You mean you can’t consistently shoot a moving target in the eye from a quick-draw hip shot at 50 yards while under pressure? I’ve seen numerous documentaries where this sort of act is routine, even for chronically hung-over out of work cattle hands using relatively primitive and poorly maintained gear. You need to spend more time at the range, methinks.
Our local news last night did a feature on how police train to handle crisis situations under stress when innocent bystanders are involved…and what I saw was rather disappointing to me. The policewoman was in a room where the shooter, with hostage in hand, was stationary and the panicked crowd was represented by three or four propped-up dummies. Apparently, if the policewoman shot the shooter first she won.
The “hostage” didn’t move or say anything.
The dummies stayed put.
The room was quiet.
MFG-if I had to deal with that much “stress” in my daily life, I would skip vacations altogether.
I strongly agree with everyone who says it won’t work to arm teachers. Only in an action movie does it make sense. In the real world, the problems and accidental shootings would likely greatly outweigh any benefits.
I think a better solution is to make schools more accepting to the weirdos, outcasts, emos, bullied, and other kids who feel like they don’t belong. Schools just magnify feelings of inadequacy. I’m sure the popular kids and athletes feel like high school is the best place in the world, but if you don’t fit in, it can be soul crushing. “Oh, you get bad grades? You’re a loser who won’t amount to anything.” “Oh, you can’t afford the latest fashion? You’re a loser who won’t amount to anything.” “Oh, you have some behavior differences? You’re a loser who won’t amount to anything and no one wants to be friends with you.”
And it’s not just the fault of other kids–the administration is often complicit. The focus is always on excellence. If you get good grades or score points for your team, the school loves you. But if you don’t do well, then the school will ignore you or just put forth some token effort. It would help greatly if the school wrapped their figurative arms around the oddball kids and said “We care about you and will help you excel in whatever way is best for you.”
TL;DR: Make the non-conforming kids feel like they matter and they won’t feel the need to shoot up the school.
It’s one of the things about these debates that have always struck me as funny. It’s something I typically here from the gun-control advocates. Something along the lines of “You should just let the professionals handle it” or “You’re not trained” etc.
My thought is always, “ummm … you probably don’t realize how poorly-trained the police are”. It’s not, generally speaking, very impressive training. Anyone who has graduated from FrontSight would basically fit into the upper echelon of police capabilities. If you ever get the chance to go to a police gun range, look around. Check the walls, the ceiling, the floor. I can virtually guarantee you’ll see damage from negligent discharges. These are the people that I keep getting told are the “only ones professional enough”?!?
If this is an attempt to say that police training doesn’t make them any better than the common citizen…try to imagine how bad they would be without the training they receive.
I’m entirely confident that the median CCW permit holder trains significantly more and is a significantly-more-skilled marksman than the median police officer.
If you had cites to show that were true, I would actually sleep better at night.
Well, even the pros had to make some mistakes before becoming experts.
That said, it sounds like some excellent reasons to disarm the general public and most of the rank and file police. Like in the UK, for example. Leave the job to the really well trained professionals, eh?
Oh, I doubt highly you’ll be persuaded by any cites I provide, and truthfully a significant portion of that opinion is formed with personal interactions with law enforcement, during shooting competitions, in conversations, at the range, etc., but what the hell, why not give it a try.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2015/04/robert-farago/study-why-police-firearms-training-sucks/
At best, your cites shown that police are poorly trained.
Where is the cite that would indicate that CCW permit holders are trained better?
Good luck with that.
I have a dream…
Sorry about that-It seems that all we have on stock are nightmares.
And how much time does your median CCW permit holder spend at training? Is this something that teachers are going to have time for?
This, this, this. The element of surprise and intent cannot be underestimated.
When I worked in courtrooms, we did regular drills with the deputy sheriffs whose job it was to provide bailiff services and courtroom security. They would work up all kinds of potential scenarios, and we would then role play them in our efforts to be better prepared. Even knowing it was just a drill, even having armed deputies on the actual scene and more coming within 2 minutes when we hit the panic button, even with some judges who did have CCW, the confusion and element of surprise always determined the outcome. It wasn’t good. I was a hell of a lot more grateful when they finally installed kevlar in the cubby below my desk.
This is so true. Sure, there may be one scenario in a thousand where the Good Guy with a Gun™ manages to save the day. And that will be against a hundred or so where arming teachers leads instead to tragic consequences. That’s just the reality of adding more guns to the mix.
I’ve taken your Utah CCW training. Frankly, I was waiting for someone to ask if I had enough box tops. There were people in that class who struggled to even know when the safety was on with some guns. And they passed the “training.”
Like Czarcasm and Crotalus made clear above, there is hardly enough training in the world to effectively face off against a determined shooter who a) has already decided he doesn’t mind dying; and b) has decided to take out as many people as he can until that happens.
I am fortunate to be able to conveniently target practice on my land any time I want and I do it often. Like Crotalus, I have no illusions based on my experience of these scenarios that I would have any especial ability to stop them in the heat of the moment.
Adding more guns to the situation is the last thing we should do. It only adds additional burdens to already-overloaded teachers’ responsibilities and confuses law enforcement. Dumb.
Do you have a cite for that? Or is it more of a guess / gut feeling?
About as valid as your claim that CCW permit holders are better trained than the police, I’d say? His opinion is based what would happen if the teachers were armed the way some seem to want. Baring time travel, where would you expect such a cite to come from?
Problem: Teachers class sizes are too big, they barely have the time to prepare and deliver lessons, let alone maintain the mental skillset and resolve necessary to identify, sight, and neutralize an active shooter threat.
Solution:
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Reduce base workload to a teacher/student ratio of 1:20 so teachers have a reasonable amount of time and reduced chronic stress level to foster the necessary mental and physical skills to adequately manage firearms expertise. Additional compensation should be administered to encourage and reward this additional duty, and the firearms carry is optional.
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Teachers are also to be trained in far and near-term threat identification and de-escalation, ideally enabling them to identify potential future threats in the form of psychologically disadvantaged individuals who may then be referred to the appropriate preventive programs
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Student curriculum is to be enhanced in the K-12 programs to include an emphasis on critical reasoning and conflict de-escalation with a principle emphasis on verbal techniques. Grades 4-12 are to receive 2 hour/week training in physical de-escalation techniques, including Kung-fu meditative training, and krav maga or similar hand to hand resource-focused combat training.
There, I fixed it. If you need some budget money, run all this through the goddamned athletics department. Now. Somebody give me a cupcake.
Assume for the sake of argument this is true.
How is it a counter-argument?
Strikes me that if the police aren’t being well trained for such situations (which perhaps is a factor in the high number of police shootings of civilians), the schoolteachers are likely going to get far, far less training than the police - leading to even worse results for them.
How expensive are metal detectors? Wouldn’t a simple approach like that be much better than … :eek: … MORE guns???