Sounds like police. We probably shouldn’t let cops carry guns into schools either, because guns in schools is bad.
To what end?
To what end? It would vary depending on who you ask, but I’d use the Brady Campaign’s goals as a standard for most gun control movements. They seek to limit civilian firearm ownership wherever possible, whether it is concealed handguns or “assault weapons.”
The anti gun movement, as has been stated in many other threads, successfully played upon peoples’ abject ignorance of firearms to get the “assault weapon” ban passed, which categorized guns by completely arbitrary characteristics that not even the ban’s sponsor understood clearly.
Their goal, in my opinion, is to make America just like Europe when it comes to gun rights. Backwards, ho! Let’s step into that time machine and go back to the jolly old days of King George. I exaggerate, but…think about it. The Founding Fathers were all, by today’s standards, far-right gun fanatics.
How much training is enough? To become a part-time police officer where I go to college all you need is a 90 hour course. Then you get a gun AND legal power… I’m not a fan.
ETA: Do I approve of teachers carrying guns? Where I went to school, no 1 there where way too many idiots as teachers and 2 it was completely unnecessary. An administrator being allowed to carry a gun in a school where any emergency help is a significant time away, sure if he’s trained to do so. It’s all about circumstances, this isn’t a sweeping national law… though the debate boils down to federal policy I guess.
I know that this is GD, and not IMHO, but, here’s my opinion, FWIW.
For starters: I am a teacher. I have had a CCW permit, and, for a while, carried on a daily basis. (At the time, I was living in an iffy part of Pittsburgh and working in an iffier part.) When I carried, I considered myself pretty well trained. The guys at the range might not have known how I took my coffee, but they recognized me when I showed up. I went almost always twice a week, usually going through 100 rounds each visit (with the gun I carried - not a practice caliber). I would only buy one target, to which I would tape 3x5 cards (my real targets). Towards the end, I could regularly hit 10 for 10 at ten yards or more, and had been known to keep all of my rounds in one big hole. I practiced drawing, carrying, main stance (forget the name, but the not isosceles one), off hand in stance, main hand alone, off hand alone, seated, etc. I never timed my reactions, but I could draw and have one in center mass and one in head in rather short order. I wasn’t a LEO and had no intentions of becoming one, but I considered myself ‘proficient’ with the use of my sidearm.
I have since moved to New England and have now been teaching (or in grad school) for seven years. During which time, I have moth-balled the sidearm. (I’ve been living in nicer areas, and I work in a very nice town.) But the events we’ve all seen in the news weigh heavily on everyone’s minds, especially teachers. I have a very analytical mind that often goes on its own little forays into the Land of WhatIf. We’re not out in the boonies, but a couple of well placed and disabled cars would drastically increase the local PD’s response time. I have certainly thought that If I were in a position to carry while on school grounds, maybe I could do something in a worst case scenario.
In the end, I’ve decided that there are more reasons for me to not carry then there are reasons for me to carry. For instance: I am responsible for about 20 children 5/7 's of the day. I would either have to find someone else to be responsible before I join the LEO’s in trying to combat the situation, or I would be, at best, protecting 20 out of 500 students.
Even if I was, say the Principal or Assistant Principal (and thus not immediately responsible for a small subset of the population), I would have to be well equipped and trained with communications gear to have of any use to the LEO’s who show up. And, my knowledge of the school would most likely be better used assisting the LEO’s than acting as a lone anti-gunman.
So, for my situation, I don’t see how arming either teachers or administrators is a good use of resources. In a location that is more than 20 minutes away by cruiser with lights and sirens is a different world altogether. If the place I worked was one where I felt there was credible threat to life and limb on a regular basis, that’s another story, too. Personally, I think the best solution is the school-assigned police officer. Someone who is familiar with the building, population, procedures (of both the school and the local PD) and who, as a part of their job, trains regularly in the use of their handgun.
As it is, schools are still the safest place for kids to be and, I hope, their teachers, too! [citation] I’m not for arming teachers because our current system seems to be working (at least on this issue).
Wherever possible? Do you think the Brady Campaign has 100% civilian disarmarment goal?
Yes. I believe that 100% disarmament is the goal of the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center, and all of the other lesser organizations.
I had a go at it, a while ago. You didn’t respond to my post. I assume, what with your general “I dare you to prove me wrong, damn you!” attitude that you just missed it.
OUt of interest, can you prove the opposite?
Well, i’ve not been near Washington DC for my annual anti-gun brainwashing check, so perhaps that’s my problem. Maybe they do courses over here?
Anyway, I think you have a very valid point. There are schools in which the kids are dangerous, and could main or kill a teacher or each other. But I don’t believe you take it to the full conclusion - if these kids can do some harm to these teachers, then simply owning a gun alone isn’t going to stop them. They’re just going to take the gun! They may even be more tempted to do something so that they can get a gun. Which would be less likely to happen, if - and here’s the fun part - they had some good safety and usage training. Because? Because I want more to live. You want teachers to be able to carry guns in dangerous schools. I want teachers to be able to carry guns with which they’ve had superior training, as well as training in crisis situations, in dangerous schools.
And i’m the one who values the criminal’s life? I want them armed with guns and knowledge. You apparently don’t feel the need for the knowledge part.
Actually, its plenty of time. All he needs to learn is to never point it at anyone he’s not willing to shoot, and to keep his damned booger picker off the trigger.
I personally don’t see what the big deal is. If someone has concealed carry, they should be able to take it anywhere. I don’t see why kids being around suddenly makes it bad, when in other places its tolerated.
Or is this some insane parent thing i don’t understand?
While I don’t have a per se issue with the concept, I think that most academic types aren’t really compatible with the care, feeding and use of a sidearm, which is why they chose their profession. Looking at schools as the free equivalent to prisons (where there are large numbers of people concentrated in smallish spaces with a similar general mentality) having many guns spread out throughout the location WILL lead to either an accident or a misfire, proving this a bad idea. I think though that Silenus has hit the round on the primer, this is about one or two people being able to pack and respond to whatever jumps off, as opposed to handing out guns in the teachers lounge.
You are sarcastic about gun rights in Europe.
Take the UK - as has been said it’s illegal for me as a teacher to carry a gun. We also have massively less school shootings than the US. Why is this ‘backwards’? Are you saying that school shootings are necessary in a ‘modern’ society?
Where do you think the next school shooting will be (whether teachers are armed or not)?
Sadly I expect it in the US.
The policy sounds fine to me, for one simple reason: deterrence.
Many of the arguments against this move seem to think that this will lead to a flood of on-campus weapons. In fact, I’ll wager very few people eligible to carry will in fact bring a weapon to school. Possibly two or three, but that’s the most I can imagine. A few more may become licensed to carry, but never actually bring a gun to school. And that’s all that’s really necessary. I’m certain that no one, students, faculty, or otherwise will actually know who is carrying; that is, after all, the point of “concealed carry.” The real goal here isn’t to gain weapon superiority over a school shooter. What the policy is doing is planting a seed in the minds of potential shooters: “Here there may be danger. Find another target.” And thus, the school is kept safe, by discouraging violence through public knowledge of a policy that makes the school uninviting to a mass murderer.
This fatal flaw in this strategy is that it depends on school shooters making rational decisions that are in their best interest. Since the vast majority of recent school shooters committed suicide after their assaults, I don’t see why this is a deterrent. If they are already suicidal, it may even make schools a more attractive target, and we would see the rise of ‘suicide by teacher’.
I agree that calm, rational people are deterred by serious consequences.
But the death penalty doesn’t deter murderers, so why would the risk of being shot (or later executed) deter school shooters?
I assume that these violent people either don’t think it through, don’t care (as Fear Itself mentions, many commit suicide), don’t think they’ll get caught or are insane.
Yeah, on reflection “here there may be danger” isn’t the best way to phrase what I believe the thought process would be. Clearly, insane people intent on shooting randomly into crowds have little concern for their own well-being. However, it seems to me that a mass murderer chooses a target based on whether or not his twisted plan will be successful. If he thinks he might get shot before he “deals out his punishment to society”, or whatever’s in his backward brain, he’ll probably go somewhere else.
What about ‘suicide by teacher’ ? It is common enough with cops, and teenagers are notably unstable and frequently act on impulse. I don’t think it is a stretch to predict that more distraught kids would die in this way, than would prevent evil ones bent on murder.
I hope so. I wish we were all allowed concealed weapons. If so, we wouldn’t have the likes of what happened at Virginia Tech.
Maybe I’m simplifying it, but all I could think of is if someone tried to attack me and I held a gun in his face, that would shut him down and I would be safe.
I went to one. When prohibition and confiscation failed as a deterrent, the administration changed course and required that all students and faculty (and even the lunch ladies and toilet-scrubbers) carry a concealed blackjack, switchblade, sword cane, truncheon, garrotte, or set of shuriken. A cardboard box of melee weapons was provided for “hardship students,” or they could craft their own personal protection from broken glass and duct tape or a sock filled with D batteries. Parents were skeptical at first, until they instituted a similar requirement for all PTA meetings, and the benefits became obvious. Seemingly overnight, we went from The Blackboard Jungle to Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Nothing deters violence like violence, they say.
I have a concealed carry permit (albeit not from Texas), and the laws were made quite clear to me: Under no circumstances may I carry a weapon–concealed or otherwise–into a government building, which explicitly includes all schools. How could an individual town override that law?
Most? Most? Where do you live? To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never even been in a school that had a resident police officer (not counting colleges with their own police force).
Different laws for different states. In Colorado I believe the law says I can’t carry into any state government building that has “no carry” posted and metal detectors installed at all public entrances. Public schools are separate (but covered) Federal buildings have their own rules and the state doesn’t preempt them.