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However if you are employed as, or responsible for, security at a school that's exactly what you would be considering, or you should be if you are a professional.

If you are simply hoping that you'll do the right thing, without being prepared for it, you are going to be as good as useless and probably dead.

If you carry out any kind of risk assessment for a workplace, you don't ignore the hazards in the hope they wont happen or if they do that you can make it up on the spot by 'doing the right thing'.

Looking at what is the norm in historical incidents does not mean you have to allow that situation to repeat itself. On the contrary, you analyse what has happened in the past and use that to ensure you have a tactical advantage.

As for having an armed presence at a school meaning the gunman will go elsewhere, well great. If you can deter the shooter from even shooting at you in the first place all the better. Yep, too bad that they might go shoot somewhere else, but are you offering up the premise that you should provide a soft target to save some poor soul elsewhere as a sensible alternative?

Having provided armed security in past, I can say with some authority that it was all about being a hard target, and making the 'bad guys' think twice about taking us on. Avoiding an incident is a hell of a lot better than dealing with with one.

If you are going to have security officers in schools in the US, they should be armed. What is the point in having a guy with a badge and a uniform, and even a hat, but no gun?

It's like having a fire warden but no fire extinguishers.

All they can do is be one more person to shout 'run away'.

I don't think arming teachers is a good idea at all, security isn't their job, teaching is. Don't give a gun to someone for whom using it (or not using it) isn't their primary job, that will just introduce poorly (ie dangerously) handled firearms into the equation.

However, if your risk assessment has identified shootings as a threat, and providing an on site security officer (which seems common place in the US, however strange it seems to us) is part of your risk mitigation it makes no sense not to have them armed.

How many schools practice fire drills?

All of them.

How many practice shooting drills?

I bet hardly any.

In Colombine the teachers ushered students into the Library, which was a building with large glass windows. Like a fish bowl.

If there'd been a fire in the school that day, all the teachers would have known exactly what to do, because they had endlessly practiced their fire drills. No one learnt from that.

Again, if school shootings are identified as a threat (which clearly they are), then there should be 'shooting drills' where staff and students are taught the safest response and where to hide, and more importantly, where not to hide.

The talk of arming school security with tasers and pepper spray is fine if your threat is students with knives, but it's asking an unarmed civilian to confront a gunman, how reasonable is that?

All this talk of banning guns in the US is pie in the sky stuff. Maybe a change that could take 100 years to realise, if someone with sufficient political will could try and make it happen, and I doubt that will be the case. Millions of guns will simply go underground.

In the mean time all the hand wringers need to stop avoiding the issue and do something practical to protect schools, and unarmed security is not that something.

We are fortunate that apart from a couple of exceptions (MSSA law and PCP airgun law) NZs Firearms laws and culture is generally sensible and reasonable. Providing a balance between law abiding peoples ability to own weapons if they choose, and the need to protect the public from people who really shouldn't have firearms.

The USAs obsession with firearms, and the ridiculous assertions of the pro-gun loby that giving everyone a gun would somehow stop mass shootings, versus the UKs 'Ban Everything' approach, neither of which are policies that have worked to provide a safe firearm culture in either society.

Having spent a lot of time tramping in the Tararuas, including finding aircraft crash sites, if you have to put down in the Tararuas I'd suggest a parachute!

Unless you can make it to a decent sized river flat I'd have thought you'd be out of luck.

However, assuming you either make it to your nearest friendly river flat, or a convenient ridgeline, you're requirements will likely be as follows:

No1 Shelter.
Forget food, for the same reason les mentioned above. You wont starve to death. You will however die of exposure if you are on a ridge above the bush line, even in summer it can be bloody cold up there as there is inevitably a fair bit of wind (never mind that wind didn't interfere with you miracle forced landing on the ridge line). Space blanket would be the absolute minimum, or a survival bag if you have room.

A leatherman and a few metres of para cord should also be carried as these will make rigging a shelter much easier.

No2, The means to attract rescue. Do this quick enough and you wont need water either. As noted above, on NVG even a little key ring torch will show up for miles. I'd suggest something a little better, like a 1xAA LED with a low mode and a high mode. I'd usually avoid strobe modes like the plague, but in this instance it might be useful. If you have room, a little headlamp is probably the most useful form for a light. Consider a miniflare kit or a Day/Night marker as well if you are comfortable carrying pyrotechnics in your aircraft kit. Also as mentioned a heliograph is small and flat and takes up very little room.

No3. The means to make heat. This can of course also help with the means to attract attention. Waterproof matches and a striker with magnesium block are good, along with a small candle.

No4, finally water, if you are in the Tararuas and have made your emergency landing on a river flat then all you need are something to collect the water and some puritabs. If you are on the ridge line you wont have access to water so the sachet variety will be your friend here.

Food? Purely for morale purposes something to eat is a good idea, but if you get to the point where you genuinely need food, you've been lost for a few days, which is unlikely in the Tararuas (or just about anywhere in the North Island) especially if you have a working ELT and PLB.

A few other pointers:

Stay with the crash site. An aircraft stands out like dogs bollocks, so don't leave it. Also it is your best means of shelter, even if it is damaged. It also provides flammable things to help start that bush fire to attract help.

Ah well, the $2000 can be used for another print run of wet bus tickets.

We lost roof tiles, but I refitted those on Thursday evening before too much water got in. Couldn't get to the house at all today, plod wouldn't let anyone in.

Just heard the cordon has been lifted, although there is still power out to a lot of houses (including mine), but I'll be heading home tomorrow to start the clean up. Someone has kindly put the worlds largest skip bin outside my front gate so that's handy.

It was rubbish day and none of it had been collected yet, so there's rubbish strewn everywhere.

All in all we got off very lightly compared to many.

Not to mention the comment from Dave Greenberg:
"Everyone took the action they needed to ensure there wasn't a collision."

Too much time spent taking off from Queens wharf perhaps (Helipro need to depart rearward from their location there).

Took a long time messing around with their FRD too, having to pull the rope back into the frame took forever compared to simply dropping it on the deck. Perhaps it was just for training in fast roping and they were happy to sacrifice the timings simply to have the ability to practice?

S&S? I think the Armourers look after them to some extent, but no, I don't know anything about the incident (other than hearing about it second hand), I was at Ohakea at the time.

And probably on leave. Or at least in the toilet at the time...

And the announcement in September was that you'll now have to wait until the new year for an announcement...