Each one of them was stopped by a school official without a gun. That means that it is not only supportable, it is factually what happened. It take time to react, to see what is going on. They didn’t act any slower because they didn’t have a gun.
Except in the last case. The guy that waited until the shooter left the building, then got his gun out of his car and chased him down outside and called the student a coward. In that case, as the assistant principal knew that he had a gun in his car, he decided not to confront the armed student until he had a chance to retrieve it. In the cases where teachers acted quickly things were averted.
Unless the teachers are actually carrying their gun at all times, it is only going to slow down their reactions as they go to get their gun, rather than going to confront the student.
I don’t know that that makes a difference. Teachers disrupted without the use of a gun. Having them armed would not have made it any faster. Having them have a gun they had to get out of a locker or safe would have made them slower.
If it is determined that teachers having guns in the school makes students less safe, would you still hold the individual liberty of a teacher to make that decision over the safety of their students?
Like above, I can still, 40 years later, remember a couple of high school teachers that I had that I wouldn’t trust in the same room with a gun, let alone carrying. One in particular, a 50-something fat man who (honest to god) lived with his mother. He took a firm disliking to my older sister and took it out on myself (standing over me screaming on my second day in the class, something about her, not me) and it was even worse for my younger sister, to the point where my parents had a conversation with the school about it.
Oh yeah, he’d probably sign up for this sort of thing, then just routinely walk around patting his pistol.
And the shop teacher with the volcanic temper who picked a guy up by the throat right in front of me and slammed him into the wall because he didn’t have a note to be out of class. Neither did we, because our class was so close to the cans that the science teacher didn’t bother with notes. We just ran past him into the classroom.
No fucking way I want guys like that, or sports coaches with anger management issues, carrying firearms. Hell, half of them would probably happily use them as starter pistols on a regular basis and see nothing wrong with it.
Again, moving goal posts. You asserted that there hasn’t been a school shooting [since Sandy Hook - but I’m ignoring the time box] that an armed teacher would have been able to disrupt. That’s false. A single example of a teacher disrupting a school shooting is sufficient to falsify your assertion.
It’s not about what was faster, slower, safer, more dangerous, etc. Your assertion is false. Introducing the idea of lockers and safes is goal post moving.
The decision of a teacher, following the city, state and federal laws that pertain to carrying? Yes. I’d prioritize mitigating the ways it is less safe before banning arms. After those avenues are exhausted, I think it’s a tradeoff that people can make. This is assuming that the “less safe” conclusion is sound and accurate.
Generally a handgun should be thought of as a weapon of last resort, or perhaps second-to-last resort. It’s a step better than throwing your textbook at an attacker, but if given the choice between a rifle and a pistol in a rifle-pistol fight, I’d take the rifle every time.
That being said, they are weapons, and while I wouldn’t bet money on the pistol, there are certainly scenarios where people with pistol-armed individuals have taken down rifle-armed attackers. It happens regularly enough that I could see it happening even among the chaos of an active school shooting. Certainly not every time, but not 0% of the time either.
We’re talking about arming teachers, so if they wouldn’t be armed with handguns, are we really talking about arming teachers with rifles? In a classroom?
If that’s not what we mean by “arming teachers,” then what do we mean? Because in mind, a school employee being “armed” means with a handgun. I can’t see Mr. Doblinsky teaching US History with one of these slung around his shoulder.
No, I don’t think anyone’s proposing we arm teachers with rifles. I was just trying to provide an answer to the “How would [handguns] fare against assault rifles?” question.
As a double-blind experiment to show the actual number of innocent bystanders killed or injured vs. the number of victims saved would be horrific and extremely evil; I’m going to go with saying that this would save lives is baseless speculation and, unfortunately, an Article of Faith* for the NRA crew. Which makes it very difficult to argue against.
A firmly held belief. Something not to be doubted.
Look, I was a Benefactor Member of the NRA for over 20 years. When LaPierre became head, I swore they’d never get another dime of my money until his crew was out, because they were rabid righties who scared then-middle of the road* me. I quit a few years back because it was obvious they were just an extremist Republican group, not even maintaining any fiction of political neutrality any longer.
As in, actually did vote for both sides regularly, not just to maintain a fiction of moderacy.
I own guns. I have no interest in registering them, turning them in or banning them. I don’t think it can be done either, there is no political will or majority interested in that and there won’t be unless the NRA continues to spend millions (now possibly funded by Russians too) buying political favor, painting any measure as an outright assault on the Constitution and America, and shutting it all down.
***The ‘Militia’ in the Constitution is every adult male and female in the country. By original definition it was only white males, but obviously that ain’t happening today.
BUT - We the People have a right to regulate that militia, and I would think a most basic function would be to exclude those incapable, incompetent or unbalanced of carrying out the duty of the Militia.***
The district originally looked at providing the guns (Remember, one board member owns a gun shop.) but decided teachers would provide their own, subject to approval. The district would pay for the training. I think the total cost depends on how many teachers actually sign up. I haven’t seen any figures on cost yet, but the board met Tuesday and said the Florida shooting made arming teachers more urgent. If I find out anything further, I’ll post it.
For context, though, the district hasn’t had the money to give teachers even a cost-of-living pay increase in ten years.
The district’s attorney said it wouldn’t cause their insurance to increase, which surprised me.
I’m not sure it would be a bad idea to require a year of military service before one can be licensed to purchase and own semi-automatic rifles. That’s probably enough time to weed out some of the crazies. At the very least, I’d expect anyone trying to compare the U.S. to Switzerland (which I’ve seen a few times in last day or so) to take into account the latter has conscription.
That and Switzerland is a special case. They only maintained their independence for a few centuries while being surrounded by larger, wealthier and stronger nations with ambitions; by being heavily armed.
Israel is in a similar position, so comparisons with armed Israeli teachers is also Apples to Hand Grenades.
Neither Canada nor Mexico is suddenly going to jump us.
I agree that the training proposed is woefully inadequate. Cops get way more training, and as we all know, they still get it wrong sometimes when faced with a decision that has to be made in milliseconds.
As a klutz with poor vision, I’m not a gun owner and think arming teachers is a bad idea. It’s not that I wouldn’t take any steps necessary to prevent a shooter from attacking my students. I’d do whatever was necessary, including shooting him. Then I’d spend the rest of my life agonizing over it, but that’s me. But I’ve talked with cops, and I’m convinced people do underestimate how tough it is to shoot someone in those chaotic circumstances.
You’re right that no one is proposing arming teachers with rifles. I mentioned that because you said handguns should be thought of as a weapon of last resort. As the topic is arming teachers, I’m guessing that means with handguns.
A teacher with a handgun against a person armed with an AR-15.
Since a handgun (and it’s probably safe to assume not all teachers would carry a Dirty Harry .44 Magnum; some would undoubtedly carry a .22 pistol) wouldn’t do much against an assault rifle, I still fail to see why armed teachers would be a good idea.
And unless I missed it, no one has addressed my question, or at least not sufficiently, of who would organize the teachers in a firefight and keep them from killing each other, students, or other innocent people. Public schools don’t require uniforms, so it’d be hard to tell who is “us” and who is “them” in a tense situation.