Fight Fire With Fire, And, Uh, Accidental Targets
Well, North Dakota seems intent on turning their schools into macho-man battlegrounds.
Bismarck Public Schools and the Bismarck Police Department plan to share the cost of purchasing nearly $26,000 worth of AR-15s, gun safes, additional bulletproof vests and medical kits, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
And they are going to give this stuff to the school’s “resource officers.” I think they mean “prison guards.”
The resource officers already carry handguns but handguns “won’t help if they need to shoot from a distance.” So, they need AR-15s. Because they’re going to be running away? Or is it just more fun to use an automatic weapon when there will likely be children between the gunman and the officer?
Thanks to Claudia for the heads up.
I know I’m old and I get confused, but why spend wads of money on such firearms etc. to use in case of emergency if they are actually supposed to be locked up somewhere? And the guy who has the key is pinned down by gunfire from a disturbed shooter? This sounds like a.) all contingencies have not been sorted out and b.) the police dept wanted some new weapons but knew they didn’t have a chance with the local budget unless they piggy-backed with something else in that budget. I do recall how the Sgt. at Arms in the Canadian Parliament calmly unlocked his desk drawer, drew out a pistol, and took out the shooter in the hallway. Note that: pistol, calm, unlocked the drawer. And the shooter was definitely over-armed compared to the S/A who became a national hero. Would also like to know if Bismarck public schools have metal detectors at the doors. If not, the detectors may even be less expensive than the rifles. Never know until you comparison shop.
1who’s the moron that thought this was a good idea/use of scarce allocable resources? why not just declare the schools a free-fire zone and be done with it?
2DearGod, I fear for the safety of those kids with all that fire power in the hands of “resource” people. I would think that accuracy is the main objective rather than distance, in order to ensure there is no “collateral damage”, military speak for dead children.
3“Or is it just more fun to use an automatic weapon when there will likely be children between the gunman and the officer?”
Not to mention the fact that the bullets will keep on going through walls/objects/people *behind* the target being shot at. All in all an NRA whack job anxiety dream, one that doesn’t ever seem to work…
4My family has a lot of educators in it, on both sides: in my little Redneck home town, I had nine aunts, uncles and cousins(I learned to be sneaky…)
5Dad and I were discussing arming teachers, and concluded that we really couldn’t endorse arming any of them. Arming them with weapons of mass death is idiocy.
I do not have the answer , but doesn’t this sound like a prison during school hours! Let’s lock up the kids surrounded by armed guards. There must be a better way.
6Yes, $26,000 that could have been spent on anything from textbooks to squad-car tires will now go to the gun industry. Because we love freedom.
7It’s because of the grizzlies that Betsy warned us about.
8Not to denigrate your post, but in the interest of accuracy, the AR-15 is NOT an automatic firearm. While very powerful, it is a semi-automatic weapon. There is a big difference and the right wingers love to beat liberals over the head with inaccurate firearm terminology. That way they can snicker and argue you have no knowledge of firearms and no point to make.
9WashPost had a story about a school where the principal and staff stand by the door every morning and greet every student going in by name with a handshake or high-five. They think this is a better investment than a metal detector.
10Hey Don – no offense taken. I know that because I live in Texas and grew up around guns and I have no idea why I left off the semi- except that I live in Texas and it’s hot enough to melt coal today.
11Bismarck is a decent enough little town, state capitol. There are some decent people there, but clearly not enough.
12Next they will want Rascals with dual machine guns mounted on swivels.
13You know what they say
14At the N.R.A
I love the smell of gunsmoke in the morning.
Smells like prosperity.
Here in Fort Bend County TX (just a stone’s throw from Juanita’s salon), my neighborhood Facebook page got all whipped up over the weekend. A mother of an elementary schooler was nearly hysterical about the lack of a perimeter fence around our local elementary school. Anybody could go up to the kids on the playground!!!! And do stuff!!!! Then much discussion ensued on the merits of said fence. Surprisingly I wasn’t the only one who thought it was a dumb idea. Not that it’s impossible for **something bad** to ever happen, but honestly we live in a pretty safe little neighborhood, and I’m just not going to worry about the kids on the playground. I did politely suggest we might do better to worry about the massive proliferation of guns, but nobody took the bait!
15Cheryl,
16Siiiiiiigh. Really think they also need to distribute shoulder held rocket launchers to their resource officers. Those damned bears are persistent, clever, and often mean. Who knows when they might attack by air? Oh. Wait. Maybe our Space Force could be deployed to ward off such an attack.
So they want to purchase assault weapons and then lock them up. Why not just change the name of Bismarck to Mayberry? Andy only gave Barney Fife one bullet that he had to keep buttoned in his shirt pocket, but he still managed to shoot one off by accident.
17The worst part about this really, really dumb idea is that now lots of other police depts. and school districts will jump on this ridiculous plan and do the same thing. The stupid, it burns!
18Another thing to consider is that I’m pretty sure some of these shooters are really expecting to die after they have killed as many innocent kids as possible, so “suicide by cop” might not be a deterrent at all.
19I grew up in North Dakota. It has deteriorated politically since i moved away. Is there a correlation? I then went on to ruin Kansas and Wisconsin by my deflection.
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