September 10, 2025 • 35 mins
Jon Caldara, President of the Independence Institute, fills in for Dan on a very dark Wednesday which saw Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk killed by an assassin's bullet on the campus of Utah Valley University.
Laura Carno, Executive Director of FASTER Colorado, joins the show to discuss the Evergreen High School shooting, which left two students severely wounded and the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She emphasizes how resistant JeffCo Public Schools have been to instituting armed staff members in school buildings and establishing those settings as 'hard targets' rather than green-lighting them for violent attacks as 'gun-free zones.'
Laura Carno, Executive Director of FASTER Colorado, joins the show to discuss the Evergreen High School shooting, which left two students severely wounded and the suspected gunman dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. She emphasizes how resistant JeffCo Public Schools have been to instituting armed staff members in school buildings and establishing those settings as 'hard targets' rather than green-lighting them for violent attacks as 'gun-free zones.'
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Capitless is not here, He's doing his job. I get
to sit in for him, and I got to tell you,
this is a tough, tough day. I'm John Caldera. I
want to be part of this conversation. Don't hold back,
give me a call. Three h three seven one three
eight two five five. It is this period of time
after something horrid happens and before we find out what
(00:41):
actually happened, it's questions, and this is one of the
more it's just the awful period to be in. Who
did the shooting up in Evergreen? Why did they do it?
Are the kids okay? What the hell happened? We know
that Charlie Kirk is dead, but we don't know why
(01:05):
he was shot, by whom he was shot, what the
motive was for this, And so your mind raises in
all these different directions, and it makes it makes the
world look much more terrible and insecure and dangerous than
it really is. So let's try to let's try to
(01:29):
pull it back a little bit, try to get our
emotions under control and have a conversation about it. What
this brings up for me is I grew up in
this shadow of Kennedy getting shot and Martin Luther King
getting shot, than Robert Kennedy getting shot. And I already
(01:52):
say that JFK getting shot and then his brother and
all those things happened, and I don't remember a thing
of that. Kennedy was killed before I was born, and
I was just a few years old when MLK and
Robert Kennedy was shot. But they're markers in time. They're
(02:12):
markers in time of a period of civil change, of unrest,
of the changing of the generational guard, if you will.
We have Trump getting shot on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.
We have a guy waiting for him in the bushes
(02:35):
in his golf course. We could have lost him there
as well. And then we have what happened to Charlie Kirk,
who was an exceptional young guy, and his stick, if
you will, was to have people coming and debate him.
(02:58):
What Charlie Kirk used to do, it was a little
bit of like what Mike Rosen would do. If you
remember how great Mike Rosen was. One of the great
things about Mike Rosen was that he taught argumentation. He
taught logic. If you were going to call in and
spar with him, you had to be on your toes
(03:21):
and you had to understand the elements of argumentation. You
put forward an assertion, and then you back up that
assertion and you stick with it, and you add your arguments,
and those arguments can be countered, and we learn how
to have a discussion. More importantly, we learn how to disagree.
I think Charlie Kirk did that for a lot of
(03:43):
younger people because a lot of people just wanted to
be angry at him. And when he would do his stick,
and it was a stick on college campuses especially, people
would get angry and yell at him, and then he
would have logic, logic they might not agree with, but
logic that they too often wouldn't engage with, and occasionally
(04:08):
they would and you'd have a really good policy debate.
The meat of what our republic is all about is
having those disagreements in a way where where you can
have those fights before it devolves into name calling. Well,
(04:28):
now it's more and more name calling because we don't
teach our kids how to do argumentation. All this to
say the service that Charlie Kirk did was phenomenal. He
also built a political powerhouse, something for young people so
that they don't feel alone. Listen, I remember going to
(04:51):
see you Boulder as a libertarian. It was it was
lonely because you're there. You're there. They're swimming in a
sea of socialism. And today it's even more so. You
are swimming in a sea of victim addicts. They are
all victim addicts. Here is how we have wronged people,
(05:15):
or how we have been wronged. They see everything on
the oppressor versus the oppressed spectrum, and they don't learn logic,
They don't learn how to argue, they don't know what
their principles are. They feel, well, now we have a
system in Colorado that's based not on logic. We have
(05:39):
a political elite that controls us that's now now completely
sold into the oppressor viewpoint. How are you a victim?
And nuts have the victim Olympics. So I know what
it was like to be on a college campus being
you know, Hey, no, I don't I don't agree with you. No,
(06:02):
individuals have sovereign rights that the collectivists cannot take away.
I am a country unto myself. No, you're not. You
are upawn of the state, and so Charlie Kirk would
would tell people you weren't alone. For my generation, it
(06:25):
was often finding it in an inn Ran novel. You
go what there are other people who who thought government's
job was to protect your individual liberty, not to take
from others and redistribute. I'm not alone, I'm not crazy.
Some then founded in Young Republican Organizations, others founded in
(06:49):
Young Americans Foundation, and then Turning Point USA. It was
another place where people could find each other. The similarity
of the sixties hypertension, the violence. There are echoes of this,
(07:10):
you know, not being fully formed in the sixties, not
understanding what was going on. I look back at the
sixties and it seems like a chaotic, powerful time, and
likely those moments of political violence were remarkably rare. I mean,
(07:30):
it wasn't the Civil War, it wasn't that you know,
five percent of our population was killed in political violence.
But it bubbled over and that's what we're seeing here,
or because we don't know, is it just some nutball
(07:51):
who shot Charlie Kirk. Is it just some nutball who? Yeah,
I look at the shooter, the near shooter on the
golf course who tried to shoot Trump. He's nuts. It
does not seem it could be wrong. It does not
(08:14):
seem like he is motivated by a political agenda. It
seemed like he was moved by a who I can
kill the president agenda, and he's out of his gourd.
John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, was nuts. He wanted
(08:39):
to impress Jody Foster. This wasn't not a political thing.
He wasn't saying no, Reaganomics is wrong, we should not
build up our military. He wasn't saying any of that.
He was just crazy. And that could be the case here.
That could be the case here. Something tells me it
isn't the number here three or three seven, one, three, eight, two, five,
(09:02):
five seven to one three talk. I'd love for you
to weigh in on this. The other part that I
want to get to today is how viciously angry I
am at school districts who have not protected our children.
(09:23):
It's not just it's not just they could do something. No,
I'm angry about it. Nine years ago. It's hard to believe.
Nine years ago, Independence Institute, the organization I run, started
a program called Faster Faculty and Staff First Responder Program,
(09:44):
and the idea was to arm school staff and teach
them how to handle a live shooting because cops will
never get there in time. And people thought we were crazy.
People thought we were nuts. Laura Carno took this operation
(10:05):
and turned it into something incredible. Since then, this program
to train armed staff to one stop the shooter and
then two stop the bleeding has been a remarkable success.
(10:26):
The Faster program that we started has now trained about
five hundred school staff members. These teachers, the pe teacher,
the principal, the bookkeeper who knows, we don't know who's
carrying the gun. But they train past the level of
police officers. They have to train harder than police officers
(10:50):
on shooting scores, and they train at the facility to
understand the psychological price, what's going to happen when it does,
how to make sure the chaos is down, to make
sure you stop the bad guy and not accidentally a
good guy, all those things, and we've got it in
(11:11):
fifty school districts. I don't believe it's in Jefferson County.
Why wasn't it? When will they take our children's lives seriously?
Three or three seven one, three eight two five five
in for Dan Caplis, John Caldera, you're on six thirty
k how.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And now back to the Dankapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Twenty two minutes after. I'm John Caldera in for Dan Caplis,
give me a call. Three or three seven to one,
three eight two five five. Some days are diamonds and
some days are like today. The the shooting of Charlie
Kirk is. I will feel a lot better when I
(11:59):
know what in the world happened. Was this a politically
motivated shooting? I can only suspect it is, or could
it have just been a random nut who is just crazy?
(12:21):
It does make a difference. What made Charlie Kirk remarkable.
I'm looking at pictures of the crowd that he drew
at this event for turning point where he's engaging the crowd.
What I loved about Charlie Kirk, even though he's from
(12:43):
a much younger generation, is that he did what old
school talk show hosts do and engage those people who
violently disagree with them. Take them on and let the
ideas fly back and forth. Have you noticed it's not
(13:09):
the left that does this. The Left tried talk radio,
but they really could not handle the open lines. They
could not handle a truck driver with a cell phone
showing them up on their own airwaves. That's why public
radio is a one way communication device, a two way
(13:33):
communication device. And as talk radio's market begins to shrink
and people go to other platforms, Charlie Kirk figured out
how to basically do talk radio live and in person,
in front of people who thought he was crazy. His
(13:55):
stick was going right into the lines then and having
conversations with people who violently disagreed with them. That's amazing.
I'm gonna see if I can talk to Laura Carno,
(14:16):
who runs the Faster program that Independence Institute started. Pardon me,
why I do some texting back and forth with her.
She's the one who developed the curriculum for armed school staff.
(14:38):
And here's what angers me. School districts now have the opportunity.
I tell you what we're gonna bring. We're gonna try
to bring her on in the bottom of the hour.
Let me just do a little texting. There we go. Sorry,
(15:02):
it's not great radio. There we go, but it's one
of those days. The school district's first responsibility is our
children's safety. We have to deliver our children to them.
It is the law that we surrender our children to
(15:22):
the state for six hours a day. Otherwise they're truants
in exchange. They have a responsibility to keep them safe.
Now they can do all this safety huha of having
a security door, bulletproof class. They can hire a cop
to walk around every now and then. That's all lovely
(15:47):
and it's window dressing. The way, the way to protect
our kids is the same way we protect our airplanes.
You might not know it, but about one in ten
flights that you take has an armed pilot. An armed pilot, Yeah,
(16:08):
a guy who's flying the plane has a gun on him.
He is trained by the Air Marshals. He volunteers his
effort and should there ever be another nine to eleven
type hijacking, it's his job to dispatch the bad guys. Now,
his job is not to give out speeding tickets. His
(16:30):
job is not to catch drug dealers. It's only for
a hijacking situation. So the sky Marshals, part of the
TSA train hit them up to their level, because it's
way too expensive to put a to put an air
(16:54):
marshal in every ten flights. It's cost prohibitive. In the
same way, a school cannot afford to have fifteen twenty
cops who are armed and milling around just waiting for
a shooter and doing nothing else. It is impossible. We
(17:18):
will never afford it. But to find ten percent of
your staff who is qualified and capable of carrying a
gun and willing to go through the rigorous, rigorous training
for that one situation, yes, it can stop a shooter. Furthermore,
(17:40):
those schools that have gone through the faster training that
have a sign on the front of their door that
says our students are protected by armed staff, and the
bad guy doesn't know which good guy is carrying a
gun and which good guy is not carrying a gun.
That is a soft target. I mean that makes it
(18:03):
a hard target. Nobody's gonna mess with that. The shooting
we just had in Minneapolis proved it absolutely. His manifesto
made it clear he chose that target because it was soft.
He knew there would be nobody there with a gun
to stop him. This is now the second shooting like
(18:24):
that school districts who do not arm their staff are
putting our kids at danger and we need to stop that.
I'm John Caldera in for Dan Caplis. Keep it here,
you're on six thirty k out.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You're listening to the Dan Caplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Thirty six minutes after. I'm John Calvera in for Dan Camplis.
We've got callers on the line updates for you. According
to I'm looking at a Wall Street Journal and other
places that Charlie Kirk's shooter is in custody, so it
says FBI director at Cash Betel. I'll follow up on
(19:11):
that one. We can mentioning Laura Carno, who helped launch
who did launch the Faster program at Independence Institute. She
joins us now from her carphone. I know it's been
a busy day for you, Laura. Two days ago, just
was it two days ago? Or you and I sat
(19:31):
down to do a taping of our television show Devil's Advocate,
which will be available on YouTube tomorrow on our channel
IV three, that's IV three, and we were talking about
these terrible shootings. We were talking about the issues the
success of Faster. Let me start off with this comment.
(19:52):
I am angry. I am angry that school districts across
the state of Colorado have not done your program and
put in armed school staff to stop shooters like what
we had at Evergreen today. And it is malfeasance that
(20:12):
they haven't done it yet, and sooner or later we
are going to have enough. Their first job is to
protect our kids. Pardon me for jumping in there with that,
but I am just so angry that there are school
districts who have yet to train their staff on how
to protect our kids.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, John, You're exactly right, and I'm mad.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Too, And it actually goes a little bit beyond they
won't allow it. Many school districts, including a lot of
these big school districts, are openly hostile to the idea.
There's a parent that I talked to quite frequently from
jeff Co who goes to the school board meetings to
(20:57):
talk about this. He knows it's not going to get
not going to do anything in Jeffco, but he does
it because he says they need to be faced with
the information, and parents need to be faced with the
information that there is another way. And the fact that
so many of these big school districts are openly.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Hostile to it. I agree with you, it's male seasons.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
You have to protect these children. You have to stop
making the schools these gun free zones and the students
and staff sitting ducks.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
It's not Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Or Carno from our Faster program. Faster has now been
in existence for nine years. When you and I chatted,
you told me that about five hundred school staff have
now been trained to exacting standards to carry guns in
about fifty school districts across the state. This started first
(21:49):
in rural areas because cops can't come. There are schools
that have signs on them that says our students protected
by arms staff. I am all but certain. Evergreen High
School did not have that sign.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I would be all but certain as well because they
are in Jefferson County School District and Jefferson County School
District does not allow armed staff. Now, I don't know
the specifics of that school. Did they have school resource officers,
did they have any other armed security they may have?
Very little is known in the early hours and days
(22:30):
of these situations, while investigations are being conducted. I mean,
we still have three children in the hospital right now,
so it is very early, but we'll be keeping our
eye on this. And you know, parents need to know
what happens in your child's school if somebody comes in shooting.
What is the school's response? These are your children and
(22:52):
the school needs to answer your question.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah. This the movement for armed school staff has been
a parent driven phenomenon that parents are like, what are
you doing? And everyone who's listening should be at their
next school board meeting demanding to know where they are
on armed school staff? What happens when somebody comes into
(23:16):
their building with a gun? What is the response? Sadly,
the response is, well, we have procedures to lock the doors,
and we have procedures to tell the kids to stay
where they are, and we have procedures to call the police,
and we have procedures. How how often are how long
(23:36):
does it take in school shootings? What is the time
from the first trigger pull to to when the last
one is? How much time does a shooter have to
do most of his damage?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Yeah? I mean these things, these things happen within you know.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Seconds to very few minutes, just just depending.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
You know, in Columbia and.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
They were they were around for quite a while but
you know, STEM was over in seconds, as we know,
so having somebody armed as close as possible to the
point of attack is the only thing that's going to
save children's lives and staff lives. And let's not forget
the staff, because they often put their body between bullets
(24:20):
and children in order to try and save them, and
they end up giving their lives as well.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
The years that you and I have worked together closely
on this issue, we have always said that these gun
free zones where shooters know that other than maybe a
cop that's wandering around, but campuses are large, there is
nobody there to stop them. The last couple of shootings
have given us written proof of what shooters think about this.
(24:53):
Could you go into some detail on that.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah. The last two religious school shoots that we've had
Coventry Christian In in Nashville and then this latest one
in Minneapolis at Annunciation Catholic Church, the killers in both
of those cases had manifestos, and in both of those manifestos,
(25:17):
the killers were, you know, deciding between two different locations
and ended up choosing the one where they didn't think
there were going to be any armed staff there or
any armed security. We have known for years that it's
a deterrent effect. And as each as we get you know,
go through each of these additional school shootings, we are
(25:40):
getting evidence. John and the Crime Prevention Research Center headed
up by John Lott, they have done the research on
all of the school shootings that have ever happened. Zero
of them have been where there are concealed carry armed
staff members.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Zero.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And I know that, I know that it's a small
poppy relation, and the statisticians out there might say it's
not statistically significant, but I like the trend line of
zero much better than Evergreen High School just happened, or
Annunciation Catholic School or any of these.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It's a much better trend line. We know the way, John, Let's.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Try it our way for a change.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And we have tried it our way. It's no longer
this weird thing when Independent. When you came to Independence
nine years ago with what people thought was an insane
idea arm people in schools, you are obviously crazy, obviously crazy,
And now we've got now we've got nine years of experience,
(26:45):
it is no longer a weird thing. It is becoming
the norm faster and faster in any school district that
does not do this is putting our children at risk.
It is negligence. His mouth feasance, and to be honest,
should there be a shooting, it is those school board
(27:05):
members who have blood on their hands by not protecting
our kids. And I would love to find a way
to make them fiscally liable for putting our kids into danger.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Yeah, you know, I'll leave that to parents to have
those conversations that you're exactly right.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
This law has been in place.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
In Colorado for over twenty years to allow our staff.
And let's be clear, John, these are hand picked.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So help you. You hit a dead spot there on
your on your phone?
Speaker 4 (27:42):
I did.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Can you still hear me, John?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can? Indeed these were These were handpicked people and
we left it there. So one of the beautiful things
about Laura running around doing her job is sometimes a
phone connection isn't isn't great? Laura, let me know when
you when you have us back. Yeah, that sounds like
(28:05):
we might. What Laura was basically saying is the program
selects people who are only qualified to have this training.
They have to go through the training, They have to
be mentally able to do the training. The training is continual,
the training is with police. The training is in the schools,
(28:30):
and it is made to protect our kids. As as
Laura has told me many times, how insane is it
that you you you go to me D and F
or you go to Nordstrom's and there's an armed security
guard guarding the lingerie department, but there is nobody guarding
(28:55):
our kids. There are armed guards at our banks because
our money is more important than our children. If you
are not pissed off by this, then you don't understand
what's going on. I'm John Caldera. Three or three seven one,
three eight, two five five six point thirty k how.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Eight minutes to the top end for Dan Caplis, I'm
John Caldera. Thanks to Laura Carno for joining us. We've
got jam lines. We'll get to that, but first little
warning here. I'm gonna play the audio of this Charlie
Kirk shooting. It's interesting and I just want you to
be prepared for it. His final words are prophetic. Let's
(29:43):
go ahead and roll that counting or not counting? Gig
by this.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
Story Charlie, Charlie Kirks, Charlie Kirks.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Communication was to take questions, and he was taking a
question about violence and mass shootings, and he asked, does
mass shootings include gang violence? How sad? His last word
was violence. Let's go to the phones talk to Dean
(30:22):
and Arvada. Dean, thank you for being so very patient.
You're with John Caldera. Thank god, I'm fine.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
I totally agree with you on me. If we can't
protect our kids like we do airports, we failed. I mean,
look at Paulas wanted to put a twenty five million
dollar bridge in. I mean, we weighed hundreds of millions
of dollars millions every year. And no, this is nonsense,
not being able to protect these kids.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
They don't want to take the tough stand. What happens is,
particularly with people who are uncomfortable with arms, they want
to feel safe. They don't actually want to be safe.
And there's a difference. Schools can put up bulletproof glass
(31:11):
and a security door at it's front and have all
these policies of how to run and hide and escape
and all the uprest and it makes them feel safe.
It does not make them safe. What makes them safe
is an arm staff who's ready and willing and trained
to stop a shooter dead in their tracks and letting
(31:33):
the people know those people are here in our school
ready to protect you. That's what makes them.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
See it'd be pretty easy to get volunteers to take this.
I mean, all you gotta do is, like you said,
go to your competency tests and volunteer. And you know
I'm able to handle the job. And you know, I'm
sure they'd have plenty of people to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
What Laura Carno has found through her Faster training is
that inside every school are townalented people who want to volunteer.
Former military, former police who have had experience in this,
people who are proficient in firearms and are willing to
go through the training. Yes, the training it takes and
(32:15):
that's a heavy, heavy responsibility, but they want to protect
their kids, and these school districts like Jefferson County won't
allow it. Pardon me, I'm angry about this. Thank you
so much. Stein. Let's set out to Highlands Ranch see
if we can squeeze Mike and Mike welcome. You're with
John Caldera, So glad to have you.
Speaker 8 (32:36):
Thanks John. I think it's much easier than putting handguns
on personnel. I think that we need to put lock
boxes in classrooms mounted on the wall, just like a
fire alarm, just like a fire hose, and a biometric
entry point that certain teachers can choose to be able
(32:58):
to access them. The students won't know who has that ability,
but they'll have a conscious awareness of this box that
is placed, and it will be far cheaper than putting
law enforcement in all the hallways of.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
All the schools. And yes, a one time, I think
that tactic. I think that tactic has been investigated. What
they have found and this has worked on around the
nation is by having guns deeply concealed on staff members,
they're right there, and the key is the kids and
(33:32):
the shooters don't know who is armed and who is not.
And I believe the logic I could be wrong on
this of having public lock boxes is that then you
know where the guns are, and the bad guys know
if they break in and they want to steal a gun,
they know where it is. If they are shooting, they
know where to avoid. So I think your idea has
(33:54):
been worked over with the professionals, I believe, But next
time I talk to Laura Carno, who's the ex on that,
I will run it by her. Hey, thanks, thanks for
the bus, John, go ahead.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
We have we have the technology that if that box
is open, then law enforcement can be informed. It's not
like just a box, and we can highlight those guns
with neon colors. There's a lot more to it than
just a box with a gun in it. It is
a deterrent that that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I don't disagree. I don't disagree. My retort was only
that those people who have spent the better part of
over a decade now working on that have come to
a different a different technique. I'm not saying it's a
better or worse technique, but I know it is something
that they have worked on and considered. All Right, thanks
(34:47):
for the call. Do we have time to grab Mic
and on this or should we hold Mike to the
What was that? Oh? That was? But I meant I
met Nancy. All right, I tell you what, Nancy, hold on.
We'll get you at the at the the beginning of
next hour. Let me just do a recap here the
idea that our school boards want to make our kids
(35:11):
feel safe, but not actually do what it takes to
effectively make them safe, and that means arming and training
school staff is not just a dereliction of the responsibility.
It is malfeasance and they need to be held accountable
for it. Keep it here. You're on six point thirty
k house
This is Dan Capless and welcome to today's online podcast
edition of The Dan Caplis Show. Please be sure to
give us a five star rating if you'd be so kind,
and to subscribe, download and listen to the show every
single day on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Capitless is not here, He's doing his job. I get
to sit in for him, and I got to tell you,
this is a tough, tough day. I'm John Caldera. I
want to be part of this conversation. Don't hold back,
give me a call. Three h three seven one three
eight two five five. It is this period of time
after something horrid happens and before we find out what
(00:41):
actually happened, it's questions, and this is one of the
more it's just the awful period to be in. Who
did the shooting up in Evergreen? Why did they do it?
Are the kids okay? What the hell happened? We know
that Charlie Kirk is dead, but we don't know why
(01:05):
he was shot, by whom he was shot, what the
motive was for this, And so your mind raises in
all these different directions, and it makes it makes the
world look much more terrible and insecure and dangerous than
it really is. So let's try to let's try to
(01:29):
pull it back a little bit, try to get our
emotions under control and have a conversation about it. What
this brings up for me is I grew up in
this shadow of Kennedy getting shot and Martin Luther King
getting shot, than Robert Kennedy getting shot. And I already
(01:52):
say that JFK getting shot and then his brother and
all those things happened, and I don't remember a thing
of that. Kennedy was killed before I was born, and
I was just a few years old when MLK and
Robert Kennedy was shot. But they're markers in time. They're
(02:12):
markers in time of a period of civil change, of unrest,
of the changing of the generational guard, if you will.
We have Trump getting shot on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania.
We have a guy waiting for him in the bushes
(02:35):
in his golf course. We could have lost him there
as well. And then we have what happened to Charlie Kirk,
who was an exceptional young guy, and his stick, if
you will, was to have people coming and debate him.
(02:58):
What Charlie Kirk used to do, it was a little
bit of like what Mike Rosen would do. If you
remember how great Mike Rosen was. One of the great
things about Mike Rosen was that he taught argumentation. He
taught logic. If you were going to call in and
spar with him, you had to be on your toes
(03:21):
and you had to understand the elements of argumentation. You
put forward an assertion, and then you back up that
assertion and you stick with it, and you add your arguments,
and those arguments can be countered, and we learn how
to have a discussion. More importantly, we learn how to disagree.
I think Charlie Kirk did that for a lot of
(03:43):
younger people because a lot of people just wanted to
be angry at him. And when he would do his stick,
and it was a stick on college campuses especially, people
would get angry and yell at him, and then he
would have logic, logic they might not agree with, but
logic that they too often wouldn't engage with, and occasionally
(04:08):
they would and you'd have a really good policy debate.
The meat of what our republic is all about is
having those disagreements in a way where where you can
have those fights before it devolves into name calling. Well,
(04:28):
now it's more and more name calling because we don't
teach our kids how to do argumentation. All this to
say the service that Charlie Kirk did was phenomenal. He
also built a political powerhouse, something for young people so
that they don't feel alone. Listen, I remember going to
(04:51):
see you Boulder as a libertarian. It was it was
lonely because you're there. You're there. They're swimming in a
sea of socialism. And today it's even more so. You
are swimming in a sea of victim addicts. They are
all victim addicts. Here is how we have wronged people,
(05:15):
or how we have been wronged. They see everything on
the oppressor versus the oppressed spectrum, and they don't learn logic,
They don't learn how to argue, they don't know what
their principles are. They feel, well, now we have a
system in Colorado that's based not on logic. We have
(05:39):
a political elite that controls us that's now now completely
sold into the oppressor viewpoint. How are you a victim?
And nuts have the victim Olympics. So I know what
it was like to be on a college campus being
you know, Hey, no, I don't I don't agree with you. No,
(06:02):
individuals have sovereign rights that the collectivists cannot take away.
I am a country unto myself. No, you're not. You
are upawn of the state, and so Charlie Kirk would
would tell people you weren't alone. For my generation, it
(06:25):
was often finding it in an inn Ran novel. You
go what there are other people who who thought government's
job was to protect your individual liberty, not to take
from others and redistribute. I'm not alone, I'm not crazy.
Some then founded in Young Republican Organizations, others founded in
(06:49):
Young Americans Foundation, and then Turning Point USA. It was
another place where people could find each other. The similarity
of the sixties hypertension, the violence. There are echoes of this,
(07:10):
you know, not being fully formed in the sixties, not
understanding what was going on. I look back at the
sixties and it seems like a chaotic, powerful time, and
likely those moments of political violence were remarkably rare. I mean,
(07:30):
it wasn't the Civil War, it wasn't that you know,
five percent of our population was killed in political violence.
But it bubbled over and that's what we're seeing here,
or because we don't know, is it just some nutball
(07:51):
who shot Charlie Kirk. Is it just some nutball who? Yeah,
I look at the shooter, the near shooter on the
golf course who tried to shoot Trump. He's nuts. It
does not seem it could be wrong. It does not
(08:14):
seem like he is motivated by a political agenda. It
seemed like he was moved by a who I can
kill the president agenda, and he's out of his gourd.
John Hinckley, who shot Ronald Reagan, was nuts. He wanted
(08:39):
to impress Jody Foster. This wasn't not a political thing.
He wasn't saying no, Reaganomics is wrong, we should not
build up our military. He wasn't saying any of that.
He was just crazy. And that could be the case here.
That could be the case here. Something tells me it
isn't the number here three or three seven, one, three, eight, two, five,
(09:02):
five seven to one three talk. I'd love for you
to weigh in on this. The other part that I
want to get to today is how viciously angry I
am at school districts who have not protected our children.
(09:23):
It's not just it's not just they could do something. No,
I'm angry about it. Nine years ago. It's hard to believe.
Nine years ago, Independence Institute, the organization I run, started
a program called Faster Faculty and Staff First Responder Program,
(09:44):
and the idea was to arm school staff and teach
them how to handle a live shooting because cops will
never get there in time. And people thought we were crazy.
People thought we were nuts. Laura Carno took this operation
(10:05):
and turned it into something incredible. Since then, this program
to train armed staff to one stop the shooter and
then two stop the bleeding has been a remarkable success.
(10:26):
The Faster program that we started has now trained about
five hundred school staff members. These teachers, the pe teacher,
the principal, the bookkeeper who knows, we don't know who's
carrying the gun. But they train past the level of
police officers. They have to train harder than police officers
(10:50):
on shooting scores, and they train at the facility to
understand the psychological price, what's going to happen when it does,
how to make sure the chaos is down, to make
sure you stop the bad guy and not accidentally a
good guy, all those things, and we've got it in
(11:11):
fifty school districts. I don't believe it's in Jefferson County.
Why wasn't it? When will they take our children's lives seriously?
Three or three seven one, three eight two five five
in for Dan Caplis, John Caldera, you're on six thirty
k how.
Speaker 3 (11:29):
And now back to the Dankapliss Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Twenty two minutes after. I'm John Caldera in for Dan Caplis,
give me a call. Three or three seven to one,
three eight two five five. Some days are diamonds and
some days are like today. The the shooting of Charlie
Kirk is. I will feel a lot better when I
(11:59):
know what in the world happened. Was this a politically
motivated shooting? I can only suspect it is, or could
it have just been a random nut who is just crazy?
(12:21):
It does make a difference. What made Charlie Kirk remarkable.
I'm looking at pictures of the crowd that he drew
at this event for turning point where he's engaging the crowd.
What I loved about Charlie Kirk, even though he's from
(12:43):
a much younger generation, is that he did what old
school talk show hosts do and engage those people who
violently disagree with them. Take them on and let the
ideas fly back and forth. Have you noticed it's not
(13:09):
the left that does this. The Left tried talk radio,
but they really could not handle the open lines. They
could not handle a truck driver with a cell phone
showing them up on their own airwaves. That's why public
radio is a one way communication device, a two way
(13:33):
communication device. And as talk radio's market begins to shrink
and people go to other platforms, Charlie Kirk figured out
how to basically do talk radio live and in person,
in front of people who thought he was crazy. His
(13:55):
stick was going right into the lines then and having
conversations with people who violently disagreed with them. That's amazing.
I'm gonna see if I can talk to Laura Carno,
(14:16):
who runs the Faster program that Independence Institute started. Pardon me,
why I do some texting back and forth with her.
She's the one who developed the curriculum for armed school staff.
(14:38):
And here's what angers me. School districts now have the opportunity.
I tell you what we're gonna bring. We're gonna try
to bring her on in the bottom of the hour.
Let me just do a little texting. There we go. Sorry,
(15:02):
it's not great radio. There we go, but it's one
of those days. The school district's first responsibility is our
children's safety. We have to deliver our children to them.
It is the law that we surrender our children to
(15:22):
the state for six hours a day. Otherwise they're truants
in exchange. They have a responsibility to keep them safe.
Now they can do all this safety huha of having
a security door, bulletproof class. They can hire a cop
to walk around every now and then. That's all lovely
(15:47):
and it's window dressing. The way, the way to protect
our kids is the same way we protect our airplanes.
You might not know it, but about one in ten
flights that you take has an armed pilot. An armed pilot, Yeah,
(16:08):
a guy who's flying the plane has a gun on him.
He is trained by the Air Marshals. He volunteers his
effort and should there ever be another nine to eleven
type hijacking, it's his job to dispatch the bad guys. Now,
his job is not to give out speeding tickets. His
(16:30):
job is not to catch drug dealers. It's only for
a hijacking situation. So the sky Marshals, part of the
TSA train hit them up to their level, because it's
way too expensive to put a to put an air
(16:54):
marshal in every ten flights. It's cost prohibitive. In the
same way, a school cannot afford to have fifteen twenty
cops who are armed and milling around just waiting for
a shooter and doing nothing else. It is impossible. We
(17:18):
will never afford it. But to find ten percent of
your staff who is qualified and capable of carrying a
gun and willing to go through the rigorous, rigorous training
for that one situation, yes, it can stop a shooter. Furthermore,
(17:40):
those schools that have gone through the faster training that
have a sign on the front of their door that
says our students are protected by armed staff, and the
bad guy doesn't know which good guy is carrying a
gun and which good guy is not carrying a gun.
That is a soft target. I mean that makes it
(18:03):
a hard target. Nobody's gonna mess with that. The shooting
we just had in Minneapolis proved it absolutely. His manifesto
made it clear he chose that target because it was soft.
He knew there would be nobody there with a gun
to stop him. This is now the second shooting like
(18:24):
that school districts who do not arm their staff are
putting our kids at danger and we need to stop that.
I'm John Caldera in for Dan Caplis. Keep it here,
you're on six thirty k out.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
You're listening to the Dan Caplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Thirty six minutes after. I'm John Calvera in for Dan Camplis.
We've got callers on the line updates for you. According
to I'm looking at a Wall Street Journal and other
places that Charlie Kirk's shooter is in custody, so it
says FBI director at Cash Betel. I'll follow up on
(19:11):
that one. We can mentioning Laura Carno, who helped launch
who did launch the Faster program at Independence Institute. She
joins us now from her carphone. I know it's been
a busy day for you, Laura. Two days ago, just
was it two days ago? Or you and I sat
(19:31):
down to do a taping of our television show Devil's Advocate,
which will be available on YouTube tomorrow on our channel
IV three, that's IV three, and we were talking about
these terrible shootings. We were talking about the issues the
success of Faster. Let me start off with this comment.
(19:52):
I am angry. I am angry that school districts across
the state of Colorado have not done your program and
put in armed school staff to stop shooters like what
we had at Evergreen today. And it is malfeasance that
(20:12):
they haven't done it yet, and sooner or later we
are going to have enough. Their first job is to
protect our kids. Pardon me for jumping in there with that,
but I am just so angry that there are school
districts who have yet to train their staff on how
to protect our kids.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, John, You're exactly right, and I'm mad.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
Too, And it actually goes a little bit beyond they
won't allow it. Many school districts, including a lot of
these big school districts, are openly hostile to the idea.
There's a parent that I talked to quite frequently from
jeff Co who goes to the school board meetings to
(20:57):
talk about this. He knows it's not going to get
not going to do anything in Jeffco, but he does
it because he says they need to be faced with
the information, and parents need to be faced with the
information that there is another way. And the fact that
so many of these big school districts are openly.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Hostile to it. I agree with you, it's male seasons.
Speaker 5 (21:17):
You have to protect these children. You have to stop
making the schools these gun free zones and the students
and staff sitting ducks.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
It's not Okay.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Or Carno from our Faster program. Faster has now been
in existence for nine years. When you and I chatted,
you told me that about five hundred school staff have
now been trained to exacting standards to carry guns in
about fifty school districts across the state. This started first
(21:49):
in rural areas because cops can't come. There are schools
that have signs on them that says our students protected
by arms staff. I am all but certain. Evergreen High
School did not have that sign.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
I would be all but certain as well because they
are in Jefferson County School District and Jefferson County School
District does not allow armed staff. Now, I don't know
the specifics of that school. Did they have school resource officers,
did they have any other armed security they may have?
Very little is known in the early hours and days
(22:30):
of these situations, while investigations are being conducted. I mean,
we still have three children in the hospital right now,
so it is very early, but we'll be keeping our
eye on this. And you know, parents need to know
what happens in your child's school if somebody comes in shooting.
What is the school's response? These are your children and
(22:52):
the school needs to answer your question.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Yeah. This the movement for armed school staff has been
a parent driven phenomenon that parents are like, what are
you doing? And everyone who's listening should be at their
next school board meeting demanding to know where they are
on armed school staff? What happens when somebody comes into
(23:16):
their building with a gun? What is the response? Sadly,
the response is, well, we have procedures to lock the doors,
and we have procedures to tell the kids to stay
where they are, and we have procedures to call the police,
and we have procedures. How how often are how long
(23:36):
does it take in school shootings? What is the time
from the first trigger pull to to when the last
one is? How much time does a shooter have to
do most of his damage?
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Yeah? I mean these things, these things happen within you know.
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Seconds to very few minutes, just just depending.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
You know, in Columbia and.
Speaker 5 (23:58):
They were they were around for quite a while but
you know, STEM was over in seconds, as we know,
so having somebody armed as close as possible to the
point of attack is the only thing that's going to
save children's lives and staff lives. And let's not forget
the staff, because they often put their body between bullets
(24:20):
and children in order to try and save them, and
they end up giving their lives as well.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
The years that you and I have worked together closely
on this issue, we have always said that these gun
free zones where shooters know that other than maybe a
cop that's wandering around, but campuses are large, there is
nobody there to stop them. The last couple of shootings
have given us written proof of what shooters think about this.
(24:53):
Could you go into some detail on that.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
Yeah. The last two religious school shoots that we've had
Coventry Christian In in Nashville and then this latest one
in Minneapolis at Annunciation Catholic Church, the killers in both
of those cases had manifestos, and in both of those manifestos,
(25:17):
the killers were, you know, deciding between two different locations
and ended up choosing the one where they didn't think
there were going to be any armed staff there or
any armed security. We have known for years that it's
a deterrent effect. And as each as we get you know,
go through each of these additional school shootings, we are
(25:40):
getting evidence. John and the Crime Prevention Research Center headed
up by John Lott, they have done the research on
all of the school shootings that have ever happened. Zero
of them have been where there are concealed carry armed
staff members.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Zero.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
And I know that, I know that it's a small
poppy relation, and the statisticians out there might say it's
not statistically significant, but I like the trend line of
zero much better than Evergreen High School just happened, or
Annunciation Catholic School or any of these.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
It's a much better trend line. We know the way, John, Let's.
Speaker 5 (26:20):
Try it our way for a change.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
And we have tried it our way. It's no longer
this weird thing when Independent. When you came to Independence
nine years ago with what people thought was an insane
idea arm people in schools, you are obviously crazy, obviously crazy,
And now we've got now we've got nine years of experience,
(26:45):
it is no longer a weird thing. It is becoming
the norm faster and faster in any school district that
does not do this is putting our children at risk.
It is negligence. His mouth feasance, and to be honest,
should there be a shooting, it is those school board
(27:05):
members who have blood on their hands by not protecting
our kids. And I would love to find a way
to make them fiscally liable for putting our kids into danger.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Yeah, you know, I'll leave that to parents to have
those conversations that you're exactly right.
Speaker 4 (27:22):
This law has been in place.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
In Colorado for over twenty years to allow our staff.
And let's be clear, John, these are hand picked.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
So help you. You hit a dead spot there on
your on your phone?
Speaker 4 (27:42):
I did.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
Can you still hear me, John?
Speaker 2 (27:45):
I can? Indeed these were These were handpicked people and
we left it there. So one of the beautiful things
about Laura running around doing her job is sometimes a
phone connection isn't isn't great? Laura, let me know when
you when you have us back. Yeah, that sounds like
(28:05):
we might. What Laura was basically saying is the program
selects people who are only qualified to have this training.
They have to go through the training, They have to
be mentally able to do the training. The training is continual,
the training is with police. The training is in the schools,
(28:30):
and it is made to protect our kids. As as
Laura has told me many times, how insane is it
that you you you go to me D and F
or you go to Nordstrom's and there's an armed security
guard guarding the lingerie department, but there is nobody guarding
(28:55):
our kids. There are armed guards at our banks because
our money is more important than our children. If you
are not pissed off by this, then you don't understand
what's going on. I'm John Caldera. Three or three seven one,
three eight, two five five six point thirty k how.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
And now back to the Dan Kaplis Show podcast.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Eight minutes to the top end for Dan Caplis, I'm
John Caldera. Thanks to Laura Carno for joining us. We've
got jam lines. We'll get to that, but first little
warning here. I'm gonna play the audio of this Charlie
Kirk shooting. It's interesting and I just want you to
be prepared for it. His final words are prophetic. Let's
(29:43):
go ahead and roll that counting or not counting? Gig
by this.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
Story Charlie, Charlie Kirks, Charlie Kirks.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Communication was to take questions, and he was taking a
question about violence and mass shootings, and he asked, does
mass shootings include gang violence? How sad? His last word
was violence. Let's go to the phones talk to Dean
(30:22):
and Arvada. Dean, thank you for being so very patient.
You're with John Caldera. Thank god, I'm fine.
Speaker 7 (30:30):
I totally agree with you on me. If we can't
protect our kids like we do airports, we failed. I mean,
look at Paulas wanted to put a twenty five million
dollar bridge in. I mean, we weighed hundreds of millions
of dollars millions every year. And no, this is nonsense,
not being able to protect these kids.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
They don't want to take the tough stand. What happens is,
particularly with people who are uncomfortable with arms, they want
to feel safe. They don't actually want to be safe.
And there's a difference. Schools can put up bulletproof glass
(31:11):
and a security door at it's front and have all
these policies of how to run and hide and escape
and all the uprest and it makes them feel safe.
It does not make them safe. What makes them safe
is an arm staff who's ready and willing and trained
to stop a shooter dead in their tracks and letting
(31:33):
the people know those people are here in our school
ready to protect you. That's what makes them.
Speaker 7 (31:41):
See it'd be pretty easy to get volunteers to take this.
I mean, all you gotta do is, like you said,
go to your competency tests and volunteer. And you know
I'm able to handle the job. And you know, I'm
sure they'd have plenty of people to do it.
Speaker 2 (31:52):
What Laura Carno has found through her Faster training is
that inside every school are townalented people who want to volunteer.
Former military, former police who have had experience in this,
people who are proficient in firearms and are willing to
go through the training. Yes, the training it takes and
(32:15):
that's a heavy, heavy responsibility, but they want to protect
their kids, and these school districts like Jefferson County won't
allow it. Pardon me, I'm angry about this. Thank you
so much. Stein. Let's set out to Highlands Ranch see
if we can squeeze Mike and Mike welcome. You're with
John Caldera, So glad to have you.
Speaker 8 (32:36):
Thanks John. I think it's much easier than putting handguns
on personnel. I think that we need to put lock
boxes in classrooms mounted on the wall, just like a
fire alarm, just like a fire hose, and a biometric
entry point that certain teachers can choose to be able
(32:58):
to access them. The students won't know who has that ability,
but they'll have a conscious awareness of this box that
is placed, and it will be far cheaper than putting
law enforcement in all the hallways of.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
All the schools. And yes, a one time, I think
that tactic. I think that tactic has been investigated. What
they have found and this has worked on around the
nation is by having guns deeply concealed on staff members,
they're right there, and the key is the kids and
(33:32):
the shooters don't know who is armed and who is not.
And I believe the logic I could be wrong on
this of having public lock boxes is that then you
know where the guns are, and the bad guys know
if they break in and they want to steal a gun,
they know where it is. If they are shooting, they
know where to avoid. So I think your idea has
(33:54):
been worked over with the professionals, I believe, But next
time I talk to Laura Carno, who's the ex on that,
I will run it by her. Hey, thanks, thanks for
the bus, John, go ahead.
Speaker 8 (34:06):
We have we have the technology that if that box
is open, then law enforcement can be informed. It's not
like just a box, and we can highlight those guns
with neon colors. There's a lot more to it than
just a box with a gun in it. It is
a deterrent that that.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I don't disagree. I don't disagree. My retort was only
that those people who have spent the better part of
over a decade now working on that have come to
a different a different technique. I'm not saying it's a
better or worse technique, but I know it is something
that they have worked on and considered. All Right, thanks
(34:47):
for the call. Do we have time to grab Mic
and on this or should we hold Mike to the
What was that? Oh? That was? But I meant I
met Nancy. All right, I tell you what, Nancy, hold on.
We'll get you at the at the the beginning of
next hour. Let me just do a recap here the
idea that our school boards want to make our kids
(35:11):
feel safe, but not actually do what it takes to
effectively make them safe, and that means arming and training
school staff is not just a dereliction of the responsibility.
It is malfeasance and they need to be held accountable
for it. Keep it here. You're on six point thirty
k house
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