the officer with a weapon and repeatedly yelling "shoot me."  After a formal investigation, the shooting was found to be fully justified.

Moreover, the claim that having armed guards does nothing to protect people and discourage criminal violence is also clearly at variance with the conclusions and experience of most universities (including virtually all of GWU's peer schools) which now arm their police, and literally tens of thousands of banks, governmental bodies, large corporations, and even individuals (from the President to movie stars) who are concerned about attacks from gunman and other criminals, and therefore have armed guards.

http://banzhaf.net/   jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com   @profbanzhaf