I think there will be a very long lineup.
Of exactly the people you wouldn’t want doing the job.
Don’t forget the NRA belief in the ‘slippery slope’ of guns works both ways. There are many other places to guard and arms to sell once everyone is comfortable with the concept.
If you’re putting untrained people into guard positions, there is a 20/20 episode that deals with that:
It shows how people clumsily react to situations with minimal training.
LaPierre also does not like that schools are gun-free zones.
If he has his way, schools will allow any and all visitors to be armed.
What’s wrong with this picture?
You want to take some drone who isn’t qualified to get a job that pays better than that, give him a gun, and have him hanging around kids all day?
No thank you.
No shit. They will take many pages from the TSA line. " Official " looking uniforms with big scary badges and epaulettes. Nothing commands respect like… Epaulettes. - cough-
The people not quite sharp enough to make TSA will make ASPS - American School Protective Services. They will have a should patch of a snake striking at a pale anti social white male who is holding an assault rifle.
I feel much safer already.
Well, lets be fair, he did call for volunteers. And as someone who has organized many events using volunteers, let me say they are the most reliable folks on earth. (That is sarcasm)
Even the New York Post – the Post! – is calling LaPierre a nut: Category: News - TPM – Talking Points Memo
Well, I’m thinking “What if it was my call to make?” Suppose they turn to me and say “You’re it, 'luc, you’re the guy. You decide, job definitely calls for a DFH. Here’s the applicants…”
“Did you bring your own gun? Yes? Thank you, next!”
What would I screen by? I might want a retired soldier, maybe, somebody with actual experience shooting back. That way, maybe, I got somebody who, if confronted by a heavily armed and armored maniac will not succumb to a sensible human reaction, i.e., scream like a little bitch and run like Hell. I gotta say I don’t think I would, but I also gotta say I don’t know that.
And how much of a factor is the fact that it is so unlikely that he will ever be called on to play out his role? Maybe I want somebody who is a bit dull, likely able to endure chasms of boredom without losing it. Sure don’t want someone who likes strapping on a gun.
Or do I?
Make sure you don’t get someone who has PTSD.
You can’t. The US military and the VA barely acknowledge its existence, let alone track and treat it among discharged vets. Hell, I’d wager a large amount of people who suffer from it would deny it.
2nd bolding mine.
They shootin’! They shootin’!
I’d say recruit and arm Grandparents. My grandma killed a Copperhead with one swift chop of a hoe while all the grandkids were playing in the yard 10 feet away. Didn’t scream or yell at us to go inside, just took care of business. You don’t mess with that generation.
And, if you recruited grandmas, as an added perk, they could bring cookies on the days that there were no rampages!
“Because you’ve been such good, non-murderous little bastards, here’s some cookies.”
Part of me would love to see grandparents in the schools. Big Mama is a force to be reckoned with. But then I’m imagining Big Mama with a gun, in a school full of bad-acting children.
“Little boy, what did you say to me? Oh no you didn’t just roll your eyes! Come back here!” <fumbles in purse and pulls out her Glock> “I’ll pop a cap in you! I’ll pop a cap in all of ya’ll, Lord help me!”
“That’s a-paddlin’”
Sometimes the type of person most attracted to a job is the very type that one would not want for that job. Security guard falls into that category.
Well there’s a solution to this sticky little problem:
If you’re afraid that some of the new recruits, or armed volunteers might start having flashbacks and threaten to shoot up the very classrooms they were supposed to protect…
Arm the children. Yes, this has been suggested seriously. (though not by me)
People would soon look back fondly on wedgies.
Well, it all depends on which kids become the Designated Firearm Recipients. I’d sponsor the chess club myself, but I’m biased. Against jocks.
It would only be a matter if time before a guard shot up a school. The NRA’s response will be to say how stupid it was to arm just one person, that the staff should be armed. Then a teacher will go nuts and students will be next.
The NRA’s default position is that more guns equals more safety, despite the self evident fact that a society bristling with armed people isn’t safer than one not bristling with weapons.