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Judicial security issue finally gets attention

James Miller Salem

Publication: The Day

Published 02/25/2013 12:00 AM

Updated 02/22/2013 05:12 PM

The Day's Concern over safety in the state's court facilities is long overdue. Good leadership should identify serious problems in their operational venue instead of reacting to an incident like Newtown. Judicial leadership has long been mired in a "no guns" in the courthouses mode. Their fear is based on a marshal being disarmed in the courthouse.

Let's follow that logic a little. Let's disarm the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard that protect our country. After all the world is full of bad people. We can't take the chance of any weapons being seized. While we are at it let's disarm the police, except the police at the state Supreme Court.

Having the supervising marshal, transportation marshals and the marshals at the entrance of each facility armed does make sense. The fly in the ointment here is who you train, where they are trained and have you applied the right criteria in hiring your armed marshals. I spent 14 years working as a state marshal after I retired from the state police and U.S. Coast Guard. I worked as a range officer teaching firearms qualifications for both agencies. When the county sheriff armed and trained us I can tell you that many marshals did not want to carry a gun.