He’s trying to say Republicans recognize the futility of trying to stop firearms from flooding into this country unapproved much like they recognize the futility of trying to stop substances or people from flooding into this country unapproved. The GOP simply, pragmatically recognizes the ultimate porosity of our borders, try as we might to secure them.
The simplest solution would be for multiple students and teachers to attack the gunman simultaneously. Assuming they are at short range (within the confines of a school facility, the gunman will often be at short range,) and especially if the gunman is reloading, it would be difficult for the shooter to take down multiple opponents all at once. Once two or more people lay a physical hand on him, it will likely be over for him at that point. A United 93 approach.
I can think of Somme political problems with that idea.
Republicans recognize the futility of trying to stop substances from flooding into this country unapproved? When did this happen?
People buy drugs even though they are illegal (the drugs) because they (the drugs) are addictive.
I doubt people will buy many guns if they (the guns) are illegal. Unless it (owning a gun) is addictive.
Not the same. That was at relatively long range, and the people that were shot, were in front of the guns, not to the side or behind.
If multiple teachers or students converge on the gunman from multiple angles all at once, the gunman will most likely be unable to gun them down before they seize and overpower him. And again, this would be even more effective if he was reloading at the time. No need for throwing chalk or erasers or chairs; simple old-fashioned tackling.
Retired teacher here. An earlier poster is correct that schools have moved on from shelter-in-place only, and that students throwing objects at the intruder is one part of the current violent intruder procedures. The thinking is that anything that distracts the shooter makes it harder for him (her) to shoot accurately. While I’m convinced from talking to the school cop that that’s true, I have my doubts about its real-life effectiveness. Throwing objects at someone who’s spraying the room with bullets is not instinctive, and in the shock of a violent crisis, people tend to act from instinct: freezing, ducking, or fleeing (out a second door or a window, for instance, if the classroom is on the first floor).
For the record, throwing things at an intruder isn’t the sole response: it’s for situations in which the classroom door is unlocked so the shooter can enter and students can’t escape. Still, that doesn’t mitigate the urge to duck or flea.
I"d love to be proven wrong on this. So far, I haven’t found any real-life instances where students deterred a school shooter by throwing things. Maybe another Doper can.
ISTM that whoever stands up and throws objects at the shooter, is simply going to become the shooter’s immediate target. Maybe that’s the idea - have student A distract the shooter so students B, C, D, and E can tackle the shooter, but I doubt that’s what the people were suggesting.
If you are alraedy going to draw attention and become the shooter’s target by throwing things at him, you might as well go tackle him.
Since we are entering the age of automation, why rely on human teachers/guards/kids to neutralize school shooters when you could simply install autonomous turrets in every school that automatically shoot anyone carrying what resembles a gun?
FFS, people are so frozen in their partisan stances that they can’t recognize when someone like me is a Democrat who has several children in school and wants to do something realistic to protect them.
I don’t own any guns, I always vote Democratic, I don’t like the NRA, I’m not trying to give cover to Republicans. Jesus.
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Velocity, you are talking sense—but I think if there were students on each side of the doorway with spray paint before the shooter came through the door, they could spray him good and then tackle him.
Again, I’m just trying to improve on what the current standard practices already are. And these changes do not involve having to overcome Republican recalcitrance in Congress. You just need to get local school boards to be willing to try them.
I’m starting to think that some people don’t really care about protecting kids, at least not in the short run. They want to keep the heat on so they can make the NRA as uncomfortable as possible, and practical solutions would not only not achieve that but might reduce the pressure at a time when they feel like they have some momentum.
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And then you could like drill holes in the paintballs and fill them with army ants instead because they can like strip a cow to the bone in seconds I saw it on TV once and so then the kids would like shoot army ants at the guys face and he’d be all I’m gonna murder you kids and they’d be all PEW PEW PEW and then he’d be all AH DEAR GOD MY EYES THIS REALLY SUCKS and then the ants would eat his face and it would be so cool and gross because his face would just be like a skull.
Have you even been in a situation where bullets are flying? It takes the army months and fairly severe methods to train a recruit to the point where they will be able to work as a team in stressful situations. As nelliebly correctly points out, people in stressful situations don’t react rationally. People freeze, they flee, some even charge the threat with all the self preservation of a snowman in a hot tub. (I’m in the third group.) What’s worse is that you never can tell what someone will do until after they are in the actual situation. Most people think they’ll keep a cool head and be a Hollywood action hero in this situation, but most people are idiots.
Also, there’s the simply fact that while charging the gunman as a group may allow more members of the group to live, it reduces each individuals chance of survival considerably. So not only are you expecting them to suddenly work together in a life-threatening situation, you are expecting them to reduce their own chances of survival for the good of the group. It’s just not a rational expectation.
I can’t find anything on a shooter, but a school attack was prevented fairly recently in the Netherlands using this method … because all he had was two knives.
I’m think that this statement is false, disgusting on a moral level, and a clear attempt to poison the well. I’ll remember this about you.
Obviously we don’t need to “get rid of” all guns to significantly reduce gun deaths, and nobody is suggesting it, so you are arguing against a strawman here.
My proposal:
Require all gun owners to have licenses. We already do this for car drivers. Most places already do this for concealed carry, though we need to be a bit more strict than that - require some kind of training, testing and basic medical screening, for example.
Require all guns to be registered. Which means whenever a gun changes hands or is lost/stolen, it needs to be reported. We already do this for cars. Nobody will search your home to make sure you don’t have unregistered guns, but if you are ever caught with an unregistered gun, you will be charged with illegal possession.
Require all guns to be stored in locked safes. Again, nobody is going to check every home, but if your child or visitor takes your gun and uses it, you’re in trouble.
Require prior permission for owning certain types of guns. Perhaps all semi-automatics including handguns.
None of this will prevent law-abiding people from owning a gun, but go a long way towards reducing gun deaths.
Aside from all the reason’s already stated why this is a stupid idea, how about the very obvious one that your would-be shooter could easy neutralize this countermeasure with a set of protective goggles - the kind they sell for playing paintball.
This is certainly a good start but it isn’t nearly enough. Next time a shooting happens (and there will be a next time, and probably soon if recent history is a guide) we need to collect all of the students who ran away or hid and execute a representitive sample of them pour encourager les outres. Otherwise, they’re just going to hide when a shooter comes along instead of fighting back or applying CPR or doing something else to “look to someone else to solve their problem”.
These are eminently reasonable solutions if the objective is to turn public schools into live action roleplaying versions of Paranoia. However, I think we need to add further vermisilitude by putting students in the appropriate color uniform and starting every day with a mission briefing from Friend Computer. Which, frankly, makes about as much sense as arming teachers or insisting that students some how deal with “their problem” themselves.
Stranger
None of your proposals have been realistic. They haven’t even been out-of-the-box, in that they’re all inside the box of “NO GUN CONTROL EVER” the modern GOP lives in. You may vote one way, but your ideas are purely from the other side, and they’re not even the less insane ideas from that side.
Your ideas reek of desperation. They’re the insane fantasies of someone who is bound and determined to reach a conclusion no logical argument can get to. They only make sense in terms of an axiom, and look insane to anyone who doesn’t already accept that axiom. As indeed fewer people do: Yes, there are more guns in the US now, but they’re in fewer hands. Gun ownership is less of a hobby and more of a lifestyle, and it’s a lifestyle a minority indulge in to excess while an increasing majority don’t indulge in at all. So your talk of the millions of guns in this country is misleading: Three percent of gun owners own 133 million guns, half of the number of guns out there.
Your plans are only appealing to a minority, and sound insane to everyone else, including most Americans. There’s no way to defend them which will sound even minimally sane to anyone else in this thread. If you think you’re in the majority, you are wrong. So cut the pose and admit that this is what the extremist anti-gun-control faction has sunk to, in terms of attempting to save lives.
Or an attempt to create false equivalences, by insinuating that gun control proposals are as implausible as his ideas.
If you mean “proven to be ineffective” I agree with you.
There is an astoundingly-ignored fact regarding this issue: EVERY SINGLE mass shooting has taken place in a “gun-free zone.”
Or imagine being a SWAT member rushing into an active shooter situation at a school, and finding every kid armed with a gun, and having to find the one with the real gun out of all the paintball guns.