Guns for Texas school's teachers

Sure... I'll tap a kids wrist with a ruler, and he'll proceed to beat the crap out of me. That obviously won't work!

The problem is that not all parents are like mine. My parents instilled a sense of respect in me. Other parents teach their children not to trust their teachers, and they learn to disobey any bit of authority. THESE are the kids who are causing problems. They fight, they cause trouble, and they make the environment horrible for those students who genuinely want to learn.

If a student beats up another student in school, he gets suspended for three days. He comes back, beats up another kid, and is suspended for three more days. Do you know how hard it is to kick a violent kid out of school? It's next to impossible. As long as these kids are in schools, I completely support teachers arming themselves, so long as they are trained to do so. I've never fired a hand gun in my life, and would not want to carry one without someone showing me the ropes.

The US is so great in its noble effort to educate everyone. Unfortunately, the US needs to realize that not everyone wants to be educated. Our system needs to change, but that's a soapbox speech for another day!

 

Knowing when to employ deadly force is not rocket science, and I think you'd be surprised at how little time it takes to cover the subject in the police academy.

Much like airline pilots, I think teachers should volunteer, go through a background/psychological check, and 40 hours of training with regular requalifications. That's more than many states require for a concealed weapons permit.

The stupidest thing about the hysteria over this is why a school should be treated any differently than say, a shopping mall. There are a lot more people in a mall than most schools, but teachers with gun permits can carry in shopping malls. Why is their place of employment treated differently?

As for Tasers and pepper spray, they're useless against firearms and this program is specifically targeted for the "active shooter" scenario.

 

The stupidest thing about the hysteria over this is why a school should be treated any differently than say, a shopping mall. There are a lot more people in a mall than most schools, but teachers with gun permits can carry in shopping malls. Why is their place of employment treated differently?
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Because the teacher is in a position of authority over the minors. The teacher is responsible for the group, not a bystander in a crowd. A bystander in a crowd has an entirely different sense of (non)obligation to intervene and diffuse the situation. In a mall, the teacher's primary responsibility would be protecting himself and his accompanying family. At school, he must protect others first. (other non related children) Entirely different psychology going on in his head, AND entirely different social interaction between all parties.

I know pepper spray is useless against a gun, but I'd still like to see them test the waters with something a little less permanent. (Let's put training wheels on this race car)

 

You're making my case for me.

Teachers are responsible for their students, so why turn them into human shields if someone decides to shoot up the school? I personally would feel a lot better if I knew when I dropped my kids off at school there were a few trained and armed people inside the building to protect my children should the unthinkable happen.

 

What's the threat that would justify arming teachers with firearms?

Crazed students shooting their comrades, a la Virginia Tech? Political or religious terrorists? Just statistically, those seem like pretty rare occurances. The vast majority of teachers go their entire careers without seeing anything remotely like that.

Or is the real threat unruly and possibly dangerous students in the classroom? As emotionally satisfying as the idea might be, arming teachers is unlikely to be a very effective way of maintaining classroom discipline. Teachers could easily have their guns taken from them, and if they actually gunned down a kid that they thought threatened them, there'd be hell to pay.

I much prefer making it easier for teachers to have disruptive and intimidating kids permanently removed from their classrooms. If those kind of kids are all flushed down the tubes into a continuation school full of criminal types, then that might be the time to consider armed staff.

 

Columbine, Virginia Tech, shopping malls in Omaha & Salt Lake City, the list goes on. When was the last time you heard of someone shooting up a police station or NRA Headquarters? As I said before, gun-free zones are nothing more than a target list for madmen.

And in spite of what Sarah Brady would have you believe, a firearm is a totally inanimate object. Remember when Florida adopted a "shall-issue" standard for concealed firearms permits? The media went into a frenzy, predicting gunfights in the streets and leading with tabloid headlines like "The GUN-SHINE State". Well, many years later that never transpired and Florida's rate of violent crime dropped dramatically and consistently at a time when the rest of the country was experiencing a rise.

Some teachers have already been approved to carry in Texas, and I predict many more will. None of the doomsday scenarios like teachers shooting students or students attacking teachers to get their guns will happen, and life will go on with some students in Texas being a little safer. And the media will never do a follow up story where they'd have to admit they were wrong.

 

So true Bruce, so true!

 

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I hope this is true. I don't live in Texas, and I don't know how closely this experiment will be covered nationally. My understanding of human behavior just doesn't jive with this idea, but I guess time will tell how it all plays out.

 

We'll see soon enough;

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/081608dntexteacherguns.4babe7ee.html

My experience with human behavior is the opposite; when you take good, decent people who want to help others (police, fire, military, EMS, teachers), they almost always want to do good.

Given the proper background checks and training, I would have no problem whatsoever handing off my child to an armed teacher. I'd actually feel much better about it, to be honest.

 

Don't forget that the Police also wear kevlar vests and undergo extensive training. Police officers are also good in combat to fend off someone going for their gun, not to mention the retention system on police holsters.

Unless there is extensive training involved, and even then, I see it as a liability. Remember also that police officers are trained in reading people and respond to verbal / physical cues to raise risk assessment, something that is not taught over night. Perhaps certain staff could be trained to carry a concealed weapon, but not your average chem teacher...

 

As you well know, police have to insert themselves into physical altercations whereas teachers are trained to not. Nor do I want them to; armed teachers would be like "Break Glass in Case of Emergency".

 

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This wouldn't even be an issue if the school would install a few metal detectors and have police on property.

In our area, we have a few schools that have officers (armed I think) on property. One district has a small building in between 2 schools- staffed with two officers during school hours. That's a known gang area, and they get written up in our paper from time to time when they have a nice bust.

What's so hard about using trained people to do what they were trained to do?

 

I'm going to join Bruce in his opinion. Just to qualify things I work as a LEO as well going on 7 years with a specialization in security operations actually, so let me be the first to tell you that the police cannot and will not be able to stop an active shooter in a high school or otherwise before mass casualties have taken place unless there is an officer or armed counter response on standby, ready to react at the first shot fired.

Tasers, knives, throwing stars, mop handles, baseball bats, whoopin' sticks, etc. are useless against an active shooter.

As for removing disruptive kids, oddly enough it's not the kids creating outbursts who level their peers at the end of the gun. Usually it's the quiet loner types. Besides Virginia Tech taught us psych profiling does not work in school, there is a conflict of interest.

I think this is a common sense policy. I have a Texas Concealed Handgun License and it my surprise you to know that in order to receive this the State went further back into my criminal background than the police agency that hired me. For example, if I haven't committed a class B misdemeanor in 10 years I can still be a cop, not necessarily so in regards to a privately held concealed handgun license. As it stands now, the licensees complete a very expensive 10 hour classroom and then a shooting block before finally testing and then sending off a background packet where they will check in depth, not just a TCIC or NCIC check. But they will actually gain your arrest records from any and every county or parish that you have ever lived in and you will explain all arrests whether convicted or not. This is not a right but a privilege and one that is given out with much conservatism. Lastly being irresponsible in any manner will have your license yanked faster than Rosie O'Donnell eating a pint of cookies and cream.

As for rare occasions, then why arm cops? Most cops go their entire career without ever firing their service weapon once in anger.

 

I forgot to add but it is worth mentioning...but when an active shooter meets an armed response (a person who shoots back) the entire dynamic of their nefarious plan suddenly changes. They have to come to grasp with the fact that people are shooting back and not just cops who let's face it, can be predictable. They will have to weigh their mortality and may decide to run because it didn't go down in a blaze of glory like they saw on TV. They may simply be suppressed under fire and effectively pinned. At worst they will be denied entry into at least that classroom or part of the building on that day because the risk far outweighs the benefit. Or they may simply end up getting plugged and bleeding out while 911 responds as quickly as possible.

It's no fun when someone shoots back and can be a quick reality check.

I believe an AVP in a high school in Mississippi stopped an active shooter using a .45 he kept in his car. Unfortunately during the time it took him to get to his car and back several students were shot, some killed with a 30-30 deer rifle. When the kid was faced with an armed response he did not expect, he gave up even though technically he had the teacher totally out gunned. There are more scenarios like that but I cannot recall them off the top of my head.

 

Actually Jennifer, after the Columbine incident several years back, many states began requiring schools to have a cop or cops on hand all the time. Virginia is one such state. High Schools are required to have school resource officers on hand, and the number of officers is based on the number of students. Does their presence stop violence at schools? NO! We still have fights. The kids don't care about the fact that he has a gun, stun gun, night stick and handcuffs. They have no respect for the law. Bottom line is that the kids are going to do what they want, regardless who's around. It's all based on the way they were raised. When the kids' parents are criminals, the kids grow up exposed to that and model the behavior.

While not violent, I was shocked my first year of teaching when a new department store opened in town and within 2 days, the kids in my government class were already talking about how to beat their security system so they could steal stuff. I left high school only 8 years ago, and it's changed remarkably since then. Unless our society grows a backbone and starts truly punishing these offenders, the slap on the wrist they currently get is only going to make things worse.

-Matt

 

When I worked in Juvenile Detention, a youth hacked the facilities security systems and caused brief havoc. The superintendent was very pissed off.

 

Good point on kids not respecting authority or being deterred. But then firearms are not intended to be a deterrent, especially if concealed, but instead a means to stop a threat.

 

In a perfect world, there would be a police officer in every school but that's an economic impossibility. Allowing volunteer teachers who pass backgrounds and training to carry firearms would at least give the students a chance. As friendorfoe mentioned, by the time we get to a shooting and engage the shooters, there could be 20+ dead already.

And for those not familiar with the term, "active shooter" is someone with no interest in taking hostages; they simply want to kill as many people as possible. Police had to totally revamp tactics after these high profile incidents and stop setting up a perimeter. The first officers on scene immediately go and engage the shooter.

 

Speaking of guns in school... I caught this on the news just now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26329893/

 

Great points. I agree.


Abner