Or, in some cases, 23 daggers.
Mental health is a red herring, anyway. (Though it’s compatible with the “blame anything but the guns” stance of the NRA and its cheerleaders.) Most of us would agree that only someone who’s sick in the head could do those sort of things. Which means that any mass shooter is automatically post-diagnosed with some sort of mental illness, in most people’s minds. Then they find an illness to fit the diagnosis.
That’s all well and good (…sorta…), and probably comforting to those not suffering from mental illness, since it lets them consider themselves incapable of such things. But people have to stop pretending that mental illness is some sort of warning sign for these shootings, when in reality the shootings are often the first signs of the perpetrators’ retroactive mental illness!
(Oh, plenty of other supposed red flags will subsequently be unearthed, once people start going through the shooter’s past with a fine-toothed comb looking for justification — hindsight not actually being 20/20, as it turns out. Which is how things like popular culture always get blamed. “He played hundreds of hours of violent video games!”, they’ll tut-tut, as if that doesn’t describe the majority of all teenagers, 99.9999% of whom DON’T shoot up schools.)
A friend calls this the “gateway drug fallacy” — 93% of heroin addicts had tried marijuana before becoming addicted to heroin, so marijuana use must be a gateway to heroin addiction! Well, no, because the other 95% of marijuana users will never go anywhere near heroin.
We should have armed, highly trained and somewhat psychotic teachers in schools on a temporary basis until our gun issues are resolved (shortly after the planet ceases to exist).
Have the NRA pay for the teacher’s guns/ammo, ultimate legal fees and of course, huge judgments to victims. Poof . . . no more NRA.
Taser.
I’m serious. Less inhibition to use -> faster response.
At the very least, it’ll be a distraction.
Ideally, it’ll knock the attacker out without killing them, so the teacher doesn’t have to feel like a murderer (even if it’s in defense and the person might deserve it; I don’t think it’s easy to shake that off, I don’t think teachers apply to that job knowing they might have to kill someone someday, even if it’s in self-defense.).
Worst case, the attacker doesn’t get stopped -> no worse than having no weapon at all.
Also, less dangerous to have lying around. Of course, that also means it’s going to be less guarded, which may cause separate trouble. (i.e. someone “playing” wth it, as it’s “non lethal”…)
No point arguing about statement errors with somebody who cannot read. :rolleyes:
Since you two seem incapable of either disagreeing in a civil manner or ignoring each other in this thread, BOTH of you are instructed to not return to this thread. Further posts from either of you in this thread will lead to warnings. That includes any responses to this particular mod note—take it to ATMB, if you must. But do not return to this thread.
Let’s face it, no one is likely to be deterred by the possibility that a couple of teachers might be armed. Heck, some would probably welcome a showdown. I say, let’s arm the students so the bad guys know they are outnumbered 10, 20, 300 to 1. With those odds, we wouldn’t even need to spend more than 5 minutes on training: “point this end at the bad guy and squeeze this little lever.”
While the resulting friendly-fire casualty rate would be an effective way to reduce class sizes and free up precious resources in our public schools, I worry about the detrimental effect such a high attrition rate might have on the schools’ athletics and drama programs. They’d have to stack up understudies three deep for every production of Hamlet.
Joking aside, I agree that armed teachers are unlikely to be a deterrent. Most school shooters are attacking their own school. These are not targets of opportunity, and the idea that the possibility of resistance from their own teachers would be enough to dissuade them is pretty fanciful.
Tasers are less-lethal, not non-lethal, as you apparently know but it should be said outright: They have killed people before, they will again, and increasing how often they’re used will increase how many they kill.
So add that objection on top of the cost objection, which is really an opportunity cost objection, about what more effective ways we could be spending the Taser money.
(Good post in general.)
This is a specific case of the base rate fallacy because it ignores some base rate, an underlying proportion of the people who fit a specific criteria.
The Wikipedia article has more math, which gives rather surprising results to people who’ve never taken an introduction to statistics course.
Which brings me back around to the previous quote: We should be spending the Taser money to teach kids statistics. It’s by far the most practically useful form of math on a day-to-day basis.
Especially since, as students of that school, they have a good idea of what teachers are armed.
I have passed that along, thanks! The whole “gateway drug fallacy” label actually came about following her Facebook post asking, “What do you call this fallacy?”, and those of us on her friends list not coming up with anything that fit.
Indeed, because they’re not strangers to the environment. Which actually brings up another huge issue with the armed-teachers thing: Not only are the teachers known to the shooter, but the shooter is known to them.
People spin these narratives of an armed teacher bravely “taking out” a shooter, saving their class and being rewarded with a medal and the thanks of a grateful (and smug) NRA, but that’s not the whole picture.
When the shooter in a school situation is a student of the school, then what you’re doing by arming teachers isn’t merely asking them to defend their own students against some unknown, armed stranger who’s threatening the school. You’re asking them to shoot one of their students.
Even for the teachers who are capable of doing it, that’s an absolutely horrible position to put them in! Even when that student is threatening them, or other students.
Clearly what is needed is to train teachers to see their students as enemies and targets to be taken out at the first justified opportunity. Basically the “to the cop, every suspect is guilty” mindset, except all the students would be considered suspects.
Is your offer to provide a list still good? I’d really like to see it.
Aren’t your state’s schools required to place a sticker/plaque/notice by their entrances to notify the general public that firearms are not allowed in the building? Something similar to one of these:
I would think that your average, run-of-the-mill, psychopath would understand that the best place to commit mass murder would be inside a building where none of the law-abiding victims would be armed.
Have you heard of the “no more hesitation” line of targets?
I hadn’t, and that’s by turns both hilarious and appalling.
In any case we now know what to do with those now-unused targets that look like children - send 'em to the teaching schools!
You might think that, but I guess that just shows you’re not an average, run-of-the-mill psychopath. It seems that most psychos get that way by being pissed off and feeling like they have some vengeance to commit - which means most of them try to kill people they’re actually mad at. Psychos who aren’t on a revenge streak, the more cold-blooded killers who just want to kill as many people as they can, they can find much better shooting galleries than ones with tons of walls and doors and desks where you have to run from room to room looking for small clusters of targets.
Oh doggammit, there’s me off food for today.
No, wait, it’s OK. They apologized, so it’s all good now. :mad: Phew!
All of this. A school shooter’s goal is not to find “the best place to commit mass murder” (as doorhinge originally put it), or even to commit mass murder at all. They’re looking to take out their rage against the specific institution and group of people that they hold responsible for all of their feelings of anger, frustration, loneliness, self-doubt, angst, heartbreak, inadequacy, etc, etc, etc.
There is only one target they have any interest in attacking, and no amount of logic is going to deter them because it is not a logical decision to shoot up your school!
The question is not what a former US Marine turned teacher would bring to a classroom. The question is what would he bring to a mass shooting?
If they are the cold blooded type, and are just looking to kill lots of random people, they choose a nice vantage point over a large crowd of people, like the Vegas shootings.
I don’t see how that was caused by any sort of gun free zone.
Let me fight a bit of societal ignorance about Tasers and similar systems of another branding. There’s a lot of misconceptions. I spent the end of my Army career in a training support battalion that had as one of its core competencies training non-lethal weapons and crowd and riot control. I’ve probably seen between 200-300 applications of the Taser and taken two “rides” myself.
There is an important point in considering willngness. It’s always useful to remember that using violence against another human can be extremely difficult for most people.
There’s a chance the person engaged falls and hits their head hard enough to cause a serious head injury that renders them unconscious. Other than that it won’t knock them out. They don’t actually work like they do on TV and in movies. While current is running it’s pretty debilitating. It hurts …a lot. Tasers three letter acronym for the innovation that sets them apart from a normal stun gun is NMI, Neuro-Muscular Incapacitation. The designed the system to fire a lot of extraneous nervous system inputs. From my experience, I personally think of it as white noise. If you can fight through the pain (It’s a LOT of pain. Trust me. :p) there’s still quite a bit of voluntary control available. In most of my observed exposures it’s not well thought out control thanks to the pain. It’s slower with less fine motor control but it’s voluntary control. One of the things our trainers liked to do when they were preparing for a rotation that got Taser training was break them out, tase each other, and try to raise their arm and flip the person with the Taser off while under the effects. Mostly they could. I did the second time I was exposed.
Something like an attacker falling to the ground and dropping their weapon is a goodl possibility if the teacher remembers their training, gets a hit, and the wires don’t break. A finger that’s already on the trigger squeezing off a round in a crowded classroom is a serious possibility even if they end up on the ground disarmed. Even an attacker still on their feet with the weapon in hand isn’t entirely outside the realm of the possible.
Regardless of the immediate effect we need to look at another training issue since the taser doesn’t cause unconsciousness. A DPM gets you 16.25 -3.25 minutes of exposure time from new to recommended replacement at 20%. The battery lasting until law enforcement gets on site and to the right part of the builidng to detain an attacker is questionable. We’re typically talking about cases where the attacker is committed to their own death. Pain compliance probably isn’t a major motivator. Giving up and getting arrested isn’t in the typical attack plan. It’s reasonable to expect more than normal efforts resist. Maybe they eventually realize they have some control and use it to start firing anyway or break the wires. Maybe the resistance efforts aren’t successful but the battery dies before someone arrives to take over. To be effective at stopping driven attackers we need to look at training teachers to close with, disarm, and detain attackers relatively early while the Taser gives them advantage. It’s not deadly force but it’s still raises the issue of willingness to use violence against another human.
You still need to commit time to training and money in order to field and maintain them. They aren’t cheap. Routine maintenance at the user level isn’t much more than checking to make sure it works and replacing the DPM (Digital Power Module…a battery with some other functionality in the module making it less than cheap.) There can be occasional software upgrades requiring plugging into its USB port.Above that, you are looking at shipping it off and hoping it’s repairable instead of just needing replacement. I’ve seen two die while properly stored with a DPM in and need to be replaced. Storing without a DPM, or one that dies since the last time you checked, can cause software corruption requiring a return to the manufacturer. Enforcing regular checks takes time and attention from administrators and teachers. Cartridges expire and have to be replaced every 5 years.
There are real financial and opportunity costs that have to be considered. Using resources that weren’t committed to other passive mitigation measures might create a situation where it’s worse than no weapon. It really does take a full cost to benefit calculation IMO.
One of the MPs in our battalion, not even one of the non-lethal weapons trainers, told me a story about the junior enlisted troops on one of his deployments. They were a law and order detachment on a large base. They carried Tasers in addition to their firearms. Mix tasers, youth, and boredom and one of the big “jokes” became using it to drive stun each other. :smack: That’s a group typically in age range of 18-22 but with military discipline and adult leadership to try and keep them from doing age typical dumb stuff. My older and more senior in rank NLW training team liked to have a round of voluntarily tasering each other before a rotation.
Now think of putting them in high schools. 
Did I mention that Tasers are pretty bulky and not well suited to concealed carry? You are probably looking at having to come up with a way to stash them that’s still quickly accessible. Teens getting into the taser and uploading videos of zapping each other to YouTube seems entirely in the realm off the possible to me.