You still want gun carrying teachers in your schools?

reply to post by thesmokingman

I hate to answer a question with a question, but I feel I have to: How many times has a student suddenly, with no prior indication, pulled a gun out in class and shot a teacher?

I know of none.

How many times has a student walked into an unarmed school and proceeded to fire multiple times over a time span of several minutes?

Many.

The latter is reality; the former is speculation. I'll bet my life and yes, the life of those I love, on reality over speculation any time.

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck
Honestly I don't have a problem what so ever with teachers being armed so long as they are trained and have a permit. There have been armed security guards and armed police officers in our schools ever since that whole Columbine mess.

reply to post by TheRedneck


Ok, so how is a teacher going to stop an armed gunman with plenty of time to plan, from running in and shooting the place up? Keep in mind, most school shooters are actually students. Meaning they know how to get the weapons in, and have had a chance to plan this for months. In fact, Sandy hook, and a shooting in Colorado at a high school, in conifer I believe, are the only ones that I know that were not committed by a student from that school.

it wouldn't be that bad of an idea. but it is scary, i watched the full episode of this the other day. would have to be careful

:

reply to post by littled16

Yes, I should have been clearer on that point: armed only with a legal permit, training, and a background check. I agree with you completely.

TheRedneck

reply to post by thesmokingman

With the simple pull of a trigger, if need be.

But the reality of gun possession is that the mere threat of retaliation will typically avoid most incidents. So far in my life, I have been forced to pull my weapon only once, and have never had to fire it at another human. I also made no secret of the fact that I was armed.

Today, if I enter a school grounds, I am greeted with signs on top of signs proudly declaring that I am entering a gun-free school zone. If I had intent to do harm in that place, these signs would be akin to a red carpet welcome as they are proclaiming that I may do as I wish with impunity until the police arrive, which can take five - ten minutes. On the other hand, if I know that there are people inside the school with the means to protect themselves and the children, I would not be as likely to enter with intent to do harm, seeing as my life is then at stake.

Students are typically not expert marksmen. They are troubled youth who are lashing out in rage at society... hardly sharpshooters. Adults who wish to do harm have the disadvantage of being easily recognized and having to enter through some sort of security system. Put together, that means that students are out-gunned and adults are unable to use the element of surprise. Either is therefore at a disadvantage when facing an armed faculty.

So we can go on, depending on signs and luck to protect our children, or we can diminish the advantages a potential shooter would have under present circumstances and increase the chances of stopping him/her before children can be killed.

So do you still prefer luck and signs?

TheRedneck

Double post

In 1990, it was made a crime to carry a gun onto school property. Now, I have a long-ish memory, but I do not recall really ever hearing about mass shootings in schools prior to 1996 (The orginal law was written in 1990, but was struck down by the Supreme Court, thus it was corrected and voted in 1996 and passed). Low and behold, once we made schools "gun free zones", 3 years later, we had Columbine HS, in Colorado.

Essentially turning Schools into "Fish in a barrel" type places for nutcases to make very ugly grim statements.

There really is no two ways about it. You are never totally safe, even sitting there in your own home, in front of your computer, what is to stop some nutjob kicking in your front door and spraying your living room with bullets?

With great power, comes great responsibility. Be it driving a car, being a nurse and providing patient care, having a machine shop with lots of dangerous tools, or owning/carrying a firearm (Firearm being a pistol, revolver, rifle, shotgun, etc). Just as you would not leave your table-saw plugged in, and with no safe-guards in place, you wouldn't leave your firearm laying around...... if your a responsible person.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you fine people, but I keep seeing an underlying tone to almost everything lately, be it the mass-shooters, or the negligent parents, to drunk drivers, or the morons running the country.. The drunk drivers, the negligent parents, tho, are held accountable for their misdeeds, but the mass-shooters, and the morons running the country seem to think it wasn't their fault.. It was the guns fault, or it was someone else's fault. Personal responsibility applies, as does common sense, logic, and accountability, unless your a mass-shooter, or a politician.

If your legally allowed to carry a gun, and want to.. by all means, just get the training, and the mindset straight to do so. It's actually not a bad thing, considering according to the Supreme Court, the police are not there for your personal protection.

So, in essence, and to wrap up: Your responsible for your actions, and your own safety.
Here are the sources:
Ban on guns in schools.
Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone

-Cyg
(Fyi: Yes, I own firearms)

reply to post by thesmokingman


A school staff member could be a janitor... a groundskeeper.. etc I highly doubt the "staff member" is a teacher. To answer your question... YES, I have no problem with armed teachers.

No such thing as an accidental discharge. Only negligent or intentional discharges.

Somebody was doing something stupid to cause the gun to fire.

From what I've experienced with these "Jacks Security" type companies the dont exactly employ the best and brightest. Their hires fall somewhere between pizza delivery personnel and beat cops. Neither of which are known for their responsible and intelligent behavior.

The man was trying to store his handgun in the glove box when it fired, striking the student in the leg, police said.

Right there. He was fiddling with it. The muzzle was sweeping everything in the world and the motion of placing it the glove compartment was just asking for the trigger to be hooked.

And, yes, I still want an end to "gun free" zones.

reply to post by thesmokingman

Is that not against the law?

In CO, it is legal to have a handgun in your vehicle, without a CCW permit. However, it is ILLEGAL to have a round chambered (which he obviously did) while doing so. So yes, he was breaking the law. Oddly enough, I didn't see any limitations for location (like schools, etc.) like there are in many other states. Regardless though, by having it loaded, he was breaking the law. Of course, if doing armed security, he also likely has a certain license to go armed, so this license may override the normal statute. You'd have to check the provisions of the license to be certain.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

No such thing as an accidental discharge. Only negligent or intentional discharges.

Fully agree. First, he failed to confirm the safety was on (or didn't have one). Second, he was storing a loaded weapon near a minor. Third, he failed to keep the barrel pointing away from another human being. Only doing ONE of those correctly would have avoided this, yet making all THREE mistakes ended up in the shooting.

reply to post by thesmokingman

A student reaches down and draws a weapon, and shoots the teacher. It happens that quickly. The teacher did not have time to react because it literally takes less than a second to pull a gun out and fire it. So question is, how would this armed teacher stop this from happening? Is it not a much more ideal solution to just install metal detectors in EVERY school?

If the school has metal detectors at the entrances the same could be said for the personnel who are operating the detectors. It would only take a few seconds to drop the security guards and enter the school, walking right through the detector and setting it off. The upside of shooting the guards instead of other school staff is that the staff is now alerted that someone is shooting in the school, or at least that the metal detectors are blaring.

Therefore, I conclude that the ideal situation to avoid a school shooting would be metal detectors at the door, and some sort of armed staff distributed throughout the school. Teachers would be ideal, because they are already positioned everywhere. I would also trust teachers more than a rent-a-cop security firm.

reply to post by thesmokingman


Fact: Accidents do happen.

Yet you seem to be suggesting that due to an accident the idea of arming and training teachers is not a good idea at all.... because of an accident.

Do I really have to point out the lack of logic with your argument? Police carry guns and even Police have gun accidents. So using your logic, should we just remove guns from Police as well in order to prevent accidents? At what point does it end? People have accidents in cars. Even more than gun accidents. Should we remove cars from society? Maybe go back to the days of a horse and buggy? Oh wait... people have had accidents on horses as well. So maybe we should just walk. Oh wait, people have had accidents walking. Maybe we should all just stay home and be protected from ourselves.

Originally posted by Kharron
...why are we trying to get countries not to have nuclear power, we should be putting effort into educating them how to use it right. After all, nuclear weapons don't kill people, people who misuse them do.

Don't be obtuse, you know very well why a gun is DIFFERENT from nuclear arms. A gun can only kill so many people at a given time. Nuclear arms has the potential to do FAR greater damage. If Hiroshima was caused by an AK-47, I'd be wanting guns banned too. But they don't.

The employee, who has not been identified, was going to give a student a ride home in his pickup about 4:30 p.m. The man was trying to store his handgun in the glove box when it fired, striking the student in the leg, police said.

Sorry, but really, your whole premise for this thread is wrong.
This could have been anyone, any parent, with a concealed weapons permit, putting the gun in the glove compartment, at any location.

Yes, it happened on school grounds, but it had nothing to do with guns in schools.

YES. Of course. It is the only rational approach to school safety, by the way, the sane among us are for ANY trained, armed, presence in the schools. Could be teachers, administration, armed school resource officers (who are already in almost every high school of any size.

reply to post by MrWendal

Fact: Accidents do happen.

This was no accident. It was a willful violation of Colorado law (having the handgun loaded while in the car), and a negligent violation of general safety rules of handling a firearm. Such idiots give legitimate gun owners a bad name, and then leads to knee-jerk legislation that simply has no effect on actual crime, but merely hampers the industry.

reply to post by chiefsmom

This could have been anyone, any parent, with a concealed weapons permit, putting the gun in the glove compartment, at any location.

Under CO law, you don't even need a CCW to have a pistol in your vehicle. You simply can't have it loaded with a round chambered. He did...however. (and failed to check the safety, and failed to point it away from a person).

reply to post by Gazrok

Perhaps an accident in that the shooter in this case did not have intent to harm the victim; certainly no accident in that, as you say, he was somewhat reckless with the firearm. I always refer back to my daddy's three laws of gun safety:

• Always treat every gun as if it were loaded
  
• Never point at anything you do not wish to kill
  
• Only kill for food or defense.

The first two were violated. A loaded gun not intended for immediate actual use should always have the safety on. The gun was obviously pointed toward the victim's leg at some point. Thankfully the victim will survive, since the shooting was not for defense.

So whether by law as you say or by common firearm sense as I say, the result is the same. This was an accidental shooting brought about by deliberate recklessness.

"Most accidents are not accidental" - my father

TheRedneck