http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40353408 Armed teachers in Colorado schools. Is more guns in schools a good thing? How long before a teacher shoots student or a student takes the gun and shoots someone else?
In my state of Utah, it's illegal to ask a teacher if they are a concealed carrier. I think it's for the best so no list exists of any teachers may have a weapon on them one could steal. To me, that's the greater worry. I don't know if I would want an intentional increase in armed teachers as the risk doesn't seem to call for that, but I am the type to feel safer if I can trust a decent person to be carrying.
My state allows teachers to carry concealed weapons on a district by district basis. So, if you teach in School System A, you can have a holstered gun under your jacket, but School System B is another story. I think about 45 school districts allow this so far. Mine is not one of them, nor would I request a permit if I was given the opportunity.
I think that it's a terrible idea to arm teachers in general. There may be a few very specific situations where I'd be okay with it provided that the teachers were given extensive training.
I suppose I see a difference between arming teachers and allowing teachers to be armed. I'm not sure I care for the former. Arming teachers, basically telling them to "hey, be prepared" seems to be calling for trouble. Rather, a person who has been trained to carry under circumstances and simply sees it at as another part of his life is probably going to take things more in stride.
There's so much complexity in the situations that might lead a teacher to use a firearm that it's impossible to say whether it would help across the board or make things worse. Case in point, what happened at my high school a few years back. A freshman boy held his health class hostage with a gun owned by his father. He shot into the ceiling (luckily that part of the building doesn't have a second floor), so it was loaded. What ended the situation wasn't a gun, or the resource officer, or the SWAT team, it was the teacher. The teacher was a newbie who had student-taught with that boy's class the year before and formed a relationship with him. That relationship allowed him to talk the kid down a bit, enough to tackle him and then another student kicked the gun out of reach. No one was hurt, but that kid might be dead now if teachers were armed. But, I recognize that that's just one incident. I'm in agreement there. I've had family required to carry at all times and they were so discreet about it that I was probably 20 before I knew. I had a decent number of teachers who were military or national guard and I'd be considerably more comfortable with them concealed carrying than most of the others.
I'm in Colorado. Let me start by saying that in general I'm about as anti-gun as it gets. I wish we would ban them all together, but I realize realistically that would never happen. That said, the districts that are implementing this are extremely rural districts where the nearest police departments are 45 minutes away or more. In that case I can at least understand the argument that they want to be able to defend themselves rather than waiting 45 minutes for police to arrive. Obviously the more logical option is to have an armed police officer/guard as a completely separate position for each school, but school funding is absolutely abysmal here and schools can't even fund basic teaching positions, so there is no way they can afford to add extra positions, especially if they have teachers that want to act as "guards" themselves while teaching at the same time. I'm not sure I agree with this "solution" but I do understand they're in a tough position, especially when you consider that there have been 5 school shootings with fatalities in Colorado alone. There is another district just south of mine that has gotten a lot of national attention for all of their political nonsense. Their school board was taken over by tea party members many years ago in an effort to establish a "reform model" district. One story that got quite a lot of attention was the fact that they ranked teaching positions in "order of importance" and pay people accordingly. For example, K and 1 teachers make more than 2nd-5th grade teachers. Anyway, this district was also proposing to arm teachers, although I haven't heard if they've been able to follow through. One of my teammates was a sped teacher there and she was told that sped teachers would be armed first because we're used to dealing with chaotic situations. This is a suburb of a major metro area and IMO there is absolutely no excuse for their teachers to be armed. I honestly don't know if I could work in a building where I knew that teachers were armed. I'd be worried both about students getting access to the weapons and about teachers having mental breakdowns and using the weapons inappropriately.
This indeed is a better understanding of the situation and in light of this information I am absolutely in favor of what they are doing. It is important to realize that people in rural or remote areas don't often have the luxury of police coming in a few minutes.
Please remember that we have a no politics policy on the forum. Details may be found here. This policy predates my joining AtoZ, let alone my becoming a moderator, so no shooting the messenger / reminder, okay?
I don't remember the second amendment saying anything about carrying guns in schools. I doubt if that was an intention of the founding fathers when they crafted the constitution.
Considering there were no public schools, at least in the same vein as today... But that was written after the war... the philosophy as I understand it was for protection against troublesome government in general, not the Brits. I'm curious, is there research specific to Britain on this (that won't delve too politically via site rules, but now my curiosity is piqued.)
My understanding (and I am happy to be corrected) is that the 2nd amendment was to allow the formation of militias to repel invasion. At the time the only country who was likely to be a threat was Great Britain.
You know, there's no LGBTQ rights mentioned in the first amendment, so what do you think the founding fathers intended about gay marriage? I don't see anything about abortion in there. Come to think of it, they didn't even say one word about cyber-bullying!
There's no wording about invasions. Perhaps we should find documentation of discussion at the time to say one way or another?
Guns don't protect; people protect. A defender who hesitates while holding a gun just provided that gun to the assailant. Police and military need to be trained to overcome the natural hesitation in killing. Police are also trained that you do not shoot to maim, you shoot to kill. The assailants have received extensive training through excessive use of violent video games which research indicates 1. strengthens the lower brain, 2. weakens the upper brain, 3. eliminates the natural hesitancy to shoot, 4. perfects aim, 5. teaches to aim at the head (police and military aim at the mid-section), 6. teaches to achieve personal satisfaction including aggressive sexual satisfaction from violence, 7. teaches strategies for success from any possible hindrance, and 8. some games even provide extra points for suicide at the end of the shooting spree. Meanwhile, I've seen many, many, many teachers who do not control their temper in administering normal "disciplinary" procedures; could a teacher lose control during a temper tantrum and perhaps.... My thoughts are yes, perhaps it will come or has come to the point of armed personnel in a school facility, but perhaps arming the teachers isn't the most advantageous or safest route.
This discussion is about arming teachers. Throwing out gay marriage, LGBTQ rights and so forth is an unrelated distraction. Resorting to this tactic instead of addressing the real issue reveals just how weak a second amendment arguement is. Maybe you or others can cite some reasonable support for arming teachers.
OK, I'm gonna call a little BS on all this. The first and most glaring piece of BS here is point number 8. I've been playing video games a LONG time, and I haven't heard of a game that encourages players to kill themselves. So if you could provide an example, that'd be great. Also, as I said I've played video games a LONG time, mostly FPS(that's first person shooters), and I can safely say that I've never once had the urge to go out and shoot up anyplace. As a gun owner, I can also safely say that video games are in no way training for real world type stuff. Is it possible that violent video games have SOME effect on SOME kids? Yes. However, I think that kids who would be affected by games like this already have some sort of issues to begin with.
This is a valid counter-argument. A co-worker of mine is an avid video game fan, and he's also concerned about the negative reputation video games are obtaining. However, with teenagers and young adults, whose brains are still developing, if they play video games excessively, there is research that indicates a correlation between brain damage and the games, and other research does indicate a correlation between excessive gaming and violent behavior, especially relating to recent shootings (see sources below). I must agree with you, too, that gaming is only one factor in any situation: one fallacy of statistical research is to focus on just one factor and ignore the entirety of environmental influences. Personally, with appreciation for your comments, I do fear that excessive violent gaming is harmfully educating young people towards acting out violently, but the main point of my above comments was to ask if armed teachers would be fully prepared up against an assailant who is more prepared to attack. I'm not so sure. A gun can be an excellent weapon of defense, but it can also become a hindrance in protection, too, if the defender is less capable than the attacker. In school settings, if a weaponed defense is necessary, I would prefer trained guards rather than armed teachers. Sources: Eagleman, David. The Brain. Pantheon Books, New York: 2015 (This book contains a section describing adolescent and young adult brain development). Grossman, Lt. Col. Dave, Kristine Paulsen, and Katie Miserany. Assassination Generation: Video Games, Aggression, and the Psychology of Killing. N.Y.: Little, Brown and Co., 2016 (In my reference to points for suicide, I was relying on my memory; now your post made me curious to go back to the library and double check my recollection of what I read on that specific point, but as I do recall, some games do encourage suicide).
In responding to this, I want to be sure I'm not misunderstood. I am not criticizing your comment. I'm just expressing an idea I've been tossing around in my head for awhile. Concerning not being able to afford trained personnel for guarding safety in a school, and for that matter, concerning not being able to afford other school necessities, my question is why not? Other stuff seems to find needed funding. Perhaps it is a matter of priorities. What's more important? Should school safety and education overrule other expenditures? But I also wonder if funding could be achieved through other methods rather than just governmental expenditures. The students are the future consumers. It would seem that to ensure a more profitable future, businesses would do well to invest in schools, perhaps shaving off from what they currently spend on advertising in order to support the future consumer. Concerned parents who can afford to do so could donate a little more: if every parent donated one extra dollar to a school system, that little bit would give an extra boost--what if it was just $1.00 per month? In other words, there are other sources of financing aside from governmental financing.
It's not unrelated, and it's not a distraction--it was a direct response to the flawed logic of this facile assertion made by you: Your claim was that the founding fathers didn't intend to have guns in schools. My examples show that there are lots of situations in the 21st century that aren't explicitly stated in the constitution, but nevertheless, the constitution applies. I even used the same construction as you did, albeit with some hyperbole for color.
It will happen. Someone will be shot. Maybe courts will favor teachers the way they do cops, but I doubt it. Three days of training. It's great to see legislators invest in public education and focus on the best possible outcomes for kids. Will teachers be paid more for the additional ENORMOUS responsibility? Kinda doubt it. Will Colorado have money set aside for guns, ammunition, equipment, ongoing training, upgraded discipline structures, and legal defense? It's bad enough when a teacher snaps and grabs a kid by the neck. Imagine when one snaps and shoots a kid. But we will see. Maybe it will work out, after all.
But we're talking rural communities. What businesses? What families? My in-laws live in such a community, my niece attending an incredibly small school. Generally speaking, most people are first and foremost farmers and ranchers. There are no businesses of any significant size in this community. And there just aren't enough people to chip in without going broke to pay for an armed officer. (Again, Utah, so it's very possible school staff is carrying and there's nothing illegal about it and that's that.) But with any greater likelihood than any other in person in any other walk of life? What makes teachers or students so much more likely to shoot?
Because I would want people with guns around my kids. We all should. Hell, we should arm the kids, too!
The erosion of the nuclear family and disengaged parents are far more harmful than all media put together. Kids do not kill because of video games; the video games are but another symptom of greater emotional and developmental issues.
I'm more prone to the believe there a lot more normal, decent people carrying guns all the time around your kids. Just the criminal percentage of the population being what it is. What about back in the 80s, 90s, and before that where kids always had their sport rifles and shotguns in their cars at school so they could go practice/hunt after school?
In the 1800's, a parent stayed at home with the children. Hell, that was often the case until the 1980's. There were no electronic distractions. Religion, poverty, and a lack of air conditioning forced people to socialize and harmonize. To suggest we are as self-reliant and responsible today is inane. To suggest we are better people when guns are thrown into the mix is insane.
When you propose the source of responsibility and self-reliance is a gun, you have a warped sense of both courage and morality, and no place around children.
I don't think anyone is saying the gun is the ultimate source, but this new philosophy of get rid of all guns is a marginalizing, narrow view of the world that ignores diversity and different cultures. And yes, "gun culture" may be crucial to cultures that aren't your own. The fact is, many, many people have been able to safely include gun ownership as part of a culture of self-reliance. Farmers, ranchers, those who live off the land, those in cities where self-protection needs to happen quickly, those who don't have the physical strength or training to just beat up an attacker.
I do agree that things like video games or movies could be playing a part in desensitizing kids to things that should be reprehensible to most decent people. I also agree that focusing on just that is not going to help anything. If we're going to talk about arming teachers, then there needs to be MUCH more training than something like 3 days worth. There needs to be weeks, if not months of training for teachers that are going to take on this responsibility. They need a level of training that is similar in length and rigor to what police departments get. Not saying that will make anyone ready to need to use their gun to stop a lunatic threatening their school, but it might give them a better chance. I've talked to my wife about this, and I've said that IF my school or school district was going to implement arming teachers, I'd really want to be a part of the group that made the policies for them. I feel like, as a gun owner myself, I'd want to make sure that nobody tried to include any stupid ideas. I don't recall ever hearing about a game that encouraged suicide, much less ever playing one like that. Not saying that there's not one out there, as I admit I'm not the world's foremost expert on video games
Yes, that is true. I was just thinking examples of possibilities that might not apply to all communities. Concerning businesses who could support schools, (and some do already), I'm thinking major U.S. businesses. Not just stores, either. Their future survival depends on a strong consumer, a strong workforce, and a strong society. Focusing just on supporting trained school guards, if this would quell the resulting chaos from school violence, society would be supported: if the current chaos flourishes, it could lead to more chaotic behavior even outside of school; this will ultimately hurt big businesses and the entire economy. What if Macy's, IBM, Google, or whoever partnered with a rural school system for support? But other possibilities come to my mind, also. Our area uses retired police personnel as guards. Screened volunteers are a possibility. Non-working parents could start a small business and donate their profit to a school system. Maybe I'm being too idealistic, and like I said, it's just an idea that's been tossing around in my head for awhile, but somehow I think if there's a need and if there's a concern there's also a way to meet that need and concern. Another thought, which I've posted previously a few months ago, I wonder what would result from think tanks consisting of people of a variety of skills and professions meeting together, various groups around the country (or world), and these groups sharing their ideas with each other. Ideas, even unworkable ideas, are what lead to other ideas and solutions. Perhaps firearms aren't the only possible solution. Perhaps another system, device, chemical, something never even thought of or used before, could provide just as much protection if not even more, and perhaps even non-lethally.
I see where you're going with that, and I'm certain many communities could figure out options. But if a certain community finds X to be the best solution for them without any concerns of their own (and not just another community telling them how to do things) why replace that solution?
Kids were taking their guns to school when I was a teen. Never an issue. Except when the boys would cut class to go hunting. Suburban school in one of the largest cities in the state. I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that some of students have guns on them. There are some kids that just should not be out in the general population, period. But honestly, if they are going to shoot up the school, they'll do it regardless of any laws. There is a slight chance that a couple of them might just see a gun on a hip as an opportunity, but overall, they'd have no problem getting a gun if they wanted to.
FYI, concealed carry permit holders are the most law-abiding citizens in the United States--they have a lower crime rate even than police officers. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2814691
Husband (who is only 32) grew up in Middle of Nowhere. He attended a 3-room school house up until high school age. The kids always had guns. They finally learned not to do so when another kid who went to a bigger town for high school got in a ton of trouble when they found his habitual rifle in his car. And apparently he was a Golden Child, Student Body President or something. Note to kids of Middle of Nowhere: when you leave town for high school, don't bring your gun to school.
You haven't looked very hard then. The earliest school shooting in the US happened in 1764 when four Lenape shot the teacher and nine students in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. There were other incidents like that all along. In 1871, a kid died from an accidental shooting at school in Knoxville. There was another accidental shooting in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1878. A girl was killed in 1911 with what was supposed to be an unloaded gun used as a prop in the school play. Heck, a disgruntled janitor blew up a school in Michigan in the 20s.
