First 30 Seconds – Book Review by Jim Irvine

“Get ready to challenge some assumptions, expose some myths, and discover why many ‘best practices’ are not best.” ~Ed Monk

If you are sick of innocent kids being slaughtered in our schools, then the book “First 30 Seconds” by Ed Monk is for you, your administrators and your kids’ school board.

TIME & MATH – Letting knowledge and facts dictate policy and saving lives. That is what this book is about.

Schools need a plan for violence. However, as Ed Monk states, “But most school leaders are not doing that. They adopt cookie-cutter, feel-good policies that the government recommends, other schools are using, and that consulting firms tell them are ‘best practices.’ That’s one of the many reasons schools are failing.”

Children failing in school is bad. Administrators failing in safety is much worse.

Sandy Hook Elementary did many things right. They had single-point entry, cameras, buzzers, and doors that automatically locked at 9:30 every morning. “The leaders and staff thought this kept them safe. It did not. It gave them the illusion of safety. We call this ‘Security Theater.’ Some people with anti-gun emotional or political leanings will resist this logical preparation. Doing so puts feelings over life-saving knowledge, said Ed. When you arrive at court, it will be referred to as negligence. If this makes you uncomfortable, good. The point is to change now so that your kids (and your home and retirement accounts) are as well-protected as possible.

Uvalde’s active school plan was:

• Call 911.
• Hunker down and try to survive.
• Allow the killer to shoot as many of us as he can find until the cops stop him.

That was a horrible plan. That plan almost always results in a high victim count on the day of an attack. Yet, the leaders of the Uvalde school district had it as their plan. But they are not alone. The vast majority of schools in America have that exact same plan.

Ed is correct. That is the plan of almost every school we are aware of that has not worked with us or real experts on active killers, which is very different than consulting firms’ “best practice” or “security experts.”

Once an active shooter attack starts, counter-violence is the obvious and only solution. The only question is how soon counter-violence is applied. How soon it is applied determines the body count. TIME & MATH

Much of what we “learn” from the media in the aftermath of these events is incorrect, yet people continue to listen and act on feelings and misinformation. Our kids keep dying, in large part, because of failed (insane/negligent) policies. If you want to learn and understand so that you can be prepared, buy and read (or “absorb” as Massad Ayoob commands) this book.

“First 30 Seconds” will contain mentions of many active killer events that you have not heard about or remember because the body count was single digits. These are almost universally places where Ed’s methods were planned for and used on event day. The killer failed to reach his goal because the people on the scene stopped him.

As I have said for a decade, “Tell me how long you are going to let the killer murder your people without resistance, and I’ll tell you how many of your people (approximately) you will lose.” Newsflash — the longer you let him kill, the more of your people he will kill.

Ed is more efficient with “TIME & MATH.” Our logo is FASTER Saves Lives, because the FASTER you (NOT police or anyone else who is NOT there when the killing starts) stop the killer, the fewer people he will kill.

If you want to feel good, don’t buy the book, don’t learn, just hope and pray. I’m an airline pilot, and that mindset is completely unacceptable when it comes to the 180+ lives that are my responsibility every flight. It’s even more unacceptable to minor school children in a school/church/daycare’s custody.

If you want to learn the truth and make substantial changes to benefit your kids/school/church/business/community, then buy and read “First 30 Seconds.” Then insist on a violence policy based on reality, time and math.