Arming teachers

[Kearsen]

@Czarcasm

If I can come up with five links that have stories of surgeons accidentally leaving objects behind after sewing up, would you let your next door neighbor do your next surgery?

@HurricaneDitka

Depends. Is a real surgeon available? If so, no, I would not. If not, am I likely to bleed to death while waiting for one to become available? Under those circumstances, yeah, I’d ask my neighbor to do the best he can.

CCW is that same sort of “in-a-pinch” scenario. If I see some slowly-progressing crime, with no one in immediate danger, I’m definitely going to call the cops and let them handle the situation. OTOH, if I’m in a dark alley, about to figuratively-bleed-to-death, I’ll do the best I can with what’s available.

@Czarcasm

All of them would be valid surgeons-I said nothing about fake surgeons in my scenario…but nice avoidance technique you’ve got going there.

SMH

[k9bfriender]

@HurricaneDitka

And just so I understand your position, is it that you would prefer to have a “chair, desk, or whatever other heavy heftable object is available” than a firearm of your own in that situation?

On balance, sure. Now, in that particular extremely rare situation, having a gun might be nice.

Assuming that the shooter has come prepared with a breaching shotgun and rounds for that, along with his assault weapon and ammo, specifically for the purpose of shooting down MY door and going after MY class, a gun would have been a good thing to have.

As that is a ridiculously rare scenario, so rare that it hasn’t actually happened yet, I would rather not have a gun in the classroom every single day for the thousands of years that it would have to be at the ready in order to be present for an school shooting, much less the scenario you are envisioning.

@HurricaneDitka

Are you talking about teachers? Are you asking how long will it be before a teacher shoots up their own class? Do you imagine that the rule telling them they have to leave their gun at home is going to be a serious obstacle if / when that day comes?

To make the point clear: we’re not talking about whether to allow teachers to own firearms. Many of them already do. We’re merely discussing whether they should be allowed to carry them with them while working.

Teachers are people too. they have emotions and such. We had a teacher commit suicide in his class right before school started once, left a note blaming the students and school and all that for his problems. Students walked into the class and discovered him, as was his intent. Had he had a gun when he decided to take his life, you don’t think he may have taken some of his problems with him?

The average gun, if you have one gun per school, is going to spend somewhere between 450 years (for 18 shootings a month) to 9000 years, (for 1 shooting a month), before it has any chance to be used defensively. That’s a whole lot of time for that gun to find its way to mischief.

Question for you. What is an acceptable level of incidents before you would agree that arming the teachers is a bad idea? I will say that my “acceptable limit” is 0, but I am willing to hear your thoughts on why a higher number would be acceptable.

My definition of an incident is any discharge of a firearm that was not planned for training purposes, or used in defense of the school against a lethal threat.

If you want to call it only when people are injured or killed, that’s fine, as there are many firearm incidents that, because through luck didn’t hurt anyone, don’t get reported, so getting stats on accidental discharges without injury would probably be very difficult.

I do include in the unacceptable list discipline issues. Unless the student actually has a lethal weapon of their own and is using it to threaten the life and limb of another student or staff, gun use by teachers to break up a fight or anything else like that is unacceptable, even more so if it is used or threatened to be used for disruptive but non-violent behavior.

[Czarcasm]

@Kearsen

SMH

We now know that you know how the quoting function works. Was there a reason for your post?

[Morgenstern]

@Czarcasm

We now know that you know how the quoting function works. Was there a reason for your post?

It means Shaking My Head, that said, your question is still valid.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@HurricaneDitka

You’re welcome to, but I don’t know if my fellow righties will be any more persuaded by my position than the lefties in this thread. Perhaps my biggest break with conservative orthodoxy is on the issue of police. I’m significantly-more skeptical of them than your average Republican.

Good to know. I’m actually more pro-police than most lefties. I have good friends that are cops, including one whose cop husband was murdered in a high profile incident. So I’m sympathetic to the challenges. And I also know that most of them don’t think that arming the citizenry would make their cities any safer. They mostly think it makes their jobs more dangerous. Going into a school in pursuit of an active shooter is tricky enough without adding the concern that you might be shot by a skittish teacher.

[Nava]

@HurricaneDitka

Where was that, if you don’t mind sharing?

What asahi said applies to Spain as well.

Back in… 1999 if I’m not miscounting? Maybe 2000, doesn’t make much of a difference. A friend of mine, American, was working in Madrid. We met there over the Pilares four-day weekend and among other things had lunch with my aunt; we watched the news while she finished cooking. The biggest bit of national news at the time was that one guy had died of knife wounds after a fight outside a dance club; there were interviews with National Police and Guardia Civil officials at the highest levels; explanations that the length of knife that was used is legal but a shorter one wouldn’t even be useful to clean your nails; people were worried. My friend couldn’t believe his eyes. We were more worried about one knife fight than Americans about all their gun crime.

It’s not that there weren’t murders; there were, and there are. But the mechanics of “I got mad at some person I’d barely met” weren’t and aren’t expected to go beyond “their friends had to separate them, man…”

[Czarcasm]

Going through the trouble of quoting two different people then not having the energy to post whole words seems silly to me, but to each his own, I guess.

[Kearsen]

@Ann_Hedonia

I read somewhere that they have made white boards that can be lifted off the wall and used as bulletproof shields. Maybe they could find a way to attach them to the classroom door.

And when do they shoot? As soon as the door opens? As soon as someone steps in? Do you think by the time you positively decide that this is a bad guy with a gun, you’ll still have time to kill him? What kind of training will a teacher have to make that assessment?
How will this gun policy affect the liability insurance status of the school and the city or county that operates the schools? How will the police feel about arming teachers? I remember when the Secret Service didn’t think it was such a good idea to let people bring guns to the Republican Convention.

This is another meaningless talking point, like the 2000 mile border wall and the Harvest Box O’ Foodstuufs. Makes for good talking if you’ve got an audience that’s not inclined to think too hard but it doesn’t stand up to any real scrutiny from a practical point of view.

If you arm 20% of the country’s 3.5 million teachers, that’s 700,000 armed teachers and 700,000 guns inside the school. Even if 99% of the teachers can carry a gun all day for 180 school days without incident ( And I think I’m being generous in my assessment of the weapons handling capabilities of teachers), that’s still going to be 70 incidents a year.

What will be the protocol if a teacher misplaces a gun or if a gun goes missing? Will the whole school go through some sort of evacuation and lock-down? Some teachers lose their keys every 5 minutes. And does the teacher have to wear the gun strapped to their body or can they hide it in their desk. Will the teachers be trained in what to do if someone tries to grab their gun?

But these guys have President Trump as their thought leader. And he thinks guns in schools are a good idea because John Kelly is a badass and if he were in a school with a gun, no one would dare shoot it up.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States:
Trump says John Kelly would stop mass shootings if he was a teacher with a gun: 'The bullets would be flying'

This is just a fantasy from people who’ve seen to many movies. John McClanes and Jack Bauers don’t exist in real life.

They shoot when they have identified the threat, or they wait until the subject has exhausted all their ammunition (in which case they are probably dead) . Which is NO DIFFERENT had they been unarmed.

[Kearsen]

@Czarcasm

Going through the trouble of quoting two different people then not having the energy to post whole words seems silly to me, but to each his own, I guess.

Which I wouldn’t have had to do at all, if you had understood what you wrote and what the response to you meant.

[Czarcasm]

@Kearsen

Which I wouldn’t have had to do at all, if you had understood what you wrote and what the response to you meant.

:rolleyes:

[filmore]

@k9bfriender

The average gun, if you have one gun per school, is going to spend somewhere between 450 years (for 18 shootings a month) to 9000 years, (for 1 shooting a month), before it has any chance to be used defensively. That’s a whole lot of time for that gun to find its way to mischief.

I think of guns in the home for safety the same way. There is just a very slim chance that it would actually be needed for defense, but to have it at that moment means it’s in the house all the time. That means there’s plenty of time for kids to find and play with it, for someone to use it in anger, for someone to use it when they are depressed, for someone to have an accident with it, etc. No doubt if an intruder broke in I would wish I had a gun in that moment, but it seems like it would overall be more risky when considered over the whole time it’s in the house.

In a school, there are all kinds of situations where the gun would likely cause problems. For example, there are teacher-student altercations all the time. It’s a certainty that one of the armed teachers would pull their gun in that situation because they felt threatened. Or even that some teachers would allude to having a gun if students were acting up. When a fire alarm is pulled, some teachers will go out holding their gun because they think a shooter pulled it.

If you only consider that a teacher’s gun will be used when there’s an active shooter, then it seems like a great idea. But in the real world it means that a lot of teachers have a lot of guns for a lot of time where things can go wrong.

[filmore]

And we probably want to make sure that teachers like this don’t get to have guns in the classroom:

UO Instructor Convicted in Road Rage Car Crash
Teacher Punched Teen During Road Rage Incident
Jefferson County high school teacher charged in another road rage incident

Of course, the difficult part is how do you know which teachers will snap before they snap?

[madmonk28]

@filmore

And we probably want to make sure that teachers like this don’t get to have guns in the classroom:

UO Instructor Convicted in Road Rage Car Crash
Teacher Punched Teen During Road Rage Incident
Jefferson County high school teacher charged in another road rage incident

Of course, the difficult part is how do you know which teachers will snap before they snap?

Duh, you need to arm the students.

I wonder what this teacher would have done if she had a gun? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/03/gym-teacher-accused-of-assaulting-student-who-wouldnt-stand-for-pledge-of-allegiance/?utm_term=.7aba039c442e

[up_the_junction]

@filmore

Of course, the difficult part is how do you know which teachers will snap before they snap?

I think the only thing to do is to arm the kids as well. That way everyone is on the same footing, everyone is equally safe.

Rather like if no one was armed in the first place.

[k9bfriender]

@Ann_Hedonia

Good to know. I’m actually more pro-police than most lefties. I have good friends that are cops, including one whose cop husband was murdered in a high profile incident. So I’m sympathetic to the challenges.

I don’t know that “lefties” are anti-cop. Speaking for myself, and my perception of many who criticize the job that cops are doing(for instance, in the controversial encounters thread), it is the screening and training that I have an issue with, not the idea of law enforcement.

And I also know that most of them don’t think that arming the citizenry would make their cities any safer. They mostly think it makes their jobs more dangerous. Going into a school in pursuit of an active shooter is tricky enough without adding the concern that you might be shot by a skittish teacher.

Or shoot a teacher, because you yourself are skittish, being in a situation that no training can prepare you for, and looking for someone who is presenting a threat to the school. You come across a teacher who is out looking for the shooter, how do you know that’s not them? If I were a cop, and I saw an armed adult prowling the halls of a school during an active shooter situation, I’d be pulling the trigger as soon as I saw them. Even upon a moment’s reflection (in which time I could be shot for hesitating) I don’t see how I would differentiate an armed teacher from an active shooter.

@filmore

I think of guns in the home for safety the same way. There is just a very slim chance that it would actually be needed for defense, but to have it at that moment means it’s in the house all the time. That means there’s plenty of time for kids to find and play with it, for someone to use it in anger, for someone to use it when they are depressed, for someone to have an accident with it, etc. No doubt if an intruder broke in I would wish I had a gun in that moment, but it seems like it would overall be more risky when considered over the whole time it’s in the house.

In a school, there are all kinds of situations where the gun would likely cause problems. For example, there are teacher-student altercations all the time. It’s a certainty that one of the armed teachers would pull their gun in that situation because they felt threatened. Or even that some teachers would allude to having a gun if students were acting up. When a fire alarm is pulled, some teachers will go out holding their gun because they think a shooter pulled it.

If you only consider that a teacher’s gun will be used when there’s an active shooter, then it seems like a great idea. But in the real world it means that a lot of teachers have a lot of guns for a lot of time where things can go wrong.

Right. I am of the opinion that having a gun in the home increases you chances of being killed by a gun. But, I feel that that is a choice you may make for yourself and your family. Especially since you, as the gun owner and parent, can take steps to decrease the chances of the gun being used irresponsibly. If it makes you feel better, more power to ya.

In this case, it is not a choice made by a family as to what types of danger they are willing to expose their children to, but by the school and the teachers, and if they arm teachers, then they are deciding to increase the danger to the students by adding guns to classrooms.

[k9bfriender]

@madmonk28

Duh, you need to arm the students.

I wonder what this teacher would have done if she had a gun? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/02/03/gym-teacher-accused-of-assaulting-student-who-wouldnt-stand-for-pledge-of-allegiance/?utm_term=.7aba039c442e

Anything she did would have been in the name of patriotism, so, just fine. It’s not like it would be a loss to kill some student that doesn’t show proper respect to the motherland.

@up_the_junction

I think the only thing to do is to arm the kids as well. That way everyone is on the same footing, everyone is equally safe.

Rather like if no one was armed in the first place.

In the end, no one is armed, one way or the other.

[Aspenglow]

@HurricaneDitka

Do you have a cite for that? Or is it more of a guess / gut feeling?

You asked for a cite. I’ve got one, though I can’t cite you to it online as it was an internal study conducted by the FBI after some states allowed teachers to carry at schools. I heard about it as I was listening to news this morning, jotted down the figures.

The study was done to include only schools where CCW was allowed. Out of 163 incidents, 1 was stopped by a CCW school faculty. 21 were stopped by unarmed school faculty. The rest, it made no difference.

Those are some actual figures. They don’t appear to support your opinions.

[HurricaneDitka]

@k9bfriender

… Question for you. What is an acceptable level of incidents before you would agree that arming the teachers is a bad idea? I will say that my “acceptable limit” is 0, but I am willing to hear your thoughts on why a higher number would be acceptable. …

My acceptable level would be if it’s a net positive. I doubt anyone has really good numbers on this, but imagine that we did, and could distill things down to something like this: School shootings cause X deaths and Y gunshot injuries in an average year. Arming teachers could prevent those but cause its own series of incidents with A deaths and B injuries."

Well, if A<X and B<Y, I’d call it a net positive and accept the A&B levels of incidents. If A>X and B>Y, then it would be an unacceptable trade-off.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@k9bfriender

Right. I am of the opinion that having a gun in the home increases you chances of being killed by a gun. But, I feel that that is a choice you may make for yourself and your family. Especially since you, as the gun owner and parent, can take steps to decrease the chances of the gun being used irresponsibly. If it makes you feel better, more power to ya.
.

I think it’s situational. I currently live in a large apartment block in a large city. My neighbors are pretty aware of comings and goings within the building. The would react instantly if they heard screaming or other sounds of a violent encounter. And I have multiple points of egress from each room - thanks to the fire safety laws that cover large buildings - and no macho need to face down an intruder. A gun is the last thing I need, since the bullets could easily penetrate walls, ceilings and floors and go into a neighboring apartment.
In fact. I feel so physically safe in my home that I don’t deadbolt my apartment door at night. I’m more scared of people ( like EMS ) NOT being able to get in should I have a stroke or something than I am of violent intruders.

But I intend to retire to a rural area. In which case I might decide to buy a gun for protection, if I am living alone. Although some people have recommended a shotgun as opposed to a handgun based on my situation. Ill handle the specifics when I get there. But if I’m living in a rural area AND sharing a home with family that includes children ( another possible future scenario) - that would probably tip the scales against gun ownership.

But I have noticed a high level of general fearfulness among hard core gun proponents. And I think this level of fearfulness can cause them to make bad decisions. If some guy is too scared to go to Applebee’s unless he takes an assault rifle with him, that’s not a guy I’d trust to make level-headed assessments in an emergency situation.

[k9bfriender]

@HurricaneDitka

My acceptable level would be if it’s a net positive. I doubt anyone has really good numbers on this, but imagine that we did, and could distill things down to something like this: School shootings cause X deaths and Y gunshot injuries in an average year. Arming teachers could prevent those but cause its own series of incidents with A deaths and B injuries."

Well, if A<X and B<Y, I’d call it a net positive and accept the A&B levels of incidents. If A>X and B>Y, then it would be an unacceptable trade-off.

And if we arm the teachers, and school shootings continue, does that mean we didn’t arm the teachers enough, and there will be calls for increasing the number of guns in schools?

Will there be some nebulous number of school shootings that are prevented because the teachers are armed and warding off shooters that will somehow always be larger than the number of incidents of accidental or malicious discharges?

Will student comfort be of any consequence? We have threads where people complain about liberal teachers, and that they were terrified of disagreeing with them because they thought it would get reflected in their grade. If that is a concern, then what about the concern about not contradicting the person with a gun? I got in a number of arguments with teachers when it was obvious that they didn’t understand the material that they were teaching (fish get their water from separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in H[sub]2[/sub]O, huh?) maybe I would not have challenged some of their statements, if they flashed me their gun along with their usual disapproving look.