Arming Teachers

[Magic Man]

We have a Constitution which guarantees our right to bear arms, which is interpreted to mean militarily capable weapons.

Interpreted by whom? All it guarantees is the right to bear arms. That doesn't mean we have to allow all arms.

We also have a long & strong tradition of gun ownership & independence which will prevent banning/confiscation.

Yes, this is the big problem, but you seem to be suggesting that this is a fact of life that cannot be changed. I disagree. Maybe I'm being optimistic, but since the problem isn't going to be fixed while this is still the case, I like to think we can change this silly gun culture.

A problem is that so many have an deep emotional fear or hatred of guns, they cannot see guns being part of a solution

Sorry, but no. The real problem is that many people realize that adding more guns to the mix is not likely to solve the problem, but does have the potential to make it worse.

 

[LuisDantas]

I agree with this statement, but it doesn't address my post. Weapon availability to the perp isn't affected
by whether the school staff is armed or unarmed. The perp acquires it before arriving at the school.

Sorry, I won't agree with this. You seem to sincerely believe that having teachers casually carrying weapons won't significantly encourage unbalanced people from misusing one.

I would assume I am misunderstanding you if you did not make your point time and again.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Let's consider this scenario. Suppose it's a real risk that a teacher will snap, & bring weapons to school to start a killing spree.
This is made no more or less likely by allowing school staff to be armed, since one bent on mayhem wouldn't observe the law.

Which is why I said you can't account for every scenario. The fact of the matter is the majority of my colleagues in the schools do not want to be armed.

When it comes to school security what most us would like to have is a trained officer (guard or police officer) at our schools. In our elementary schools we generally want two....(one for inside the building at the front desk area and one to accompany teachers and students on the playground.

At out MS and HS we normally want one officer who could man the front desk area. We'd like to have multiple door sensors in case a door opens and/or remains open.

At the HS where I frequent we have just that. We have cameras but you wouldn't know it if you saw them. Our doors have sensors on them and we have an SRO who is a constant presence in the school. Our schools were designed in a way to maximize security without the look and feel of a prison/lock-down type facility.

Regardless of the scenarios put forth to try and justify armed staff...we just don't want it.

 

[LuisDantas]

Regarding this scenario, a perp who wants to exit life this way should meet strong resistance as soon as possible.

Yep. If at all possible, before they reach the level of actually seeing using a firearm with no real provocation as a sensible course. Which is yet another reason to forget this notion about having armed teachers in the classroom.

If all school staff are unarmed, murderers would have free reign until the cops show up. I find this unacceptable.
Armed staff could stem the carnage.

Or, much more likely, they could make it happen far more often.

 

[Magic Man]

You're like a dog with a bone, & just can't let go, eh? First, the reason I wanted to discover your take on the 2nd Amendment is whether you
think gun ownership is about defense of home & country or about sporting use. In the context of defense (which is how I see it), the founders
saw that ordinary citizens had to rise up against a foreign army. Even the possibility of revolution came up. Consider their intent that arms be
appropriate for a militia which could engage some army. In their day, this would be a muzzle loading rifle or musket. I argue that the weapons
of the militia would change along with the potential threats they face, & that this would be the founders intent. (It's similar to freedom of the
press being extended to more than just print media existing in the 1700s.) As far as I know, ordinary citizens didn't own cannons or warships,
nor did the founders envision that they would.

Now, I gave you some background. Before I answer your question, why not tell me what you think of my take on the 2nd Amendment?

By this logic, you'd need to allow citizens to own landmines, rocket-launchers, tanks, and all kinds of other stuff. Since that's not allowed, I'd say your argument fails. Since we don't allow owning any weapon people want so that they can compete with a real military, the right to bear arms is already restricted to only certain kinds of arms. The question then is just how restrictive we want it to be.

 

[Revoltingest]

You're telling me. My great grandmother was (either partially or wholly?) French-Canadian (horror of horrors). But I had that surgically removed. [More seriously, yeah close call. There's a line in Chariots of Fire, set in the context of one main character settling in at Cambridge just after WWI. The clerk taking down his name says, in response to our hero's "joined to late" remark (i.e., was only old enough to enlist at the end of the war, and thus did not see any "action"): "bad luck, lad." Our hero responds "there's many a dead man would like to share of it, bad luck or no."]

Long long ago, in a career far far away I designed weapon systems. Then as now, I believe that the goal was to minimize carnage by being strong
& ready to meet threats, while avoiding the use of weapons. As we can see here, many oppose peace thru strength & would prefer disarmament.
But disarming only works when all players do it. So until all nations & citizens eschew weapons, I'll prefer to meet force with force.
Btw, it's just a crying shame that Americastan seeks out conflict & exacerbates its own security woes. But the voters will get what they want.

It's almost 4am here, but then I rarely sleep. Which is no doubt reflected in my posts (and why they need so much digesting; they reflect a train of thought that only half left the station to begin with, and the remaining portion jumped the track and collided with several privately owned M1 Abrams tanks).

What an odd coincidence.....I was thinking earlier that you are very much a train of thought poster. It makes a difficult read at times, to ensure
I correctly get your drift. Oh well, I'm not as clear as I'd like to be.

 

[Dirty Penguin]

Sorry, I won't agree with this. You seem to sincerely believe that having teachers casually carrying weapons won't significantly encourage unbalanced people from misusing one.

I would assume I am misunderstanding you if you did not make your point time and again.

I totally agree. Before getting into the IT field and now woking for a school system as an IT professional..I used to be an armed guard....and the number one rule in our safety training was to avoid having to pull your weapon...and if we did we had better be sure the situation warranted pulling it and using it....Now that I work in the school system I have had the opportunity to get to know the police officers in the community and they follow the same rule. Many of them have been officers 10/15 years and have never had to pull or use their weapons. One detective I spoke with had to pull and use his and spent months in therapy because there was no way he could have avoided using it......Now can you imagine the therapy an armed teacher would need if he/she had to pull that trigger...and imagine if it was a high school teacher that had to pull and use his/her weapon on a student with a gun.........That would be a horrible situation for the teacher..psychologically to go through.

 

[Magic Man]

Let's consider this scenario. Suppose it's a real risk that a teacher will snap, & bring weapons to school to start a killing spree.
This is made no more or less likely by allowing school staff to be armed, since one bent on mayhem wouldn't observe the law.

Think of it like an alcoholic who's in recovery. Sure, if he really wants to drink, he'll get his hands on some alcohol, but generally you try to keep it away from him to help him. More guns only means more access to guns. Is it possible that with fewer guns around, someone could still get a hold of one and go on a killing spree? Of course, just like it's still possible for the alcoholic to get alcohol. But you decrease the chances of the wrong person having access to guns when you restrict access to them.

 

[Revoltingest]

By this logic, you'd need to allow citizens to own landmines, rocket-launchers, tanks, and all kinds of other stuff.

Your logic is lacking.
I recommend making fewer inferences, & asking more questions.

Think of it like an alcoholic who's in recovery. Sure, if he really wants to drink, he'll get his hands on some alcohol, but generally you try to keep it away from him to help him. More guns only means more access to guns. Is it possible that with fewer guns around, someone could still get a hold of one and go on a killing spree? Of course, just like it's still possible for the alcoholic to get alcohol. But you decrease the chances of the wrong person having access to guns when you restrict access to them.

Your analogy misses the mark because I'm not advocating more guns in general.
This thread is about the narrower issue of school staff being armed.

 

[Revoltingest]

I totally agree. Before getting into the IT field and now woking for a school system as an IT professional..I used to be an armed guard....and the number one rule in our safety training was to avoid having to pull your weapon...and if we did we had better be sure the situation warranted pulling it and using it....Now that I work in the school system I have had the opportunity to get to know the police officers in the community and they follow the same rule. Many of them have been officers 10/15 years and have never had to pull or use their weapons. One detective I spoke with had to pull and use his and spent months in therapy because there was no way he could have avoided using it......Now can you imagine the therapy an armed teacher would need if he/she had to pull that trigger...and imagine if it was a high school teacher that had to pull and use his/her weapon on a student with a gun.........That would be a horrible situation for the teacher..psychologically to go through.

I argue that if a school staffer did shoot a murderous student in order to stop even
more deaths, that the emotional pain of doing so would be justified by lives saved.

 

[LuisDantas]

But disarming only works when all players do it. So until all nations & citizens eschew weapons, I'll prefer to meet force with force.

That is a dangerously incomplete strategy, though. For one thing, it demands that pretty much everyone keep arming themselves as far as they can afford to. That makes true peace very much an impossibility, and all but ensures an eventual ugly confrontation.

 

[Magic Man]

You infer incorrectly.

That's a wonderful argument and all, but it's incorrect. Your argument is that the second amendment gives us the right to bear arms in order to compete with a government, so that we won't be taken over by a tyranny. When the Constitution was written, that meant muskets. Now it would mean machine guns, landmines, tanks, etc.

Your analogy misses the mark because I'm not advocating more guns in general.
This thread is about the narrower issue of school staff being armed.

Are you trying to argue that having more people carry guns would not involve more guns?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Yes, really. Assault weapons are select fire (semi & full auto) rifles.
But the media will apply this to look-alikes which are semi-auto only, eg, AR-15.
The trickery is in falsely labeling them with emotion laden words for an audience unaware of definitions.
Emotionalism trumps accuracy.

Armed or unarmed you have zero qualifications for posing as a member of the word police. Trickery is indeed the act of hiding behind wordplay, which is precisely what you are doing. See Assault Weapon.

 

[Revoltingest]

Yep. If at all possible, before they reach the level of actually seeing using a firearm with no real provocation as a sensible course.

I advocate the same thing. But this single measure would be only part of a larger effort to curb violence & deaths.

Which is yet another reason to forget this notion about having armed teachers in the classroom.

Why?

Or, much more likely, they could make it happen far more often.

I see no reason this is more likely.

 

[Revoltingest]

Armed or unarmed you have zero qualifications for posing as a member of the word police. Trickery is indeed the act of hiding behind wordplay, which is precisely what you are doing. See Assault Weapon.

I never claimed any qualifications. But I object to dishonesty & manipulation when I see it.
Your own link defeats your claim.

In common parlance, the term is used to describe any of various automatic and semi-automatic military firearms using an intermediate cartridge,[3] and is frequently conflated with assault rifle (a firearm with full-automatic capability).

This "common parlance" is the result of media redefinition.
Were you to read books on firearms from before about 1980, you'd find the definition more limited.
You say I'm employing trickery, but be careful with such barbs, bud. I see you as guilty of the same.

Must this discussion be so testy? Let's stick to the issues.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But such training is available. I know many ordinary citizens who took it upon themselves to become proficient to the extent that
they would be an asset in a violent confrontation. And of course, an armed worker at the school would be present when most needed.
This country already has armed individuals who manage to defend themselves with guns, but without killing bystanders. (I've already
posted several links to Gary Kleck's work in this area.) So the statistics self-defense being beneficial are there.

And when do you propose that a teacher, who is busy planning lectures, grading homework and school work, meeting with students and parents as well as attending other school meetings, and at the university level add mandated keeping up with current research and writing papers for publishment, when is a teacher supposed to squeeze in more time for fire-arms combat? Especially enough to become competent and effecient at it.

Let's examine other venues for mass shootings: universities, offices, Post Offices.
Those would seem to have no greater shock value than a gun show, yet they experience mass shootings.
A gun show would offer quick & certain death to anyone bent on mass murder by firearm. Why? Everyone is armed.

Universities are filled with students, and offices and post offices we hear about but maybe a day or two before the media forgets. To shoot a school though, be it public, private, college, university, or any such places, is to violate the social contract on a level that nearly everyone will be outraged over. A gun show on the other hand, will not be able to arose as much public sympathy or outrage. And people at gun shows usually aren't showing up day-after-day to be tormented and bullied by their peers, another common factor in school shootings.

I don't say that allowing staff to be armed will prevent all deaths. I only argue that this measure will help reduce
deaths....by putting up resistance to the perp sooner, & by making the schools a less attractive target.

Why not just keep a few police officers on hand at all times? They already have the equipment and training, and protecting innocents is already a part of their job, unlike teachers whose job is to teach and money and time would have to be consumed to have them all trained, licensed, and armed. Do you also think they should have bullet proof vests? As that would be even more money used to buy equipment someone else already has, and further overlooking a person who is already qualified for the job.

 

[Revoltingest]

You seem to sincerely believe that having teachers casually carrying weapons won't significantly encourage unbalanced people from misusing one.

I don't understand this statement.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

This "common parlance" is the result of media redefinition.

Evidence?

 

[Revoltingest]

And when do you propose that a teacher, who is busy planning lectures, grading homework and school work, meeting with students and parents as well as attending other school meetings, and at the university level add mandated keeping up with current research and writing papers for publishment, when is a teacher supposed to squeeze in more time for fire-arms combat? Especially enough to become competent and effecient at it.

I only propose that school staff who wish to do so may become trained & licensed to carry concealed in school. If one lacks the time,
interest or commitment to doing this, then they would not. Many of us have busy lives, but we make time for what matters to us.

Universities are filled with students, and offices and post offices we hear about but maybe a day or two before the media forgets. To shoot a school though, be it public, private, college, university, or any such places, is to violate the social contract on a level that nearly everyone will be outraged over. A gun show on the other hand, will not be able to arose as much public sympathy or outrage. And people at gun shows usually aren't showing up day-after-day to be tormented and bullied by their peers, another common factor in school shootings.

There is merit in what you say, but still, gun shows avoid mass murders because it's a hard target.
We observe that even military facilities are victimized because soldiers on base are largely unarmed.

Why not just keep a few police officers on hand at all times? They already have the equipment and training, and protecting innocents is already a part of their job, unlike teachers whose job is to teach and money and time would have to be consumed to have them all trained, licensed, and armed. Do you also think they should have bullet proof vests? As that would be even more money used to buy equipment someone else already has, and further overlooking a person who is already qualified for the job.

The cost of having cops stationed at schools is prohibitive. Were funds available, this would be a solution, & I'd be OK with it.
But we see that communities typically don't do it, so it's not a solution I'd advocate pursuing in lieu of others.

Btw, I appreciate your civil & thoughtful posts about such a hot topic.
But curse your hide for making me put much thought into a response!
Still, I bestow a frubie upon thee for disagreeing with such grace.

 

[Revoltingest]

Evidence?

The most convincing evidence of all.....
My personal recollection of absorbing info & news over decades.
(All I have is lame personal opinion.)