An open letter to all Concerned Parents, Concerned Citizens, School Administrators, Teachers, Business People, and Government Officials
Regardless of your stance on gun control, the facts are: there are unstable minds in this world, people can get weapons (guns, knives, baseball bats, box cutters), by legal or illegal means, people can get weapons. We must do something to stop the killing regardless of the weapons the killers possess. The assassins’ egos are fed by their successful slaughter of innocents. Stop them, catch them, or kill them, if we take away their success, we will strip future murderers of their motivation. If every would-be assailant who charged into a school was stopped without a single victim harmed, other want-to-be killers would change their plans because they would quickly see that they would give up their own lives for nothing. Their notoriety would endure one news cycle, at most, and their impetus would completely fade away.
We spend tens of millions of dollars weekly on lottery tickets with the hope that we could be the next mega winner, yet we send our children to school every day with the innate belief that it will not happen to us, that our children will be safe. We do not know when and where the next shooting will occur and our children really could be next. We have to change what we are doing, we must stop talking and start doing.
One week prior to the Parkland FL massacre in 2018, Executive Wood Products launched a new anti-ballistic product designed specifically for use in schools. The 4’ X 6’ panels are completely mobile with NIJ III armor and best of all they do not look anti-ballistic. They have a tackable surface for papers and posters on one side and a white board with marker rail on the other. They are a useful, practical classroom tool that can stop an AK47, AR15, and a wide variety of other weapons. When an active shooter comes through the door he is looking for soft, vulnerable targets. His only intent is to kill. If people are behind these panels, trademarked Tactical Scholar™, the shooter will believe he can shoot through the panel and will waste his ammo with success and buy time for first responders, or in-house guards, to arrive. Additionally, the panels, whether used in hallways or classrooms, create an environment which confuses the shooter and causes him to withdraw or change tactics. For the shooter, unexpected protection, and failure are unsettling.
Executive Wood Products, a 42-year wood products manufacturing company, formed the Protection Assurance Division immediately following 9/11. After five years of Research and Development, the company began selling Anti-Ballistic products to the United States Government, churches, and private businesses.
The Executive Wood Products position is not self-serving, the Tactical Scholar™ is priced well below market value and the company offers White-Glove™ delivery to ensure schools can quickly buy and install what they need. If you know of another effective solution, if you are willing to step forward and solve the problem, then do that, but do something. Our children are at risk, every day we stand idly by and wait for someone else to do something: government funding, a change in laws, better planning by someone else. Online funding efforts have raised millions of dollars for victims lost and nothing for future protection. If we join together, in every community, we can find and fund solutions.
If you would like to learn more please contact me directly. Whatever you do, please, let us stop merely talking and start acting.
Sincerely,
Paul D. Alexander
Founder and CEO
Executive Wood Products