Arming Teachers?

[blueboss]

Seriously, would this be part of the solution.?


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[CitizenBBN]

Part of one, yes.

I haven't had time to post my manifesto on this issue, but I do have one.

Re schools, it's insane that we long ago identified high priority targets such as courts and government buildings and hardened those targets to make them less inviting and harder to attack, yet we continue to insist that schools be "gun free zones" with very limited (and apparently largely incompetent) security and poor procedures and oversight. We've made them the worst of all possible scenarios, with no one privately armed and no government security of any real consequence.

This shooting shows a lot more about the failings of government to protect us than it does about the issue of gun ownership. At the federal, state, local and school level the people in charge failed time again to act, show common sense or do anything that would be described as competently carrying out their jobs.

Yet we're supposed to disarm and trust these same people not just with the lives of our children in schools but with all our lives in all the places we live and work? Why on earth after seeing this level of failure, on the heels btw of multiple other such failures in similar situations, would I ever want to disarm and rely on someone else for my self defense?

Schools need to become hardened targets just like our courts, and officials must start taking these risks seriously and actively pursuing and prosecuting them where appropriate. This school actually worked actively over the past year or so to REDUCE police and law enforcement activities among the students, and they are now surprised they have a problem with security and behavior. Duh.

Not all teachers should carry of course, but I'm sure there are a number of competent, trained or trainable, even ex military teachers who would be perfectly excellent choices for adding to the defense of the students, and add to the risk to a potential attacker and thus discourage his attack. The Sandy Hook attacker wrote specifically that he knew no one would shoot back at the school, we should see clearly that it is a factor in their warped, sick thinking.

[jazyd]

The first high school shooting that I know of was at Pearl HS about 4 miles from my house around 20 years ago. The shooter did not buy the gunas he was too young, killed his mom first..sounds familiar....then went to school and entered the commons area right before classes were too start.

Thankfully a teacher ran to his truck and got his weapon and stopped the carnage before it got worse. He did get in some trouble for having a gun on campus BUT arming certain teachers who are willing and able to do the job, be trained and trained again can and will stop some or all of the killing. What a district somewhere in Ohio has done is train over and over again willing teachers, their identity is not to be known, the guns are kept in hidden safes that only those teachers are allowed access to.

While we can blame the FBI which we should, The sheriffs dept which we should, the local mental health dept which we should, I also blame that school district and the superintendent for doing nothing to keep his students safe. Ever since the Pearl HS shooting all the schools in my county have a system that all doors are locked from the outside and to get in you must stand in front of a camera at the front door and be buzzed in by the office. That person has a computer screen at their desk with every camera on it and who is where and what they are doing. I think I have been to 12 schools in the county including two private schools and I can't get into any of them w/o being looked at first even though some know my personally.

That school district just assumed that bad things would only happen to someone else and did nothing to keep their children safe other than having a 'resource' officer somewhere in the building who turned out to be a coward imo. How did that kid walk into that school with a AR15 in a very large backpack after he had been kicked out of that school twice and it was known that he was not allowed into school with a backpack.

If I am a parent there I will have the best lawyer I can find and I would start suing the school first and then the sheriff and then then FBI and then the mental health dept. At every stop a government organization failed to do their job

[KeithKSR]

Jazzy, if I remember the Pearl, Mississippi incident right the school employee was an assistant principal. He apprehended the kid in the process.

The stuff that happened in Parland is inexcusable in this day and age.

I work at a middle school within our district. Each morning when students come in the go through a metal detector, all items are searched, binders, purses, etc. Backpacks/athletics bags aren't allowed into the main part of the building, but are left in a designated area after being searched. Visitors entering the building enter the lobby and speak to office personnel through a speaker in the glass. From the lobby you cannot enter the main part of the building without having office personnel push a button that operated the electronic door lock mechanism. There is a similar mechanism on the office door leading to the lobby.

We were notified yesterday that a locking mechanism, two-way communications and video surveillance will be placed on the front entrance very soon, and no one enters the building without speaking to someone within the office and being let in by office personnel. All visitors are currently being scanned with a hand wand, and will soon be required to go through a walk through metal detector.

The prospect of arming teachers doesn't bother me at all. You wouldn't believe the number of teachers who have conceal carry permits.

[jazyd]

Keith, it was an asst principal. A lot of friends of mine at church had children at that school at the time and they were eternally thankful for that asst principal.

I can only guess how many teachers have a carry permit. Mew have guessed that as many as 20 people in our church every Sunday morning are caring, including ladies. We have 3 armed men every Sunday that patrol the grounds

I hate that schools like yours are having to go thru what they are but the world is nuts. Ex, last night in Richland..right next to Pearl..4 people were playing Uno, yes Uno. The 21 year old got made stood up and shot the 17 year twins in the head, one died and then shot the 18 year old in the head

Just for information, paducacats step sister was a student at Heath HS when that shooting happened

[MickintheHam]

I am uncomfortable with the term “arming”. I believe if a teacher has their own permitted firearm, let them carry it. But the idea of giving firearms to people who don’t own them and don’t want to use them scares me. No one who is uncomfortable around guns, should not be asked to use one. When I look at some of the anti-gun crowd, I am thankful they are not armed.

[kingcat]

That could also help them defend their honor should they have a relationship with an underage student. Heck, the teachers back in my day were the least stable individuals in school.
Then again I think we were the cause of that

[KeithKSR]

I am uncomfortable with the term “arming”. I believe if a teacher has their own permitted firearm, let them carry it. But the idea of giving firearms to people who don’t own them and don’t want to use them scares me. No one who is uncomfortable around guns, should not be asked to use one. When I look at some of the anti-gun crowd, I am thankful they are not armed.

I don't think arming teachers who are uncomfortable with carrying concealed should be done either.

[Catonahottinroof]

It’s no shocker that these mass shooting tend to happen at schools in gun free zones. If a teacher is comfortable carrying, then let them.

[CitizenBBN]

I am uncomfortable with the term “arming”. I believe if a teacher has their own permitted firearm, let them carry it. But the idea of giving firearms to people who don’t own them and don’t want to use them scares me. No one who is uncomfortable around guns, should not be asked to use one. When I look at some of the anti-gun crowd, I am thankful they are not armed.

All the proposals i've seen are some version of voluntary carry, with varying levels of training the same as how concealed carry works in Kentucky. Here you have to have a course, then you get a permit. With this you'd take a different course and then be permitted to carry as a teacher.

We should never hand a gun to anyone anywhere that isn't comfortable with its use and wanting to have it available. but there would be plenty of teachers out there with a strong gun background that we would be doing a lot to harden these super soft targets.

it's not enough by itself IMO. We need other full time armed security and much better ingress/egress security. It's insane this kid even made it on campus with an AR rifle. Try that at a courthouse or even a UK ball game and see how far you get.

Why we have better security on our courts and sporting events than we do our schools is beyond my understanding. Since Columbine we should have had far more security in place.

we get these school shootings b/c we refuse to respond the way we have to other terror threats. when we had a couple of shooting at courthouses every courthouse in the US immediately put in armed security with secure entrances and metal detectors. With schools we debate about video games and try to ban guns from 50 million law abiding owners, but do nothing to actually make it hard to attack a school.

Makes no sense at all.

[CitizenBBN]

It’s no shocker that these mass shooting tend to happen at schools in gun free zones. If a teacher is comfortable carrying, then let them.

The Sandy Hook shooter even left notes talking about it being a soft target, that people wouldn't shoot back.

These attacks happen b/c we refuse to protect schools. Arm teachers, great, but how does a guy with an AR rifle and a load of mags walk into a school? A kid expelled for his threat to the school and teachers, who was banned from having a backpack prior to that?

If he'd shot his way past the security guards and burst in the doors you might get it, but he just strolled right on in.

I hate it, I grew up in schools with no "security" and we propped the doors open in the spring and summer, but then again when I was a kid you just walked right onto your plane too without anyone checking your bag, and you could stroll right into your local courthouse pretty as you please.

[MickintheHam]

Well, this afternoon we had a school shooting in Birmingham. The Mayor and Company are going out of their way to label it "Accidental". I don't know how two people get shot and it is accidental. Allegedly, a Junior football player was showing his gun to his girlfriend. Weapon accidentally discharged and shot the girl. He shot himself in the leg attempting to put the weapon back in his pants. Sadly, the girl died en route to UAB Emergency.

The school has metal detectors. Evidently, the school doesn't use them. It seemed to be news to the Superintendent when she was asked why they weren't used. Tragic and senseless.

[badrose]

The more I read about stuff like this the more I think parents are not involved enough with their kids and instilling the fear of God. When I was in grade school a lot of us carried pocket knives. We even had a game where we tossed knives to see how close we could get to the other guys shoes without hitting them. Not one incident.

[CitizenBBN]

The more I read about stuff like this the more I think parents are not involved enough with their kids and instilling the fear of God. When I was in grade school a lot of us carried pocket knives. We even had a game where we tossed knives to see how close we could get to the other guys shoes without hitting them. Not one incident.

I don't mean this in a mean way, but I really do not get the rush to "gun control" when these things happen, when honestly to me the mechanism seems to be the last step in a long process of things that should trouble us a lot more.

it seems people just accept with some kind of numb indifference that we have these kids so troubled and angry and willing to convert that into such horrible action against other kids. Are we to accept all the obvious factors that went into this disaster and just assume they are all fixed values and can't be changed?

That to me is the assumption behind focusing on gun control. It's saying "well we will never be able to prevent these kids from becoming so lost and disturbed and willing to do such things, so we need to focus on making sure they can only kill 3-4 or 10 people instead of 17".

B/c that is what we're saying. If we rounded up every gun in the US by magic that could hold more than 10 rounds, a common dividing line for current gun control, then this kid would still have been able to kill a large number of people, arguably just as many.

If we rounded up every gun period, IMO the real goal of the leaders of gun control movements, he could have still found ways to kill 3-4 at least, with a blade or run them over or something.

So we're OK with that? Massive restriction of a Constitutional right so we can just minimize the impact of these guys?

Doesn't it beg the question of why we are accepting that these kids are a) turning out this way and having such dark impulses, and b) why we aren't able to effectively deal with the vast majority of them who are making their issues so very clear?

We need to question parenting, the culture of violence and indifference we are creating as a nation, mental health treatment, and obviously the utter breakdown of law enforcement and government social services not once but at every level and multiple times.

This is one situation where it seems the last issue to address is the gun used.

Florida is about to arbitrarily strip an entire age group of legal adults of their right to self defense, as if that would have stopped this shooting or will stop the next one. It's just asinine to think it will stop anyone so determined to do what he did. Sandy Hook used his mother's gun, and so will the next one in Florida.

[MickintheHam]

The more I read about stuff like this the more I think parents are not involved enough with their kids and instilling the fear of God. When I was in grade school a lot of us carried pocket knives. We even had a game where we tossed knives to see how close we could get to the other guys shoes without hitting them. Not one incident.

We all carried pocket knives and it was no big deal. Here in alaBama up until about 10 years ago kids would have shotguns and rifles in the back of their trucks. Many would go hunting before school. It was no big deal.

[CitizenBBN]

We all carried pocket knives and it was no big deal. Here in alaBama up until about 10 years ago kids would have shotguns and rifles in the back of their trucks. Many would go hunting before school. It was no big deal.

I took a rifle to school in 3rd grade. I had to leave it in the principle's office during the day, got to take it home ON THE BUS. I was going home with my cousin to go shooting on his bus instead of mine, no one thought twice about it. Just had to leave it in the office during the day.

I carried a knife all through school, in high school I mostly carried butterfly knives. Principal told me to not go playing with it in the hallways, tried to encourage me to go back to a simple barlow, but it wasn't an issue.

it was a different time, and IMO it's our memories of school that in a way prevent us from doing what should be done to protect the schools. I hate that they need locked doors and security guards and metal detectors. Hate it. it's no way to send kids to school.

but I see few other options, not in an era when we do that for every court and major government building in the nation. I would hope we could do it in a way that is less invasive, but in the end the only way to ensure security at schools is to lock down the perimeter.

[DanISSELisdaman]

IMO, there's several things that contributes to these shootings. First, kids have not been held responsible for their actions. They have everything handed to them with having to put forth any effort whatsoever to earn it and they've grown up feeling that they are privileged and the world owes them and when life happens to them, they can't deal with it, and that's mostly on their parents. Then you have them starting from a young age playing violent video games and God only know what kind of damage that does to a young mind. Also they are so into social media, that don't develop friendships and relationships, like kids did when most of us were growing up and this also is on the parents. They grow up with the mindset that because someone disagrees with them, that they are deplorable people and should be shouted down, locked up, or worse. Plus you have the schools indoctrinating them with all kinds of crap that goes completely against common sense. Plus when they turn on the television, all they see it sex, violence, lies and hatred. Then you have these vultures that prey on their young minds and try to lead them into some kind of resistance movement. It's no wonder they are growing up not knowing which way to go or what to believe.

[KeithKSR]

We all carried pocket knives and it was no big deal. Here in alaBama up until about 10 years ago kids would have shotguns and rifles in the back of their trucks. Many would go hunting before school. It was no big deal.

When I first started high school sheathed lock back knives, like the Buck 110, were the rage. Everyone wore one on his belt.

[BigBluePappy]

When I first started high school sheathed lock back knives, like the Buck 110, were the rage. Everyone wore one on his belt.

Yes, sir...

[jazyd]

I keep going back to Pearl HS, the asst principal got his gun out of his truck and kept the killing from being worse. I would say most schools have several teachers with a license to carry. Train them to the hilt IF they want and if they are capable

The Pearl shooter was a student, not old enough to buy a gun and he didn't
The Heath HS shooter was a student, not old enough to buy a gun and didn't

The school in Ark the shooters were middle school if I remember
The Colobine shooters were students not old enough to buy a gun
The Conn shooter stole his moms un, he did not buy them
The Marshall County shooter was a student, again not old enough to buy a gun


The movie theater shooter was a colłege student that was mentally unbalanced and his psychologist knew it, knew what he was thinking but because of privacy laws revealed nothing. IMO she should have somehow got that info t the police

The Florida shooter we know all the detIls and all the music steppers by different phases of government

The Vegas shooter I don't know if he could have been stopped except the hotel employees should have alerted someone about his room being locked out


The Texas church shooter, the federal government once again did not follow procedures that would have kept him from buying guns legally. And once again someone that had a gun with them engaged hi and they were NRA members I believe

Not one shooter belong to the NRA

With one exception the school shooters were under age and did not buy the guns. No gun law would have stopped any of them if I am correct

In the Conn case the government failed his mother twice by turning her down when she tried to get him committed. And the government failed multiple times in the Fl shooting and again in the Texas church shooting.


The shooting at the black church in SC was the act of evil by a urge racist, nothing could have prevented that

So no NRA members, only 1 shooting in a school by a legal age person

Liberals are nuts

[Doc]

I prefer teachers with no arms.



IMO you put an officer in every school full time. Their job is to protect the community and when you have a congregation of hundreds of people together, its seems logical to have a LEO there. Might mean you need to hire more police officers but that is better than another killing, plus you have an actual legal representative there.

[CitizenBBN]

Heck Doc, coaches get police escorts ON THE FOOTBALL FIELD. What is safer than the field they just spent 3 hours on, yet every game there is at least one and usually 2-3-4 officers with each head coach. We have them at all major events, at the entrances to many if not most significant government buildings, etc.

As Jazy showed, the age thing is feel good legislation. I think one of the Columbine kids bought guns and this FLorida kid, but do we think they would have been stopped from their awful acts if they couldn't go buy guns themselves?

I get the feeling that we don't want a lot of immature "kids" with the ability to buy guns, I do, but I can think of lots of people I don't want to have guns, or for that matter vote or drive a car.

I'm not going to lose my mind over raising the limit, but like drinking ages and other things I do think it's ironic and hypocritical that the same 18 year old can legally commit to military service or contract in any other legal way but we can't trust them with a gun. Are they adults or not?

But the reason these things happen in schools is b/c schools are easy targets and the kids in question clearly see them as such and attch negative feelings to the school.

Arm teachers who can handle it, and put armed security there, lock down the perimeter, all of the above.

[CitizenBBN]

Of course the real problem is the same: whenever something like this happens the anti-gun folks call for action, and since none of these actions are addressing the source issues, it won't solve them so we'll have another incident, and then we get this moving target that leads to gun bans and eventually confiscation.

That's the problem. the fear on the other side is that this is just step 1, and they're right IMO. Just like how it's clear now that the left wants complete open borders with no immigration laws (another thread topic), they also want to round up all of these guns.

Very hard to get much policy done when the two sides are so very far apart, which is the story of our current political situation.

[Doc]

I prefer teachers with no arms.



IMO you put an officer in every school full time. Their job is to protect the community and when you have a congregation of hundreds of people together, its seems logical to have a LEO there. Might mean you need to hire more police officers but that is better than another killing, plus you have an actual legal representative there.

and when I say officer, I mean a real police officer...not some pseudo wannabe that wants a badge and a gun.

[KeithKSR]

Kids with backpacks can get into most schools with fewer safety precautions than they would face entering Commonwealth Stadium. That is a problem.

[CitizenBBN]

Kids with backpacks can get into most schools with fewer safety precautions than they would face entering Commonwealth Stadium. That is a problem.

Yep. It's befuddling to me that places like Rupp now have metal scanners and hand wands and bag checks despite there really not being many attacks on sporting events in this country. Yet schools are still largely unprotected and we even have banned carry in most of them to make them even less protected than the average place of business.

[KentuckyWildcat]

As a college employee, I don't want most of my co-workers carrying. I know them well enough to know this is mostly a bad idea. I am however in favor of me carrying

On a more serious note, I'm just seeing this. Will be interested in reading everyone's opinion.

[Doc]

Other than schools, where do we have LARGE congregations of people (hundreds to thousands depending on school size) and NOT have any LEO present? Twice I've put on Lacrosse tournaments and was required to have a police presence, even if it meant hiring off duty police due to the number of people at the event that was held at the high school , and consider that was less than the number of students that attend the school daily. IMO take one officer per school and if nothing else park them in the parking lot. Our tax dollars are there to provide for police protection. Rather than sitting at the end of my street radaring down the road to catch 1 speeder an hour, stick that guy in the school to "protect and serve" where they are needed. Odds are it would also 1) decrease the amount of other violence that occurs in schools like fights and disruptive students and 2) improve the interaction between police and the public, particularly the youth.

[CitizenBBN]

Other than schools, where do we have LARGE congregations of people (hundreds to thousands depending on school size) and NOT have any LEO present? Twice I've put on Lacrosse tournaments and was required to have a police presence, even if it meant hiring off duty police due to the number of people at the event that was held at the high school , and consider that was less than the number of students that attend the school daily. IMO take one officer per school and if nothing else park them in the parking lot. Our tax dollars are there to provide for police protection. Rather than sitting at the end of my street radaring down the road to catch 1 speeder an hour, stick that guy in the school to "protect and serve" where they are needed. Odds are it would also 1) decrease the amount of other violence that occurs in schools like fights and disruptive students and 2) improve the interaction between police and the public, particularly the youth.

Bingo.

when you dig in a little at Parkside in particular, they were part of an Obama program to REDUCE police presence at schools, b/c too many minority arrests were happening and they saw it as racist and chilling.

Schools are the softest, least protected and highest value target in the US. Other than attacking a nuclear reactor I suppose, which does have security.

Why are people suprised and shocked when one is attacked, and why do they blame the existence of guns? Schools will continue to be attacked by all manner of people b/c a) there are a lot of people there, and b) they are completely insecure in many cases. We've seen car attacks, knife attacks, handgun attacks, rifle attacks, you name it.

I hate it, but they need to be locked down. IMO the entire system of schools is screwed up and needs to be decoupled from the state and privatized, b/c it is just another inefficient bureaucracy more bent on serving itself rather than its customers. They don't prioritize these things like security b/c they aren't going to be sued if something awful happens and they see it as a low risk (which it is), so they spend that money back at the admin office with bloated bureaucracy.

But at a minimum schools should have a secure perimeter and an armed LEO present for every so many kids or square feet. No way a kid with a history of mental illness expelled from the school as a violent threat should just walk into the school with a damned rifle.

That's where I don't get the lack of outrage. This was a complete and utter breakdown at the federal, state, local and school level that showed the lack of concern, professionalism and just plain cowardice of those being paid to protect these kids, yet all the outrage is directed at the method he chose to use to attack the school. All the calls for legislative action in the media are about regulating AR rifles, not about school security. It's stunning to me.

[KeithKSR]

This what happened at our school, thanks to our SRO: http://www.e-archives.ky.gov/pubs/Ju...07magazine.pdf (see page 52). I shudder to think of what may have happened has Sam behaved like the Parkland officers.