How is a new law that will effect millions of people any more enforceable then immigration law and any more sensible then the war on drugs?

Won't this potentially make millions of Americans criminals?

How can we send them to jail, or even attempt to if we can't do the same for the millions of illegal immigrants?

How can we call a gun owner with no criminal record, that has never hurt anyone with a gun a criminal and send him to an already over burdened prison system?

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Member formally known as AC59

Posting this in the relevant threads, since we basically have 3 separate threads all going about the same subject...(Maybe they should all get merged, mods?)

Alright, all you "OMG ARE YOU NUTS, YOU WANT TEACHERS TO CARRY FIREARMS?!" people; put this in your pipe and smoke it. The last couple of days, there has been a post going around the internet with a list of incidents where private citizens/off-duty cops/etc. prevented shootings from being worse than they otherwise would have been at schools, malls, etc. There were no sources on those stories, though; so I dug them up. I'd say there is DEFINITELY a case to be made that we should arm teachers that are comfortable with it, and have appropriate training.

A 1997 high school shooting in Pearl, Miss., was halted by the school's vice principal after he retrieved the Colt .45 he kept in his truck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

A 1998 middle school shooting ended when a man living next door heard gunfire and apprehended the shooter with his shotgun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Mid ... e_shooting

A 2002 terrorist attack at an Israeli school was quickly stopped by an armed teacher and a school guard.
Can't find a source for this one. Probably because it wasn't big news since it was prevented, and most news sources wouldn't be in English?

A 2002 law school shooting in Grundy, Va., came to an abrupt conclusion when students carrying firearms confronted the shooter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia ... w_shooting

A 2007 mall shooting in Ogden, Utah, ended when an armed off-duty police officer intervened.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_Square_shooting

A 2009 workplace shooting in Houston, Texas, was halted by two coworkers who carried concealed handguns.
Can't find. Probably under-reported due to no deaths? Possibly a bogus one, who knows.

A 2012 church shooting in Aurora, Colo., was stopped by a member of the congregation carrying a gun.
http://freedomoutpost.com/2012/07/the-a ... the-media/

At the recent mall shooting in Portland, Ore., the gunman took his own life minutes after being confronted by a shopper carrying a concealed weapon.
http://www.infowars.com/report-armed-ma ... -shooting/

There are probably a LOT more incidents like this that virtually no one has ever heard about if nobody was killed, but for obvious reasons, that's a difficult thing to verify.

I think this is just as misleading and misguided as citing the cases where legally owned firearms are stolen and used in crimes (including this case). While some crimes may be stopped with legally owned weapons, statistically more crimes are perpetrated with stolen firearms. And even more deaths occur from accidental shootings.

It is difficult to prove a negative. Hard to determine how many crimes are prevented because of armed citizens (just like proving how many terrorist attacks prevented from searches at the airport).

As much as we would like there to be an easy solution (ban all guns, arm every teacher, genetic testing for "crazy gene") sometimes there isn't one.

Coach78, are you talking about stolen firearms, or just illegally obtained ones? There is a difference, if you're talking about firearms stolen from someone's home compared to buying stolen "fell off the back of a truck" guns on the street.

How is it misleading? People arguing against arming teachers don't acknowledge the possibility that armed teachers could theoretically, feasibly stop a shooting in progress, or even prevent school shooting from happenings in the first place. Roland simply presented the fact that guns have been used numerous times to stop mass murder from being more massive.

The fact is that there is an easy solution. It's just unacceptable to many people because of their political beliefs.

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Arming teachers is about as much of an option as banning guns altogether (and to the same extreme).

And can we please not act like arming teachers is an easy solution. Having a gun in the classroom for the very off chance of a school shooting just is asking for trouble. Having an armed police officer who is trained (as his profession) and can help in the day to day security is an easy idea. My high school had a police officer and although there was never an incident with a student bringing a gun, he would break up the random fights and terrorize the kids who got high in between class.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

I never said it would be an easy solution, though the only reason it's not is because of people's misplaced political beliefs. Sort of like building nuclear power plants. Takes 25 times longer than it should because of the liberals fighting against making Americans glow green at night.

Arming all adults would be as extreme as banning all guns. Arming a few selected volunteers is not.

Have you ever held a gun? Fired a gun? I don't understand why you default to the position that people must be incompetent to handle guns if they are not currently employed by a police department. Do you think teachers cannot be trained? Do you think there are no former cops or military serving as teachers now?

As I have said many times before, I am not opposed to having cops at schools (just as I am not opposed to hardened classrooms). I am opposed to having only one cop at a school, and him being the only armed guy on school property.

If there is only a "very off chance" of school shootings happening, why do anything? Why bother looking at root causes? It's such a rare phenomenon... gimme a break.

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This issue, arming the teachers, when you step away from it, really is America's jumping the shark moment after the Newtown incident. A crazy person stole a gun and shot children with it. The response: install more guns in schools. Let's instill the idea from pre-school up that guns are a symbol of power, authority, and control. That way when the loners look to regain power after being bullied they won't have any second thoughts on where to find it.

We are one crazy country...

Fixed that for you.

How do you make these leaps of logic? Why on earth do you think the idea "that guns are a symbol of power, authority, and control" would be instilled in children? In the armed teacher scenario, ideally nobody would know who is carrying a gun at all. No competent teacher would use a gun for leverage to increase his "power, authority, and control." The only way children would even find out teacher has a gun is some sort of wardrobe malfunction.

Is the "power, authority, and control" thing what you think of when you see cops with guns?

If teachers are armed, why jump to "guns are a symbol of power, authority, and control"? Why not "Children's lives are important" and "Children should be protected" and "Children are worth defending"?

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Yes. I've handled and shot several guns. From the .22 and .3o6 that my father in law has and a barret (actually, I dont know if it was a barret) .50 cal... I take that back, I never shot the .50 cal, but god damn was it heavy.

I've shot a semi-auto AR-15 (very enjoyable, accurate and light). Never have thought to own one though.

It's not that I don't believe they could be trained or know how to use one, it's just that is not their purpose. Their purpose is to teach kids, not shoot them. And since their is only an off-chance of a school shooting, adding more guns to the equation only means more guns.

That's why I would suggest a policeman. A uniformed officer. Someone who works as the community liason. An authority figure that kids get to know and trust. Someone who could actually police the day to day bullshit that is a high school.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

I think I see part of the problem. You are calling armed gunmen "kids". You are thinking of them as troubled kids, not murderers.

Once someone shows up at a school with a gun and opens fire, he is not a kid, student, person, or even human. He is a threat that must be stopped as quickly as possible, by any means necessary. At that moment, we cannot be concerned about how troubled he is or how he got that way, we can only be concerned with stopping him and saving lives.

So let me go back to your statement, and rephrase it more appropriately. "[A teacher's] purpose is to teach kids, not shoot murderers in the act of murdering."


When you say something about it's "not their purpose," it makes me wonder what job experience you have. Most of the jobs I have ever had involved doing more than one thing. Teachers already have to do other things -- staff meetings, parent meetings, supervising recess, coaching, club advisers, etc. I feel like I need to remind you again that this proposal would only have qualified volunteers as participants. What would it involve? Initial testing and training, and occasional re-qualification. On a day-to-day basis, what would it involve? Basically, nothing. Just wear the gun. Everything else goes on as normal, and hopefully it will never be needed. You are treating it as some huge burden, but it's really not. For someone who already has training and is used to handling guns, it's no big deal.

Regarding cops, I am not opposed to having cops at schools. I think it would be great. But if you want to have cops at schools and nobody else at a school to have a gun, then there needs to be at least two cops at every school during school hours and after school activities.

Remember, looking forward, the threat of a school shooting is completely random. In order to prevent it from happening again, or mitigating the damage if it does happen, all schools must be protected.

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The best way to prevent a school shooting is to get rid of guns.

But alas, arming teachers only means there are more weapons in the school. Easier, quick access. How would the 20 multiple school shooting fatality incidents if all the teachers were armed? I have no idea, but I'm positive it wouldn't prevent it and can only imagine a firefight inside of a school would only be so beneficial.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

A school shooting, maybe, but I don't think it's the best way to end school violence. If we had 0 firearms in this country, people wanting to do that shit would just make bombs. You know how easy it is to make certain types of powerful bombs with readily-obtainable materials?

There was already a firefight inside the school! It was just a one-sided fight. How beneficial was that?

Easier, quick access is the entire point!

I'm not talking about "all" teachers, and I have said that countless times in these threads. We're talking about perhaps three or four teachers.

You are positive it won't prevent a school shooting from happening? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn't matter, because deterrence is only part of the reason for doing it. The main reason for doing it is to have people on the scene at all times who can respond immediately to a threat. Once the shooting starts, the only way it ends is when the shooter decides to stop or when the shooter is confronted with someone else who has a gun.

One shooter entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 26 people. At 9:40, police dispatch reported a call from someone who thinks there is a shooter in the school. 5-10 minutes later, the SWAT team arrived. Let's call it six minutes. Not a bad response time, but not good enough to save any of the lives of the 26 victims.

If there had been armed teachers at that school, the response time would have been closer to 10 seconds. The whole thing would have ended in under a minute. How many lives would have been saved? Impossible to tell, but many of them surely would have been.

That's how beneficial armed teachers would have been.

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If there is going to be a shooter in one of our schools, wouldn’t we much rather he/she be engaged in a shoot-out with a few teachers in lieu of having free reign to focus on little kids. Even if the teachers were unsuccessful in taking out the bad guy, the time the shooter spends occupied prior to LEO’s arriving at the scene is invaluable.

Living in a state where a responsible and stable citizen may obtain a Concealed Carry Permit, I personally think that a teacher who has met the requirements, in our state, should be allowed to CC in our schools if they choose to do so (not a requirement). I do think that it would be beneficial for everyone though if a teacher had to go thru a special (above and beyond) course with our local law enforcement agency before being allowed to exercise their CC rights in schools (again their choice if they want that responsibility).

Couple this with an armed LEO at every school. Either a specialty agent of the school district or a member of your local LE agency. If we are really serious about protecting our kids this would already be in place and/or in motion. But no, our country and politicians are going to be too busy arguing over gun control while our kids remain exposed in the “Gun Free Zones”.

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"Our Quarterback is a Bad Man!" - Michael Robinson

Certainly a better start than seeing how many people we can get a gun in their pockets.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

You're completely ignoring the fact that having more guns in school is just plain dangerous. You're maybe solving one problem but adding ONE HUGE FUCKING ONE. Guns have a weird way of finding a way to go off. Putting several in a school... in EVERY school is just asking for it to go off.

There have been ~20 multiple fatality school shootings since 1990. Only a few of these cases (like Sandy Hook) may have been stopped in time to save these kids if multiple teachers had weapons. Columbine had an armed deputy on campus and exchanged fire with one of the shooters and was unable to subdue him.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

And you don't believe the time that the shooter had to spend dealing with the armed deputy may have been invaluable to students who were running for their life?

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"Our Quarterback is a Bad Man!" - Michael Robinson