That Arming Teacher Thing …
Yep. It happened in Utah.
A teacher in Utah accidentally shot herself in the leg Thursday inside an elementary school building. In the bathroom of the teacher’s lounge. She’s a sixth grade teacher.
State law allows individuals to obtain a concealed-weapons permit and carry firearms onto school campuses, following the completion of a safety training course.
Obviously she did not listen at the training course. Nor did she do her homework. And the dog ate her good sense.
Last week a professor at Idaho State University shot himself in the foot as he was strolling across campus.
Maybe Wayne LaPierre can come up with a better solution. A solution that doesn’t, you know, require guns.
La Pierre keeps suggesting the same tired solutions for every problem, because when the only tool he has is a gun, everything looks like it needs a bullet.
1Who will watch that class while the teacher is chasing the gunman?
2And what will happen if there are 5 armed teachers in that school?
5 classes of kids with no supervision?
Yep, that is a great plan.
All this talk about arming the teachers is just another diversion from the real problem. Smoke and mirrors to hide the real problem – the proliferation of semi-automatic weapons (of mass destruction) in our country.
Also – I laugh when some of the gun nuts say that getting the permit to carry takes such a long time. Well, not in Texas!
Sure – tell the world that “some” of the teachers are armed – then all teachers become the primary targets. Guess that would save the students though. Sigh.
3Trump thinks armed teachers will make our schools safe.
Okay, but only if Trump goes first. Let him be protected by armed teachers.
No Secret Service. No US Marine sentries. No private security. No White House police manning the gates into the compound. No convoys of police motorcycles. No limousine with bulletproof windows. No airspace closure for miles around the White House.
Just a teacher or two with a handgun.
C’mon, Trump, this will prove how well your plan works!
4According to the worst, most irritating news website on this planet, dallasnews.com, Callisburg ISD already arms some classroom teachers. And yes, all it takes is one unstable classroom teacher to become an “active shooter” for this to fail. Or what if a student gets ahold of the teacher’s handgun?
BTW, ask the bailiff in any courtroom in the country who s/he thinks will be the first one in that courtroom to get shot if an active shooter situation happens there.
When police respond to active shooter call anywhere, one of the first questions will be “how many shooters?” and “how many guns?” In the day I would not want to hear something like one active shooter and a dozen armed teachers. How the he77 am I supposed to separate the sheep from the goats quickly and accurately? I CAN’T.
How do I deal with an armed teacher? How do I know the armed teacher isn’t the active shooter?
What happens when an officer arrives on scene and deals with the situation using the “kill ’em all let G*d sort ’em out” logic?
5Teachers have been asked to take on more and more responsibilities over and above their main objective. Teachers have been given the responsibilities as in loco parentis, ie. parents in place. Since most schools do not have full time nurses or psychologists, teachers have been given those duties as well.
6They must monitor school cafeterias and outside recess, as well as bus duty before and after school. With school budgets stretched thin, teachers pay out of their pockets for classroom necessities like cleaning supplies, tissues, pencils, pens, folders etc. With any remaining time or energy they teach.
Demanding that they take on the role of an armed security guard is going over the line. Either school districts will have to supply swat teams armed with assault weapons at every school, or we fight like heck to get these assault weapons banned. Which makes more sense?
How much “collateral damage” are we willing to take when a teacher opens fire? Only in movies do bullets go where they’re supposed to go.
7Disgruntled students will say thank you NRA. They’ll no longer need to procure their own guns, when they can simply disarm a teacher. Problem getting a weapon past the metal detector? Problem solved if Wayne has his way.
Then there’s that meme about “good guys with guns.” Sure, ask any SWAT Team or average LE entering a bar, school, church, movie house or wherever wingnuts with weapons will congregate how shooting them down and sorting them out on the ground works.
Let’s take the ault out of assault weapons and call them what they are.
8Funny cartoon but too real!
9Wanna bet if teachers were armed (very stupid and sick idea for 100’s of reasons) that most kids would be shoot by the teachers are the Black, Hispanic, Gay, Muslim, and Liberal or poor students.
I guess it doesn’t matter much but the Thursday when the Utah teacher shot herself in 2014.
10The trained, experienced police officer at the scene of the Florida shooting took cover rather than confronting the shooter. Why should we expect teachers to be better in a combat situation than a trained police officer?
Risk analysis tells us arming teachers is a bad idea. We know there will be accidents with firearms – arming every teacher means each teacher risks an accidental firearm discharge. Given the number of schools in this country, the number of children injured or killed by accidental firearm discharges from teachers’ weapons will exceed the number shot by school shooters.
On a side note: we expect teachers to have superb qualifications in their chosen profession – education. If we expect them to add on (and maintain) the skills of a trained police officer, will we pay them police officer-level salaries?
11Turn all public schools at every level into military academies complete with weapons training of every sort from M-16 right on up through the tank division. Chomp dow on that vision. Yes, I do know that there are excellent scholastic military academies worth emulating. Shucks! They even have marching bands and their own inter school sports leagues. Some of the graduates even go on to West Point, Annapolis and so forth and go beyond that into a life of worthy public service. All you would have to do is to make sure that a student at any age never picks up their legitimate weapon and takes out the rest of the class. That to me would nullify the entire effort of keeping students safe. Cause guns do kill people. Thats exactly what they were made to do.
12Hey Wayne and NRA, West Virginia is a “red” state and plenty gun friendly. Riiiiiiiiight? So why don’t you take that as your first state to arm teachers. Pass out guns there first. I’m sure Gov. Justice will thank you.
(Teachers in WVA are currently out on strike for higher wages.)
13Jeesh arming teachers is as shithole dumb as ‘trickle down’.
14Anybody wonder why they took guns out of the Wild West in the first place?
Did anyone happen to notice how we became a Civil Society?
We took away guns and made Hate a criminal offense which Republicans are now promoting, supporting and encouraging.
I have some gun loving friends who have a state of the art practice range; the number of stories they have regarding ‘look past the target to see what the bullet will really hit’ is staggering. In a real, adrenalin fueled emergency a microscopic few (read SWAT here) will actually look beyond the target to see what else will be hit.
And to quote my loving husband (2nd armored division); ‘if you carry a gun, the chances of being killed by your own gun rises exponentially.
15You know those ‘In Case of Fire, Break Glass’ cases mounted on the walls in many buildings, the ones with the fire hose or extinguisher inside?
Yeah, why not?
Simply mount glass front cases (with a little hammer on a chain on the outside) equipped with an AK-47* or SKS semi-auto rifle, and 3-4 full magazines inside, every 40 feet in the school hallways and 2 per classroom. Put a sign on each case saying ‘In Case of Whackjob Shooter On the Loose, Break Glass’.
Voila, problem solved!
Whackjob opens fire at school, answering return fire from all up and down the hallways as teachers and students leap into action, perp doesn’t stand a chance.
What could possibly go wrong?
* Saving big bucks here for the school districts, an imported Czech, Russian, Chinese, Indian, etc., AK-47/SKS semi-auto is about a third to quarter the cost of a USA-made AR-15, the ammo is cheaper and more potent too; and it works just as well (actually better under poor conditions).
Yeehaaa! Intermural ‘shooter response’ competitions could replace football and basketball in importance to the rabid fans–Friday Night Fire-offs–woohoo; leading up to the state finals. Hell, let’s import those Mayan ballcourts and ball games too (the losers lose some vital parts).
16Jane &PKM asked if “Disgruntled students will say thank you NRA”.
Have there even been Gruntled students?
17What is it about guns that they select so perfectly for morons who don’t understand the safety lock?
18Been thinking along the same lines as some of the good folks in here lately. But maybe I’m a little more paranoid. Wayne LaPierre is the biggest advocate for the weapons and ammunition industry the world has ever seen. Oh, and protecting our rights. That’s helpful too. For the industry. Win win, right? So what are some possible outcomes of making schools more militarized? Safety? Check. Making children feel secure? Hmmm. Now there’s a thought. Having weapons in abundance (openly, for deterrent effect against those shooters, obviously) accomplishes both.
19Yessiree, nothing will give the kiddos that warm fuzzy feeling like good guys and gals with guns. And what do you know, that just might give some of those unfortunate kids who don’t have the benefit of being raised in a gun loving family the chance to experience the contentment of being surrounded by firearms. Teddy bears are for sissies. “Gee pa, when can I get my first 9 millimeter?”
But I’m sure that’s just my paranoia kicking in, right?
The idea of transforming our schools into indoctrination centers for the purpose of maximizing the consumer base of Remington and Winchester is abhorrent. It would require the minds of such calculatingly, strategically inhuman capacity for profitability that could only be found in Bond villains. The N.R.A.?
Nah.
There are a couple of small towns in Utah that requires every person in town to own a gun.
20@Marge Wood, any figures on the mortality rate in those towns?
21While we are waiting for the aforementioned FedEx and Amazon to do what’s right, we can contact Mark Zuckerberg and ask him what algorithm he has in his stable of genius ideas to clean up his Facebook. NRA trolls are swarming there to issue threats to innocent teenagers. Maybe Chris Wray can generate a no knock warrant at his address to ask him.
https://www.facebook.com/zuck
22Not to mention that I am confident that towards the end of year that some of these teachers will be tempted ( at least) to use these weapons on more then one of their students. ( I am confident that primary school nuns, and HS teachers would have thought that about me)
23Armed teacher burn out what fun.
Just a note. Never thought I’d agree with anyone from Fox News. But here it is, the four deputies at the Florida high school heard the pop pop pop sound of an AR15. They were armed with handguns. Against the AR15 they might as well have had water shooters. That is the best reason I’ve ever heard for banning assault weapons. So, ok, traitor trump, ok, NRA, hand guns for teachers is the dumbist thing going. All that suggestion is good for is adding bodies to the count. As long as assault weapons are legal and easily acquired, the carnage will continue and sadly escalate.
24Anyone know how effective the standard body armor is against AR-15 ammunition ? I didn’t look that up but I thought about it after the above post. Since many of y’all are far better informed than I (who never fired a weapon of any type but it’s on my bucket list) I figured someone would help me out. Thanks. That fact would make a big difference to anyone facing a nutter with an assault rifle.
25Has it ever occurred to the NRA that the day would come when their collaboration with the gun industry would result in a chaos so indescribable that MARTIAL LAW could be declared? Would they know what that means? It is not only the President who could do such a declaration. State governors can pretty much do the same thing by calling out their National Guard. In the history of this country, some previous governors were delighted to do that.
Tilphousia, from what I can tell nutters with an AK tend to shoot from mid-body on up. That means whoever is laying flat on the ground and out of sight line can use a gun to knee cap the shooter at least.
As for the Golden gibbon and his assertion that armed teachers would make a nutter think twice, no it would not. These people are so off the rails that they would not mind even the idea let alone the reality of going down in a blaze of gunfire as long as they can take huge numbers with them.
26@Tilphousia
The body armor worn by most uniformed police officers will not stop rifle caliber rounds.
Officers engaged in high-risk operations wear a different kind of body armor which most of the time will stop many rifle caliber rounds. I know of no body armor that will stop all projectiles. The heavier body armor is more expensive, bigger, heavier, thicker, and hotter to wear. It also does not protect face, limbs, feet, hands, crotch.
All things are relative. Soldiers and Marines flying in Hueys took off their flak jackets and draped them over whatever they were sitting on in the helicopter, because a bullet in the butt or back of the leg is a bad thing.
27These concealed carry laws need to be amended to include the Barney Fife rule: you can carry the gun, but you have to keep the bullet (he was allowed only one) in your pocket.
28Speaking of Utah.
Romney may be kicked off ballot for lack of purity.
http://utahpolicy.com/index.php/features/today-at-utah-policy/15935-chaos-in-the-utah-gop-party-hardliners-adopt-rule-change-that-chairman-rob-anderson-says-is-unconstitutional
29The first thought I had after hearing the preposterous suggestion to “arm teachers”, whether it’s all of them or some of them is expecting one to being able to not hit one of the many many terrified students. And in support of the fired security officer: I assume they are proposing teachers to have hand guns — when it has been made abundantly clear that a round from a long gun is more powerful than a short gun. And how does one keep an eye on the gun and the other eye on the students.
30Just read on Crooks and Liars that the NRA’s ad agency (for 30 years) is Ackerman McQueen in Oklahoma City. They need to be exposed and held accountable. Some of the ads have been despicable. Let’s make it uncomfortable for them.
31Carolyn Grant
32Except for the greviousness of their offense one would think having to live in Oklahoma and espiacially OK City would be punishment enough.