should teachers carry guns?

[quiet bear]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

OK, working on quiet bear's assertion that she would never send her kid anywhere where she know for sure that someone has a firearm:

She?

Wow, I've been promoted!!

[California Tanker]

CT, what is your aversion to hiring people who know what they are doing to protect schools?

I have a couple of aversions, or at leasts, grounds for thinking that it's not the best, sole idea.

1) Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think a school is a good place to have security personnel. It's a place for people to spend their formative years, and I'm not sure that being educated in a place considered dangerous enough to warrant its own school police formulates the best impression. Perhaps I need to change with the times. But if the situation really is that bad that the service is warranted, then that's all the more reason to lift the firearms-on-schools prohibition.

2) It's expensive. Particularly if you want to hire enough staff to make a difference, and also particularly if you want to do it for every school. Don't our school budgets have enough problems right now without needing to add people onto the payroll who contribute absolutely nothing to the kid's education.

3) Though there may be other instances where there are superior benefits to a school security force, I don't see instances such as these school shootings to be situations where it is more beneficial to have a uniformed armed person than an un-uniformed armed teacher.

It's already failry well established that guns intended for home protection are used against innocents far more often than they're used against actual threats

That is, at best, an extremely controversial statement, and at worst, straight incorrect, depending on what sources you choose. Let's say that the number of people who believe it to be true are about equal to the number that don't.

QB: He, she, it.. Sorry about that: I don't know what gender most of the posters around here are. It doesn't really come up, and I see no need to ask.

NTM

[Angakuk]

Originally Posted by quiet bear

The alarm system is a really good idea, though. Even that has its flaws, though. Same as kids pull fire alarms, they'll set those things off as well.

What I had in mind was a personal panic button that the teacher would carry on his/her person. You know, like those "help I've fallen and can't get up" devices that are marketed to old folks. I realize that even that is not a perfect solution, given police response times. However, I think it would increase security, be workable, not add an additional risk element, and be in proportion to the real degree of risk.

[Ari]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

1) Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think a school is a good place to have security personnel. It's a place for people to spend their formative years, and I'm not sure that being educated in a place considered dangerous enough to warrant its own school police formulates the best impression.

Yet you seem to think they are dangerous enough places for teachers to pack-heat when coming to work.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

2) It's expensive. Particularly if you want to hire enough staff to make a difference, and also particularly if you want to do it for every school.

As opposed to the major increase in insurance schools would need to pay if they allowed their employees to bring guns to the workplace. The lose of money if parents pull students out of school because they don't like their teachers carrying guns. The teachers themselves that might leave because they don't like the teachers carrying guns, or the crushing blow a suit would have on the school if a student was injured or killed by the teacher.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Don't our school budgets have enough problems right now without needing to add people onto the payroll who contribute absolutely nothing to the kid's education.

Actually at my small high school the few security people we had were also counselor* as well as helped out in ROP.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

3) Though there may be other instances where there are superior benefits to a school security force, I don't see instances such as these school shootings to be situations where it is more beneficial to have a uniformed armed person than an un-uniformed armed teacher.

Who said they had to be uniformed?
So you don't see trained security personal being any more beneficial than people with unknown training?

*although the conversation is about people carrying guns, counselors are probably much more important. Any defense, by a random teacher or security officer is really just damage control. Studies show for most cases someone knows of the event but the right people aren't told. Prevention is the real key.

[California Tanker]

Originally Posted by Ari

Yet you seem to think they are dangerous enough places for teachers to pack-heat when coming to work.

Not quite. I think that they are no less safe than any other location in the country. I guess this infers that the entire country is dangerous enough for people to pack heat when going about their business. At least, 48 states think so.

As opposed to the major increase in insurance schools would need to pay if they allowed their employees to bring guns to the workplace. The lose of money if parents pull students out of school because they don't like their teachers carrying guns. The teachers themselves that might leave because they don't like the teachers carrying guns, or the crushing blow a suit would have on the school if a student was injured or killed by the teacher.

That is, unfortunately, one of the realities of 'true' nature of a CCW. Almost every corporate employer has a 'no firearms held by our employees' policy, which is taken to ludicrous extremes at times. They're all afraid of litigation. There have been instances where an employee of such a company has successfully used their firearm, been totally cleared of any malfeasance, but still got fired from the company. Well, at least they went home alive. However, just because 'Insurance' makes something more expensive doesn't mean it's correct. For example, most car insurance companies take strong objection to people taking their cars to track days on race tracks, and raise rates, if they cover them at all. In fact, it's far safer to drive quickly on a track than on the street, but hey, if you crash on the street, at least your insurance will cover it.

Actually at my small high school the few security people we had were also counselor* as well as helped out in ROP.

Fair enough. What's a ROP?

So you don't see trained security personal being any more beneficial than people with unknown training?

For the issue at hand, not particularly so, no. In both cases, you're presumably looking at people who have achieved a particular standard of marksmanship, and who also presumably haven't 'seen the elephant' and so are an unknown quantity when the bullets start flying. One of the teachers I mentioned I knew who goes to school armed served with me in Iraq. I would put him up against the local campus police in a pinch. The non-capability of full policemen with firearms is pretty legendary in the firearms community. The vast majority shoot their annual qualification, and never touch their sidearm for the rest of the year. Some are marksmanship studs. One of the differences between a cop and an armed citizen is that a cop is someone who has chosen to serve the community, and a sidearm just comes with the trade, but a CCW holder is someone who has taken the interest to actively obtain the firearm and permit.

*although the conversation is about people carrying guns, counselors are probably much more important. Any defense, by a random teacher or security officer is really just damage control. Studies show for most cases someone knows of the event but the right people aren't told. Prevention is the real key.

Agreed. Nothing wrong with a multi-layered defense though.

NTM

[Ari]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

just because 'Insurance' makes something more expensive doesn't mean it's correct.

I agree. I'm not siding with the insurance companies, but one point brought up was expense and right or wrong it will cost money, much more than contracting out.

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Fair enough. What's a ROP?

Regional Occupation Program. Kind of a cross between High school and vocational school. At our High school it was common for it to focus on police and firefighter services. (both of which often have openings because of the spread out and high fire danger nature of the area.)

Originally Posted by California Tanker

One of the differences between a cop and an armed citizen is that a cop is someone who has chosen to serve the community, and a sidearm just comes with the trade, but a CCW holder is someone who has taken the interest to actively obtain the firearm and permit.

Which brings up another point, exactly how many teachers do you think actually hold a CCW? Speaking of expense, since public school is a statewide organization it would require a statewide rule (and increase in insurance) for the few that have a CCW.

It would seem to me that even with the legendary missaccuracy of police, expense and protection wise hiring security personal would be better than arming those with CCWs.

[foo fighter]

CT


I don't think that 'requiring' a teacher, or anyone else, to be armed is necessarily the best move possible.

You’re right, changed to “allow”. The law will allow them to carry one if they “choose” to. So this can sum up to be just a wasteful exercise. b\c I feel my view still applies. If I was a teacher and I was allowed to arm myself I still wouldn’t b\c I don’t want to be bothered with going through the hoops to get one, and also my lack of interest that I have in them.

[California Tanker]

That's fair enough. I'm not saying that all teachers should be armed, and if the proposed legislation actually said so, I'd have objected to it as well. I just believe that there is no reasonable grounds to deny someone who has made that choice to carry a firearm on school grounds when it's considered quite acceptable to carry one at the bus stop, or wherever.

Which brings up another point, exactly how many teachers do you think actually hold a CCW?

I presume a roughly similar number to the amount of bankers, insurance agents, IT technicians, engineers, bus drivers, and any other category of private citizen that has one. I don't know of any surveys that break it down to that level of detail.

NTM

[Ari]

I would say I object to some of the "zero tolerance" policies the schools have. Such as teachers who smoke not being allowed to carry a cigarette onto campus, or that students who legally hunt can be expelled for forgetting a shotgun shell in their locked car in the parking lot.

[Freddy]

As a teacher I would not support guns in school period. Lock all doors from the outside, use metal detectors and surveilence cameras, classroom alarm systems, and do not allow people in school that are not known. The odds of being killed in a school shooting( less than 90 annually) is incredibly small compared to being killed in an automobile acccident(40K annually).

From the American Public Health Association:
"Recent shootings at schools in Mount Morris, Mich; Littleton, Colo; Jonesboro, Ark; and other cities have riveted public attention. The attention is well deserved, given the seriousness of the tragedies and the youth of both victims and assailants. The total number of victims in school shootings each year, however, is typically less than one day's death toll attributable to firearms in the United States. Every day in the United States, about 90 people are killed with guns in suicides, homicides, and accidents, and another 175 are injured."

From LawInfo.com:
"Over 40,000 people are killed in approximately five million motor vehicle collisions and other car accidents annually, many involving teen car accidents. In 2002 alone, nearly 43,000 people died in highway accidents nationwide. That equates to over 115 fatalities per day."

[MonCapitan2002]

Originally Posted by Tanda

Linkage

That was hilarious. I didn't realise you returned to the boards. Welcome back.

[California Tanker]

Originally Posted by MonCapitan2002

That was hilarious.

Better yet, he's now sueing the DEA for allowing the video to hit the Internet. Says it prevents him from doing his job as an undercover agent, or something like that.

NTM

[Legs]

Youngsters in a suburban Fort Worth, Texas, school district are being taught not to sit there like good boys and girls with their hands folded if a gunman invades the classroom, but to rush him and hit him with everything they've got -- books, pencils, legs and arms.

"Getting under desks and praying for rescue from professionals is not a recipe for success," said Robin Browne, a major in the British Army reserve and an instructor for Response Options, the company providing the training to the Burleson schools.

That kind of fight-back advice is all but unheard of among schools, and some fear it will get children killed.

CNN Article

[California Tanker]

Makes sense to me. Beats sitting around and waiting to be killed.

NTM

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by California Tanker

Makes sense to me. Beats sitting around and waiting to be killed.

NTM

That's pretty much the same thing I said when it came out how the 9-11 attackers treated their victims. It brought to an end an era of "out-psyching" the hijacker and brought on the need to act together in everyone's self-defense, knowing that some may be hurt or killed in the process. It is still better than all dying, plus innocents on the surface of the planet.

[Legs]

A candidate for state superintendent of schools said Thursday he wants thick used textbooks placed under every student's desk so they can use them for self-defense during school shootings.

"People might think it's kind of weird, crazy," said Republican Bill Crozier of Union City, Oklahoma, a teacher and former Air Force security officer. "It is a practical thing; it's something you can do. It might be a way to deflect those bullets until police go there."

[California Tanker]

I knew there was a reason Charlie Brown kept needing to read 'war and peace'

NTM