No, what I am proposing is that we ALLOW teachers who have CCW licenses to carry them in school. If you prefer we publicize it as well, fine. But the ALLOWING is the thing.
I think you’d be wrong. People get a concealed-carry license for a reason. And that reason is not to leave their gun at home.
You’re completely misinterpreting what I said. I am saying allow teachers who want to be armed to be armed. Period. Then see what happens. We already have data that there will be no negative effects. But there could definitely be positive effects. So why not do it?
The main discussion here is about how we’re reacting to the suggested REQUIREMENT that there be OPENLY CARRIED guns in ALL the schools.
It may be neat and fine that there are some states that allow teachers to CC, but whether or not that should be implemented in more states is a different discussion.
I think this reveals the true nature of his intentions. The plan itself might be labeled “stupid and counterproductive,” which it is. But if even supporters think this, then why propose it?
Because the NRA cannot abide the acceptance of the notion that places exist which are gun-free zones. If some places are legitimately recognized as gun-free, then what’s to stop people in a frenzy of common sense from making more places legitimately gun-free to the general approval of the public? Gun-freeness as a concept might spread. Here, therefore, is a perfect opportunity to stop it in its tracks. Guns must be allowed everywhere. And more: guns must be approved of by the public everywhere. If the public believes that, then no effective gun control legislature can ever be passed.
The plan itself is a red herring. The underlying goal to move the concept of guns from unnecessary weapons whose only function is to kill and which do all too often to necessary safety measures that must be as omnipresent as fire extinguishers and defibrillators.
It’s very clever. The concept already has fervent supporters, as we see above. And it’s framed in a persuasive way.
The best opposing tactic is to treat guns like cigarettes. Once, the concept of cirgarette-free zones seemed ridiculous. You could smoke in any enclosed places, including restaurants, airplanes, and elevators. No more. People pushed cigarettes out of decent society. They killed people. Now to transfer that thought to guns.
NRA, correctly, says that there is no such thing as a “gun-free zone”, there is only a zone where law-abiding citizens are not allowed to be armed, and anyone who wants to shoot up some people has a free hand.
“Gun-free zone” is a misnomer. There are plenty of gun-prohibited zones, but as multiple posters have tried to explain in simple one and two-syllable words, saying that “you’re going to be in BIG trouble if you bring a gun in here Mister!” isn’t stopping homi/sui-cidal sociopaths from thumbing their nose at the prohibition. What part of “paper law” don’t you understand? Making everyplace a “gun-free zone” would simply restore the status quo of when most locales were may-issue only with regard to carry permits. IOW, zero deterrent to someone already determined to commit a crime, obeyed only by the people who wouldn’t be a threat to begin with. How effective would a “cigarette-free” zone be to someone who didn’t expect to still be alive an hour later?
You want to know what a real gun-free zone looks like? They have them at courthouses, airports and other places where the authorities are determined not to merely punish after the fact but actually prevent the entry of guns. They’re distinguished by metal detectors, x-ray machines, pat downs or if necessary strip searches, and armed guards.
What if, what if, what if! Would the entire school have had a chance if the kid’s mom didn’t have an AR-15? How about if she had no guns at all?
It costs$35,000 non-taxpayer dollars to send your kid to Sidwell Friends for a year. My high school can’t even afford to provide bussing and can’t convince the voters that bussing is a worthwhile thing to spend tax money on.
There is no money for properly-trained armed guards in schools.
ETA: the only way a “gun-free zone” would contribute to public safety would be if (as you evidently believe), people who go to the trouble of getting a carry permit are wankers and slack-jawed retards, shooting themselves in the foot while yelling “YEE-HAW!” Your view of gun owners is so contemptuous, so cartoonish, so blatantly ignorant, that you haven’t a prayer of actually convincing anyone who does own and carry a gun not to fight tooth and nail against the gun banners.
There is only one attitude that will change the talk about guns. It is to persuade the majority that guns are not necessary. People who argue for guns keep insisting that they are necessary. That’s false. Outside of a handful of people in the largest-sense law enforcement community, nobody needs to carry a gun in public, concealed or otherwise. Nobody. It’s the attitude that guns are somehow useful, valuable, or precious that has to be overturned. If that attitude doesn’t change, then nothing else will. Laws are not the answer. Societal attitude change is the answer. There is nothing that the NRA is more afraid of. Laws they can handle blindfolded and with arms locked behind their back. If people change, they are finished.
Guns are cigarettes. They make you feel good temporarily, but they kill, and they kill others who don’t use them or want them. Make that association general and the gun problem goes away.
I grant that if you believe that then your position is logical and reasonable. But guns are useful and valuable. Tell a 5’1" 105 lb woman that she doesn’t need a gun when a 6’ 200 lb man is breaking into her house. Tell someone who was attacked and beaten by a gang on the street that a gun would have done him no good at all. Tell a shopkeeper whose business was looted and burned by a rioting mob that he couldn’t have faced them down if he’d had a gun. Tell a persecuted minority that guns won’t serve as a deterrent against their being murdered with impunity by racists. Guns do serve a purpose: to paraphrase something George Orwell said in a essay, “Guns give claws to the weak”.
And it’s precisely this sort of anecdotal nonsense that keeps gun stores in business. But persecuted minorities in the country do not use guns as deterrents. Rioting mobs are rarer than gun massacres and are not stopped by storeowners with guns. Gangs don’t back off from guns; they simply kill you. The number of tiny women who scare off huge scary men breaking into their houses is smaller than the number of women who don’t know they’re pregnant and give birth in their bathtubs. And none of them have anything to do with people carrying arms in public - in schools, and churches, and bars, and governmental buildings and all the other places that people have been lobbying to open up to guns. The usefulness of guns is mythical. The deadliness of guns is not.
Most of the American public now shares my belief that cigarette smokers are wankers and slack-jawed retards. Forty years ago that belief made me a nut who stood outside of society. Cigarettes haven’t changed at all; public attitudes toward them have. I fully expect that attitudes toward guns will change over the next 40 years in the same way.
Your Orwell quote is from You and the Atomic Bomb, an attack on modern weapons of war. The full sentence reads:
But that cannot be applied to today’s United States. Anybody who wants arms because the tyrannical U.S. government is going to reduce them to slavery is worse than delusional. In stark terms, if you believe that you are the enemy of every decent American citizen. It is such a thoroughly losing belief that all I can do is encourage it: the more people who say things this insane, the faster public opinion will swing virulently against them.
And as I said in the OP of my “The Gun Debate Itself” thread, that gets down to the fundamental disagreement between pro and anti gun people: what the usefulness of guns really is. All I can say is that I simply disagree with your assessment. I could cite instances where people lawfully used guns in self-defensive, but no number I could post would persuade you that they weren’t statistically insignificant, or worse, anecdotal. And if I cited studies that supported the pro-gun position you would reject them as flawed or counter with other studies that support your position. All I can say is that it is not trivially obvious that the drawbacks of guns outweigh their benefits, and millions of apparently intelligent and well-meaning people agree with me.
So bottom line is, you have no problem living in an armed camp. Which institutions do we guard again? Prisons, certainly. Military bases (although that didn’t work out so well, did it?). Airports, which also hasn’t worked out so well. In Europe one sees guards on public transportation, which doesn’t make much difference to a determined killer. High level government institutions, of course.
Again, it’s not about schools: they’re just today’s high-profile target. And who pays for all of these hundreds of thousands of armed guards you want to install? And for all the weapons for the teachers, etc.? Is the NRA or the weapons industry willing to pony up to accomplish this agenda? Are they willing to place a surtax on all weapons and weapon-related items? Are YOU willing to pay more taxes to fund all this hardware and personnel? I don’t actually have a problem with protecting children, but they’re not the only soft targets out there. When the target goes hard, the shooter goes elsewhere; it’s basic guerrilla tactics. So I ask again: then what?
I have seen many beliefs of millions of apparently intelligent and well-meaning people change radically over my lifetime and I expect to live long enough to see many more.
I am making a long-term prediction. I am literally a historian of such predictions and I know better than almost anyone in America how futile they are. They’re irresistible, though.
The local taxpayers of each school, just like they do for other public institutions like libraries and courthouses and bus stations and … schools (you seem to forget we’re already doing this).
Of course my suggestion has always been to train teachers to do this since it’s a relatively straight forward process of screening and training them. I’d rather have a dozen teaches than one additional guard.