From the HuffPo article (emphasis mine):
Wow… now, they’re going to look for people to volunteer to patrol the school with weapons. Nothing could possibly go wrong there…
I think that is a excellent suggestion, but instead of a actual policeman, I’d make it a State licensed armed guard. This means it’d be a LOT cheaper, adding less than $100k to the budget.
We had them in my school, too, and we’re out here in the boonies. It’s not unreasonable as long as the cop retains a low profile and remains amicable. The only thing that is unreasonable is having them act like military guards. That would just make people feel unsafe.
It shouldn’t be an additional expense, for school system anyways. It should be part of the police budget. It is here. Granted, I’m not sure we have cops at every campus at all times, and not just them moving back and forth, but it wouldn’t take much to go further. People are perfectly willing to increase the sales tax by a quarter percent for things like this, too, which should be more than enough. “Think of the children” always works for this sort of stuff.
And, yes, it won’t prevent all types of shootings. But that’s not the goal. The goal is to make things better. The response time here was absolutely horrible. The cop has the advantage that the shooter won’t know where he is, and, seeing as he’ll be seen on the hall cameras, the cop can be alerted before he sees the shooter.
I can’t imagine that my podunk town has hall cameras since 1999 and others don’t. Maybe some really small schools, like the ones that had to be consolidated.
I think the NRA’s position is being unfairly misconstrued in this thread.
After all, they also want to sacrifice the 1st amendment so their precious 2nd amendment remains unsullied. Video games and movies are the culprits here? Really?
Cops in schools is actually one of the lesser crazy things said in this “press conference.”
Well, perhaps the NRA plans to “contribute” the money for hiring & equipping these officers. Oh, special training might be needed, too. While they are at it, they can underwrite the cops already on duty in many schools. That would be “meaningful.”
Otherwise, it’s just more fapping…
So, every community in the country should go broke on armed guards, take money away from book learning, all so a bunch of gun freaks don’t have to be inconvenienced in any by responsible laws relating to deadly weapons.
Less than $100k? Why, that’s nothing, then! That’s less (slightly) than the cost of our full-time licensed interventionist (a teacher who oversees academic interventions for every student at every grade level who’s falling behind, coordinating remediation efforts and hitting the front lines of remediation) and our three tutors. Just cut out all our support for kids who are suffering academically and Bob’s your uncle.
Welcome to my world.
So, the idea is to raise taxes to pay for an armed guard that will spend 99.999% of his day NOT preventing the school shooting he’s being hired to prevent. I’m sure the party of fiscal responsibility will just wet themselves in anticipation of supporting this idea.
We have close to 99,000 public schools in this country*. Assuming a salary of 30k, we’re looking at ~3 billion, just to begin to entertain this idea.
The sad part, is this was their response, after taking time to think it over. Imagine what happens when acting on impulse. Oh wait…
The day my daughter’s school has armed guards is the day I move.
It’s ludicrous, really. Okay, so now, allegedly, the Adam Lanzas of the world won’t go to the school because Robbie the Rent-A-Cop is there. (And for $30,000 a year you’re not getting someone I’d trust with a gun anyway.) So Lanza would have gone to a day care and killed the toddlers. Oh, we’re going to arm them too? So then the next killer goes to a mall and blows the shoppers away. Oh, armed guards there? So he goes to a movie theatre, like the Aurora shooter. Oh, armed guards there? so he goes to a place of business. Are we going to force every place of business to have an armed guard?
Logically, now, everyone has to be armed. Every gathering place needs to be under armed guard. Who wants to live like that? Forget the Band-Aid in the form of rentacops. What’s the SOLUTION?
Of course, these people don’t expect to get out alive, so this is a patently stupid idea. Why would a cop be adeterrent to someone with suicidal ambitions?
Coincidentally, that’s twice the annual budget of the National Institute of Mental Health.
Solution?
Guns!
If you’re getting in a twist over this, you should talk to the gun nuts I work with who think concealed carry for teachers is the solution.
Seriously - how dumb is this idea?
The first person shot will be that minimum wage worker in the pretty uniform at the door.
We have guards at our school (unarmed) simply to keep an eye on any unruly student, suspected drug use, loud confrontations, theft, checking doors, checking parking lot, etc. The guards are all really nice (older) people (three shifts) but all totally useless if some nutcase came to the school with any kind of firearm.
While we are at it, post a cop at every single bar in the US and verify that nobody gets into a car drunk. At this rate, we will soon have a cop at every corner of every street in every urban area. What a great idea! Or we could just move to North Korea now.
$100k? The school district I grew up in has 11 school buildings. And it’s far from the biggest district in the region. Where are you going to find a trained, licensed armed guard to work for ~$9K a year? That you would trust your kids with?
Christ, I was ranting at the TV watching this guy. He blamed everything BUT too-easy access to guns for the rash of massacres. He even lamented the lack of a national database of mentally ill people. Right, because a registry of everybody who owns a gun is terrible violation of rights, but a registry of everybody who’s ever been prescribed an antidepressant is not.
Good thing that solution has resulted in the complete elimination of bank robberies!
I remember how well putting a policeman in school for the DARE program worked out…