Arm the teachers
Security guards are different, but even then I'd want to see statistics.
Security guards would be different -- less training and increases the number of employees for no good purpose. Far less expensive and better to train the teachers and pay them a premium.
Security guards are different, but even then I'd want to see statistics.
It's not about casually handing out pistols to all school employees whether the want one or not. It's about allowing them to have a concealed handgun on their person if they have a CCW (carry permit) and are willing to.
Armed security guards would work, too, but at an added expense.
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"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson
And again:
Imagine that you ran a school district, and some rich foundation, worried about school shootings, gave you the following offer: We’ll hire armed security guards for you, who could try to do something about the school shooter. These aren’t going to be highly trained police officers, just typical security guards, given some modest training and subjected to basic background checks. It’s not like they’re highly skilled; security guards rarely are. But they have a basic understanding of how to shoot, and when to shoot.
They wouldn’t deal with ordinary trespassing, vandalism, and the like, nor would they be at all guaranteed to be effective in the event of a school shooting (who can offer such a guarantee?). But they’d provide someone on the ground who could try to interrupt a killing spree. And the foundation is paying, so it’s virtually no cost to the district. Would you say yes?
I imagine that you probably would. You probably wouldn’t much worry, for instance, that the guard would go crazy and himself start shooting — theoretically possible, to be sure, but unlikely. You’d figure that someone who can defend the school with a gun during an attack (as opposed to the police, who will come in many precious minutes after the attack begins) is better than no-one.
Nor would you object in principle about there being a gun in school, since it’s in the right hands. Just like people who have money often pay for armed neighborhood-wide security patrols, and don’t insist on the unarmed kind or no patrol at all, you’d probably think that this free security guard would probably be helpful.
But wait! The foundation has just learned that its investment portfolio has done very badly, and the grant doesn’t go through. But someone else suggests: Instead of hiring special-purpose security guards, why not take some of your existing employees — teachers, administrators, and the like — and offer them a deal: They’d go through some modest training and subjected to basic background checks, and in exchange they’d be given the right to carry the same guns that the security guards would have had.
Indeed, this way you could have not just one security guard but several (if several staff members sign up). And you might get people to do this even without paying them, since they might value the ability to defend themselves and to not be sitting ducks should the worst happen. (If there’s some union contract or labor law that precludes that, that can of course be changed, if people think this is a good idea.) Maybe Assistant Principal Joel Myrick, who confronted the Pearl, Mississippi high school shooter with a gun, after Myrick went to the car to get it, might have participated in such a program if it had existed, and had let him keep the gun in school.
And no need to call the licenses given to those who participate in the program “concealed carry” licenses, just in case some parents and others don’t like the concept. Just call them “volunteer security guard” licenses, though you might expect that most people who sign up for this will also have licenses to concealed carry on the street. Of course, if a killer does show up, maybe some of these volunteer security guards will just cower in the corner rather than trying to defend the students, or attack the killer. But it seems more likely that someone will confront and try to stop the killer if that someone is armed then if that person is disarmed.
What’s your answer to that? Is there some reason why the armed security guard is safe and helpful, but the armed teacher, administrator, or staffer — er, the teacher with a volunteer security guard license — would be useless and a menace?
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Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer.
- Rick Sanchez
I'll throw this one in just to drive home the point:
Given how the media go to great lengths to paint gun owners in the worst possible light, if collateral injury or death were common in defensive gun uses, they’d constantly be highlighted on the evening news. The very fact that there are no (or so few) such incidents is a testament to their rarity. Like so many professed fears of the anti-gun crowd, this isn’t founded in reality.
That said, if an armed citizen should stop an active shooter, but inadvertently wounds or kills a bystander, the bystander was still within the danger zone created by the active shooter. That injury or death would have to be weighed against the lives saved by ending the threat, particularly if the criminal was a likely spree killer.
Further, the individual defending himself has a moral right to armed self-defense. If an innocent bystander is hurt or killed in the process, our laws recognize that that death is the fault of the criminal, not the person defending their own life. Expecting a man or woman to be defenseless in order to prevent the theoretically possible injury or death of someone else is itself immoral. An individual may choose to hold their fire, but they are not obligated to, either morally or legally.
A person bent on murder is by nature a greater threat to the innocent than someone engaged in self defense. To spell it out for those driven by emotion rather than logic, a spree killer who succeeds in killing looks for another target, a defensive shooter stops shooting once the threat is neutralized.
Spree shooters who meet no resistance kill far more than those who are actively opposed. As an example consider two incidents, one in a mall in Oregon, the other in a school in Connecticut. At the shopping mall, the active shooter was held to two victims by a man with a firearm. At the school, the gun free zone allowed the murderer to take down over ten times that amount. At least two adults confronted the killer in the school. Unarmed, they were simply shot down.
This sad calculus is born out over the history of mass shootings. It’s almost always someone with a gun – police or an armed citizen – that stops a spree killer, and the sooner they are stopped, the more lives are saved.
Bad guys with guns are only stopped by good guys with guns, and cops aren’t the only good guys. Like so many other concerns about firearms in the hands of private citizens, the actual statistical value of an armed citizen opposing a mass murderer is real, and the downside of innocent bystanders being struck is only theoretical. The armed citizen mowing down a crowd is a myth – it simply doesn’t happen in any statistically meaningful way. This myth like all the other myths about self-defense with a firearm should have no bearing in a debate about banning gun free zones.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/1 ... ore-179761
I'll add that in all my years of following gun related stories in the media, I've never heard of a licensed shooter hitting an innocent bystander during a defensive gun use; it may have happened some time some where, but we're talking beyond statistically irrelevant here. People have a lot more to worry about from the police spraying lead around than they do private citizens; the police don't go to jail when they miss their target.
_________________
Your boos mean nothing, I've seen what makes you cheer.
- Rick Sanchez
Now this is a smart move. Are the police actively working with schools, involvement in school grounds on school rules as well? Truancy, Bullying & Drugs would all be effectively lowered or stopped completely for both the benefits of pupil and teacher.
Pulled this up on our state after quick search:
"School resource officers are based in schools to get to know students, deter and handle criminal matters, and speak in classes on safety and other issues. In Pennsylvania, 89 districts and four vocational-technical schools have school resource officers."
Ooccoo
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 12 Dec 2012
Age: 29
Gender: Male
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Location: South Wales
Banning, or limiting, guns will NOT solve the problem, that is clear to see when you look at there fact there is still gun crime in countries where guns are outlawed. But whilst it's clear to see the availability of guns isn't the root of the actual problem, it's also clear to see that it is the cause for the number of gun crimes in America to be much higher than places where guns are limited or banned.
I'm not claiming to know everything about guns, and I know that the vast majority of gun owners are sensible mature people, but I really don't think having MORE guns is going to bring down gun crime. Outlawing guns in America now is nigh on impossible, due to the vast number of people with guns who will do all they can to keep them. But more control and regulations over the sale of guns would help bring the gun crime rate down.
I also find the "they'll always have ways, such as knifes" argument to be a little redundant myself. Yes there are other weapons, and yes guns are one of the best defence weapons, but the fact remains that guns are the most deadly, effective and efficient weapon to use for these kind of tragedies. Someone with a knife is a lot easier to stop than someone with a gun, as shown from the fact that most knife crimes have less victims than gun ones, usually. I know a lot of you will go running to the knife attack in China that injured 22 children on the same day. But let me repeat that again: "knife attack in China that injured 22 children" Notice a big difference between the Newtown tragedy and the China knife one? In the China one, there was no deaths.
So in summary, I agree that gun control will not outright fix the problem, but it will cut down on the number of gun crimes in America. I also feel that it's too late to take guns away from America, simply because a LOT of people have them, to the point that it'd be impossible. However, stricter gun control, particularly in the sale and trade of guns, will help cut numbers down
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CyborgUprising
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Now teachers can "take care of"heir troublesome students...
I can seriously see this happening: Student is irking teacher for far too long, draws a manhood on the chalkboard and the teacher pulls out her rusty-trusty .38 and blows a hole through the kid's cranium. Perhaps having armed security personnel in the classroom with teachers, but I'm not terribly comfortable with teachers (who often have biases for and against some students) "packing heat."
[quote="CyborgUprising"]Now teachers can "take care of"heir troublesome students...
I can seriously see this happening: Student is irking teacher for far too long, draws a manhood on the chalkboard and the teacher pulls out her rusty-trusty .38 and blows a hole through the kid's cranium. Perhaps having armed security personnel in the classroom with teachers, but I'm not terribly comfortable with teachers (who often have biases for and against some students) "packing heat."[/quote
Not much faith in teachers, eh?
On top of that it looks like you want to put an armed security guard in each classroom. My question on that is who's gonna pay for it and what if the security guard goes off and starts capping students? Some of them are mall ninja's to start with, you know....
_________________
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson
I can seriously see this happening: Student is irking teacher for far too long, draws a manhood on the chalkboard and the teacher pulls out her rusty-trusty .38 and blows a hole through the kid's cranium. Perhaps having armed security personnel in the classroom with teachers, but I'm not terribly comfortable with teachers (who often have biases for and against some students) "packing heat."
I doubt that would happen.
Remember that the school administration has to give the teachers permission to go to school armed. If a teacher is getting that crazy, they are sure to withdraw that permission.
CyborgUprising
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Joined: 16 Jun 2012
Age: 36
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,963
Location: auf der Fahrt durch Niemandsland
I can seriously see this happening: Student is irking teacher for far too long, draws a manhood on the chalkboard and the teacher pulls out her rusty-trusty .38 and blows a hole through the kid's cranium. Perhaps having armed security personnel in the classroom with teachers, but I'm not terribly comfortable with teachers (who often have biases for and against some students) "packing heat."[/quote
Not much faith in teachers, eh?
On top of that it looks like you want to put an armed security guard in each classroom. My question on that is who's gonna pay for it and what if the security guard goes off and starts capping students? Some of them are mall ninja's to start with, you know....
I've heard enough teachers tell "horror stories" about the students in their classes and which ones they hate to know they aren't all innocent and rosy.
CyborgUprising
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Joined: 16 Jun 2012
Age: 36
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Posts: 2,963
Location: auf der Fahrt durch Niemandsland
I can seriously see this happening: Student is irking teacher for far too long, draws a manhood on the chalkboard and the teacher pulls out her rusty-trusty .38 and blows a hole through the kid's cranium. Perhaps having armed security personnel in the classroom with teachers, but I'm not terribly comfortable with teachers (who often have biases for and against some students) "packing heat."
I doubt that would happen.
Remember that the school administration has to give the teachers permission to go to school armed. If a teacher is getting that crazy, they are sure to withdraw that permission.
All it takes is one occurrence. Who would have thought kids would be mowing down other kids in a school (before it happened for the first time)? It cannot be denied that it is a possibility. Couple that with the risk of so-called "friendly-fire..."
Last edited by CyborgUprising on 19 Dec 2012, 7:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
If you see a security guard with the training of the state or federal police, then the security guard is a retired state or federal police officer or he was fired from being a state or federal police officer for cause.
Becoming a security guard requires a training course, and the depth of said course depends on the actual line of work. This is in the US, and most Western countries. There's no reason to assume that an armed security guard is in any way less proficient in comparison to a state or federal officer (back in my competitive shooting days, the security guards tended to be better than the state police, so their training there was equal or better to that of the state police); a single anecdote, but it's still relevant).
State and federal police have a larger area of training due to their greater responsibilities (hence, longer courses), but again, one shouldn't assume that the actual training institutions are any less professional just because one is private (though government approved) and the other is government run.
If you see a security guard with the training of the state or federal police, then the security guard is a retired state or federal police officer or he was fired from being a state or federal police officer for cause.
Becoming a security guard requires a training course, and the depth of said course depends on the actual line of work. This is in the US, and most Western countries. There's no reason to assume that an armed security guard is in any way less proficient in comparison to a state or federal officer (back in my competitive shooting days, the security guards tended to be better than the state police, so their training there was equal or better to that of the state police); a single anecdote, but it's still relevant).
State and federal police have a larger area of training due to their greater responsibilities (hence, longer courses), but again, one shouldn't assume that the actual training institutions are any less professional just because one is private (though government approved) and the other is government run.
As I understand it, many states, but by no means all states, require a minimum amount of training for security guards. The training, when it is required, can often be completed in something like one to three days.
It's immaterial, and also illogical to assume that armed adults will go off the deep end for the simple reason of being armed when it's likely that they'll go off the deep end anyway with their private arms if they're predisposed to this.
Police often don't (nearly all cases), and they're no more of sound mind than other state or federal employees (such as teachers) in regards to requirements to be one.
It depends on the actual security job though. An unarmed individual walking around a high dollar clothing store doesn't need much training in comparison to an armored car guard. The latter can have training equal or greater to a standard police officer regarding employment of defensive measures, for example.