Enough. Damn it, enough!

Enough virtue signaling instead of preventing school shootings. Enough of elected school boards denying reality.

It is time for all of Colorado’s 178 school districts to join the 50 that currently have volunteer, trained, concealed armed staff to stop a shooter the moment he begins — because when seconds count, the police are only minutes away

The difference is wanting to feel safe versus wanting to be safe.

By constantly making it harder and more expensive for law-abiding people (i.e. the good guys) to purchase, practice and legally carry firearms, our lawmakers think we will feel safer. Maybe some will even fall for it and feel safer. But none of it makes us any safer.

Actually being safe, making our schools safe, requires us to accept realities many simply cannot stomach:

The reality is unicorns are not invading the United States to confiscate the more than 400 million firearms here — more than one gun per person. Guns are and will be omni-present in America. The more gun-phobes restrict them, the more people buy them. It’s why former President Barack Obama is considered the greatest gun salesman in history.

The reality is there is no way to afford having 20 armed police officers wandering the halls of every school, all day, every day, just waiting for the moment a shooter starts firing.

The reality is the safeguards most schools implement are for us, not the shooter, to show they are doing “something.” They need enough to prove in court, after our children are massacred, that they did what they reasonably could.

Lockdown drills and fortified front doors do not, have not and will not deter school shootings or stop a shooter once he started.

The reality is nearly 30% of Colorado’s 178 school districts have trained arms staff who volunteered to take on the extra responsibility to protect our children.

The reality is Jefferson County schools do not allow their school staff that option.

The reality is “gun-free zones” kill children.

Let me be blunt: School boards that do not allow willing, qualified staff members to protect our kids have the blood of the dead on their hands. They did not do all they reasonably could protect our children. They should legally be held responsible.

There has not been a hijacking of an American airliner plane since Sept. 11, 2001. One major factor — pilots who volunteer to carry concealed guns. Just like how schools can’t afford to put a cop in every hallway, the TSA can’t afford to put an undercover air marshal on every flight. About one in 10 flights has an armed pilot, trained by the air marshals for only one situation — a hijacking.

If our lives are worth protecting this way, why aren’t our children’s lives worth it at school?

Nine years ago, the organization I run, Independence Institute, created a similar training program not for pilots, but for teachers. Under the leadership of the indefatigable Laura Carno, the idea was to work with law enforcement to train willing, capable and qualified school staff to conceal a gun just in case the worst happens.

Our FASTER program, which is now its own separate 501©(3) organization, has trained more than 500 school staff members from some 50 school districts across the state.

Many of these schools have signs on the door, “Our students are protected by armed staff.”

We now have written proof of what we’ve been saying for decades. The written manifestos of the Minneapolis and Nashville shooters made clear they chose their targets because they knew there’d be no armed resistance.

Unless you can afford a private school or homeschooling, you are required by law to surrender your children to a government schools for six hours a day.

The state says their first priority is their safety. Do you believe it?

We need to get over our phobia of guns and realize 15% of all Colorado adults have concealed carry permits and have used them to stop mass shooting including in Colorado Springs and Arvada.

When a school shooter is pointing a gun at your child, do you prefer both child and teacher cowering under their desks, praying for the police to come in time.

Or would you feel safer with an armed, police-trained adult next to your child ready to end the threat

Be loud. Demand your school board vote on trained, armed staff.

Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute in Denver and hosts “The Devil’s Advocate with Jon Caldara” on Colorado Public Television Channel 12. His column appears Sundays in Colorado Politics.