(thanks for responding, your were the one I most hoped to hear back from)
As a followup: So what if we just extended Utah’s policy to the rest of the nation? Could you accept that?
First-floor classrooms, like mine, that have windows that open already have a secondary exit of sorts. The problem is the second floor. You don’t want fire escapes up to every room–not just because of the expense, but because it makes it easy for a shooter to bypass the main entrance, with its security cameras, etc., and attack a classroom from outside.
If we are going to cede the classroom to the people with guns to fight it out, shouldn’t we give all teachers a bonus for hazardous duty pay?
Perhaps I’ll start another thread about it, but I have to ask:
HurricaneDitka, I’m not going to put words in your mouth, but I will say that it seems most Republicans and/or conservatives and/or pro-gun people are against national gun laws.
Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/25/AR2010102505823.html
I’m not saying you in particular are against national regulations regarding guns, because I don’t know. But there is evidence that pro-gun people are. My question is if pro-gun people are against a national regulation such as a database, why would they be for a Utah-like regulation?
It seems to me that would be “government overreach”. Care to comment?
It could be accomplished at the state level, by having the other states adopt a policy like Utah’s. There’s no need to involve Congress in it.
Which could lead to a confusing hodge-podge of rules, regulations, and laws.
We already have “a confusing hodge-podge of rules, regulations, and laws”, and my proposed solution certainly wouldn’t resolve that, but it’s not going to “lead to” it either or make it any worse, as we’re already there.
“Accept” for what purpose? What are you proposing that such an “extension” would or should accomplish? If you advocate it simply on the grounds that you think CCW permit holders should be able to bring guns to schools as to other public places, what’s the relevance of that to the problem of school shootings? If you’re claiming that it would somehow reduce the incidence of school shootings, on what grounds are you making that claim?
To clarify, I’m looking at this as a generally pro-gun-ownership advocate of Second Amendment repeal. In brief, I think that the majority of gun ownership is reasonably safe (or can fairly easily be made so), but that gun ownership as a fundamental constitutional right is long-outdated bullshit.
AFAICT, the overall strategy of gun-rights ideologues in response to public anger about gun violence is to try to deflect measures for stronger regulation of guns by arguing that largely unpopular and impractical alternatives should be implemented instead. They don’t actually want such alternatives (e.g., “train and arm at least 20% of all schoolteachers”) implemented, because if they don’t work in practice then that will be seen as weakening the arguments against regulation. They just want to keep proposing them, in order to look as though they’re taking public concerns about gun violence seriously.
Add to this that the shooter will have just practiced, the teacher not so much. My wife is in a mystery writer’s group who visited the firing range of a police department so that they could get experience firing weapons. The LEO who guided them said that she has to practice once a week, and still is not too confident on her marksmanship, while someone who didn’t practice is probably more dangerous than helpful.
In Police Squad Drebbin tended to hit civilians in his gun battles. This might be a more accurate model than the teacher as John Wayne model Trump and others like.
You just know that if this nonsense were ever implemented, and failed as badly as it is sure to fail, the NRA response would be that all teachers must have rapid fire weapons in their desks.
That’s one thing I keep hammering people about: the NRA has managed to equate “self-defense” with “guns” so that in many people’s minds “no gun” = “no defense”, and that’s simply not true. There are any number of ways to inflict pain and death on another human being with using a gun. I really try and not let anyone get away with that kind of thing in IRL discussions.
“Pray and spray is the only way” would be their mantra.
I don’t get that either. They insist that if we don’t have guns in school, then the only option is to cower and whimper. It makes me wonder if that means that, if they were ever deprived of their gun, then they would be cowering and whimpering, as that’s the only way that their accusations makes sense.
And if being deprived of an item causes you that much distress, then you do not have a healthy relationship with that item.
Utah teachers don’t take an “active shooter” course, do they? They just have standard CCW permit. Is there a reason to think this policy is working in any way before it gets rolled out nationwide? Are 18 yr old students allowed CCW on school property?
To be specific, Utah teachers are not required to take an “active shooter” course. Some of them (a relatively small # I would guess) probably have “taken an active shooter course” or received some tactical training at some point.
No one has died in a school shooting in Utah. To be frank, school shootings are thankfully rare-enough events that good, meaningful statistical analysis is difficult, but I don’t think my “no one has died in a school shooting in Utah” is that far off from the “no mass shootings in Australia since the buyback”.
Not in K-12, but yes at colleges. This is a relatively new thing for Utah. It was only a couple of years ago that we passed a “provisional CFP” law for 18-20-year-olds.
I completely agree. As a woman living alone on acreage in the middle of nowhere and being far out of reach of any 911 response, I’ve evolved a multitude of strategies to deal with situations that may require self-defense. At the very bottom of the list is using a gun, and there are a lot of choices between the top and bottom of the list.
I sleep just fine. 
Utah is not really a great test case, as it has a low violent crime rate, roughly half that of Florida, where gun laws are also pretty lenient. And since those laws have been in place for a very long time, it’s impossible to say they’ve had any impact in terms of school shootings. You may say there’s no connection between violent crime rates and school shootings but the point is this: we can’t know if Utah has escaped school shootings because some (no info on how many) teachers may carry at school or if that’s the case because it doesn’t have much violent crime anyway for other reasons.
What would be needed to make the case is a state that has had quite a few school shootings and goes from no-carry to concealed-carry, has stats to back that up (No extrapolating or guessing.), has no other demographic, legal, academic, or social changes that could impact school shootings, and experiences either a significant decrease or significant increase in school shootings over a period of years. And, of course, that wouldn’t be an airtight test case.
All this makes me queasy as I consider those statistics represent kids. As a teacher, I’d feel a lot safer in a building that makes it very difficult for a potential shooter to get in than one in which other teachers are armed. I’d feel my students were safer, too. But those measures would require spending that most arming-teachers advocates and anti-taxers wouldn’t approve.
And you have to balance the statistical reduction in children killed by a lessening of school shootings against the number of firearm related incidents that happen as a result of these policies.
The first stat will be hard to quantify, the second, in my speculation, will be all too easy.
… and DC’s strict gun laws have prevented school mass murders, too, right? Seems like the same logic as Utah’s gun laws prevented school shootings.
You’re going to have to explain the equivalency between those two statements, because I certainly can’t follow your logic.
Utah became a state in 1896. Thus:
1896-2000: Number of deaths due to school shootings in Utah: 0
2000: Teachers allowed to conceal-carry in Utah schools.
2000-2018: Number of deaths due to school shootings in Utah: 0
Now, according to this article:
1979-1996: Number of fatal mass shootings in Australia: 13
1996: Australian rapid-fire firearms ban and buyback
1996-2018: Number of fatal mass shootings in Australia: 0
Sorry, but I fail to see the similarities between these situations. Please enlighten me.
You’re entire premise is flawed and I think it’s deliberate disingenuous. Utah has never had a school shooting fatality. You are making a lot of that fact. Your are crediting Utah law and policy.
You are leaving out the FACT that Utah’s record on guns and schools isn’t that special. Over twenty other states have never had a school shooting fatality. And there are states that have never had a single school- related gun incident. Utah isn’t even on that list.
This is an interesting site
The following states have never had any form of school shooting incidents, period.
Delaware
Idaho
Kansas
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
New Jersey
Montana
Rhode Island
West Virginia
South Dakota
Rhode Island
Now this site lists all shooting incidents taking place on or near school property. Including things like parking lot suicides. Utah’s had a couple, BTW. That’s why they aren’t on the above list.
But if I go through state by state, the following states have not had a fatal school shooting, discounting suicides.
Maine
New York
Illinois
Iowa
North Dakota
Louisiana
Maryland
North Carolina
Virginia
Hawaii
Utah
Wyoming
So, yes … Utah made this list, along with about half the other states in the country. Claiming that Utah has a better track record with regards to school shootings is disingenuous. Period. Whether or not you try to relate it to gun policy.
And if I went back through the remaining states I could make another long a list of states that have never had a school shooting with multiple fatalities inside the building during school hours.Because most of the incidents seemed to be single victim grudge killings. Or incidents that happened in parking lot after hours.
Oh, what the heck
Indiana
Michigan - 3 fatal incidents but in one the perp was 6, one was a gang drive-by and the third involved only adult personnel
Missouri- 1 single fatality incident, domestic dispute in parking lot
Nebraska - 1 single fatality incident, kid killed faculty member
Wisconsin
Vermont
Alabama
Georgia
Oklahoma
South Carolina
Texas
Nevada
So, why again is Utah so special that everyone should adopt their policies?