Meanwhile, in East Texas …
See, they told you it was a good idea to arm school teachers —
The Tyler Morning Telegraph has learned that a Van Independent School District employee accidentally was shot during a district-sponsored concealed handgun license class on Wednesday.
The class was part of an effort to permit teachers to carry firearms on VISD campuses.Leslie Goode, a Van ISD school board member, confirmed that “there was an accident involving one of the employees today.”Goode would not disclose the identity of the employee or the nature of the injury, but did say the accident would not change his mind about a recent decision by the board to arm some teachers.
Well hell yes, we’re just gonna start shooting each other but dammit we are not gonna stop because somebody might come from outside and shoot us. We’d rather shoot each other. It more fun that way.
The employee was a maintenance worker. He is in the hospital in fair condition.
The same teacher who accidentally shot him will be in the classroom, armed, with Texas children. I bet that makes Rick Perry plenty happy.
Thanks to a mess of people for the heads up.
Accidents will happen. Sadly, when the accident involves a tool which is designed to cause harm, the accident will probably cause harm.
1i wish i could take credit for this, but i can’t. my son sent it to me back when this idea was first floated…
“The accidental shootings or gun mishandling issue is what is so baffling about the sudden supposed desire to “arm teachers”. Put aside for a moment that the group promoting this ridiculous idea is the same one that’s spent the last 3 years claiming that teachers are over-paid, under-worked, lazy government employees who don’t even deserve the right to negotiate their own pay and benefits, and just think back to all of your teachers in school and imagine them packing heat while teaching English. If, all of a sudden, thousands of teachers across the country were armed, it would be a matter of days before one of them accidentally shot themselves or a student. Not to mention, stealing guns from teachers would immediately turn into the number 1 way for handguns to enter the black market, or to get out onto the streets.”
nuff’said
2Sheesh. Words fail.
3Oldymoldy, I LOVE your answer. BTW, I am a fully certified Texas teacher, have taught in the barrios and I would NEVER carry a gun into a classroom. I taught with a couple of teachers who really were crazy, and if they had had guns, there would have been people shot, I am NOT kidding. Plus, kids are kid, and they would try, for the fun of it, to steal a gun just to see if they could do it…which could include breaking into a school or hiding until everyone is gone.
4I’m just glad that my third-grade teacher in El Paso wasn’t armed because she was bat-guano crazy and the meanest woman on the planet.
5Holy Carp, it happened AFTER the class was over and that person was “certified”. And they don’t plan to let anyone know who it was??? If I was a parent there, I’d be pitching a fit so scary they’d call Father Damien Karras to exorcise me. No kid of mine would ever be in a room with that person, and that includes the cafeteria and the auditorium
6Somedaygirl brings up an interesting point. Do I, as a parent, have the right to say “I don’t want my child in a classroom/school where there are guns?” I’d homeschool my kid before I’d let them be in a school with guns. Where does paranoia end and sanity begin? Should there be a sign up sheet on the first day of school saying, “All those students who want to be in a gun-free classroom sign here.”
7School administrators need to rethink this issue before arming teachers. How would they like to have an army of armed teachers coming to school board meetings? How about principals? I never would have shot a student – even the ones that were the worst of the worst, but I can think of several crooked, lying, stealing, sexual harassing principals whom I would have considered, along with a school board member and upper level administrator who deserved the same treatment, for the same sins.
I once was told by a special investigator for a District Attorney’s office that if he had time to investigate and prosecute the cases, he could put half of the state’s school district business managers in prison. Sort of sounds like the current case against a Houston school board member – consulting fees. Yeah, that’s what it was.
8Apparently, property owners lost their rights in Tennessee today to say NO GUNZ HERE~it gets worse each hour~
9Having spent 25 years in classrooms, I cannot even imagine arming teachers. I worked with some teachers who should not have even been in classrooms, much less armed. I won’t even comment about some of the school principals. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea, but they obviously don’t have children in school. What could possibly go wrong?…………too many things to count…..that’s what. A disaster waiting to happen!
10For those keeping score at home, it’s –
People injured and killed by a gun in a school: a whole bunch
People saved by a gun in a school: 0
I ain’t no rocket physicist but the equation seems pretty simple – you’re less likely to get ebola if you avoid people who have ebola. You’re less likely to die in a car accident if you stay out of cars. And you’re less likely end up hurt or dead by bullets if you don’t get around guns.
11What will the Arm the Teachers crowd do when they try to eliminate the teachers union or cut their pensions and all the teachers show up at the meetings packing heat and talking mean?
12As long as some school systems are arming their employees, shouldn’t we also be providing body armor to the students for their self-defense?
However, that raises a whole host of pros and cons, of which three come immediately to mind:
1. Sizing. Most body armor made today is too large for elementary school children. It wouldn’t have fit the poor victims in Newtown.
2. Legality. Would you believe, there are local jurisdictions where the civilian possession and wearing of body armor might be illegal? Many places prohibit convicted felons from having it, and there may be other situations as well. Body armor manufacturers recommend that would-be purchasers check the legality with their local law enforcement. After all, you wouldn’t want your kid to be violating the law when staring down the barrel of an assault rifle or .44 magnum.
3. Effectiveness. Most body armor is tailored to protect the torso. Doesn’t do much good if your tyke takes one to the head.
13I once found myself with a couple of other women with a flat tire in a sketchy location but close enough to walk to a police station for help. After we had waited a half hour or so for help, we walked to the cop shop, carrying the tire iron with us “for protection.” The cops–clearly smarter and more experienced than we–pointed out to us that if the bad guys came after us and our tire iron, he’d use it to beat us.
I also taught in a school that had had race riots and occasionally had a gun scare on campus. I’m absolutely convinced that if I had had a gun there, one of the students would have turned it on somebody.
No way this “arm the teachers” thinking makes sense.
14@djw,
15Your story reminds of something that happened to my former husband.
He grew up hunting, was in the Air Force and was generally extremely careful about his legally permitted guns.
Walking home through a large public park one summer night he had taken off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.
A couple of young men decided to make a grab for the jacket and began the assault by whacking him over the head with a baseball bat.
The attack was thwarted by other people in the park, police called, etc. I was called to pick him up at the ER.
“That wouldn’t have happened if I’d had my gun,” he complained woozily.
“They hit you over the head from behind,” I reminded him.
“If you’d been carrying a gun they would have shot you with it.”
This isn’t school related (except the perp doesn’t seem to have any sense that the average school child has) but it’s another example of how safe we are (Caution: snark alert) when there are others to defend us with their guns.
Lawdy mercy. I knew there was a reason not to go to Walmart anymore.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/28/1190520/-Walmart-Customer-Shoots-at-Shoplifter-to-Mark-Him-for-Police
16And when one gets mad & shoots a child? What excuse then?
17Reading the comments on the cited article…the guy who keeps explaining about “full metal jacket” bullets in training and why they won’t ricochet in schools seems to have forgotten that many classrooms have windows (and hollow points go through windows easily) and are divided by partitions that aren’t solid walls (and hollow points go through them easily) and have hard floors–often concrete–that even hollow points can ricochet from.
He also ignores the likelihood that a misfire could directly strike a student, and that in a gun battle a lot of rounds go astray because the shooters are excited/scared/angry/shaking like aspen leaves.
18