Question about arming teachers

[jmowreader]

Now that we've had the 1000th mass shooting so far this year, the Hard Right wants to arm all the teachers in every school to stop it from happening again.

This is to be expected. According to the Hard Right, there is no problem that can't be solved with more guns. You have crab lice? A frosted-over windshield? Maxed-out credit card from buying too many guns? Strap 'em on and head on out boys, a gun is the solution to all that ails you.

Now consider. You have a school. It has six grades, each with four classes. This school team-teaches so it has 48 classroom teachers, plus a librarian, a principal, maybe a vice principal, school secretary, guidance counselor, lunch ladies...let's do a round number and say 60 staff, all of whom the Hard Right needs to be armed.

This school can't afford construction paper for its teachers. It can't afford a globe. It can barely afford toilet tissue, and it wouldn't be able to afford lunch if the federal government wasn't subsidizing that program. But...all of a sudden it's supposed to be able to afford $30,000 worth of guns?

[Murphyb849]

1. And the shooter is bullet proofed with an assault rifle

The teachers wouldn't stand a chance. Hell, the cops didn't rush in 😳

[YoshidaYui]

28. so whats next?

do we give teachers bazookas?? THAT SHOULD DO THE TRICK according to their thinking??

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. This came up in prior discussions

The wing nuts have mostly abandoned this line of thought because of the debate over who bears the cost of the firearms. The training. The range time. Etc.

Now they are advocating for a force of para- police. Volunteers (retired cops, ex military, etc.) Who would receive a stipend or an income tax offset in exchange for being "the good guy with a gun." I note that a trained, armed, law enforcement officer ran from the sound of the gunnfire at Parkland. So I'm not sold on this as a viable solution.

[wnylib]

5. Also, the armed guard at Tops in Buffalo

shot at the killer, who was unharmed due to his Kevlar vest. Then the shooter killed the guard and went on his shooting spree inside the store.

The armed guard made a heroic effort, which did save some lives by slowing the shooter and tipping off the shoppers with the gunfire, but in the end, was not able to stop the killer.

[jmowreader]

6. The "volunteers" part is really worrisome

I am to assume this force of para-police won't be paid, and will be expected to just stroll around the school with a gun out of the goodness of their hearts. Well son, food ain't free, houses aren't free...all these "volunteers" will also need to have paying jobs.

So, what happens when the school's para-cop decides the school's been really quiet for the last year and a half and goes to work on the day someone decides to go in and shoot up the school? Or the para-cop is patrolling the north end of the school and someone decides to shoot up the south end?

It of course would be more effective just to stop selling rifles that hold 30 bullets to every Tom, Dick and Salvador who brings enough money to Cabela's, but that seems not to have occurred to anyone.

[groundloop]

23. Training... who needs training? Hand someone a gun and they're an instant hero.

[RockRaven]

3. Add in the issue that most teachers aren't signing up to die protecting kids.

They're signing up to educate. That's it. If you demand they do the other part a helluva lot of them are going to change careers.

[groundloop]

24. My daughter teaches elementary school.... she's already thinking about getting out.

[BigmanPigman]

4. They talk the talk but never walk the walk.

The Texas Gov said this is a mental health issue but he didn't say that he already cut funds from the state. These assholes just lie, deflect, spread more BS and expect us to believe it for the zillionth time. No way! Vote them out!!!! ASAP!

[mitch96]

16. I think "they" tried to convince the teachers at Parkland after that shooting and the answer was

NO they did not want to do it or have the responsibility. Another point brought up was what is a cop rushing into a stressful situation gonna do when he sees a person,
any person on the other side of a hall with a gun in his or her hand...HE WILL SHOOT!!
Good guy/gal with a gun gets shot... Ahhh no..
How do you tell who is the bad guy? Just the gun humper lame reason to not do anything that would jeopardize their "right" to have weapon.
YMMV

m

[BigmanPigman]

21. I don't think the GQP values teachers' lives very much.

After all, aren't they the evil creatures who are teaching their children terrible things like History and Science?

[Cattledog]

7. And teachers would be personally liable for any negligence or mishandling of the weapon

not the school district.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. I mentioned in another thread that the more serious commentators...

completely ignored calls to arm teachers.

Combat veterans know you can't expect an amateur force to recognize a threat, find the gun and arm it, aim it, and shoot the shooter. It just cannot be done, especially by a woman in her 20s who has never shot a gun and is trying to get the class to concentrate on poetry.

Anyone who talks about the good guy with the gun is overfull of something even worse than shit and has no idea how a firefight works. People get dead listening to them.

[lapfog_1]

9. in this particular case

the suspect was already engaged with the police BEFORE he entered the school.

They chased him until he wrecked his car... he took one of his two assault rifles with him and 7 30 round mags into the school.

Apparently he shot at the cops, wounding one.

AFTER he entered the school, he was confronted by the SRO (school resource officer). Not clear if the SRO was armed or not. The killer shot at (and maybe wounded) the SRO before he entered the 4th grade classroom and LOCKED the door.

There he killed the 2 teachers and 19 students.

It was an hour before the BP tactical team breached the classroom and killed him.

Apparently a number of people arrived at the school before the BP team entered the school and pleaded with the cops to "do something" and even tried to form a team to enter without the cops... and included one father who's daughter was one of the victims.

So they had PLENTY of "good guys with guns" that did nothing to stop this asshole. Trained cops, cops that already knew he attempted to kill his own grandmother.

[Walleye]

10. They trust the teacher with a lethal weapon, but not with the word gay? Not to teach racial history?

They are going to give these teachers they don’t trust with the curriculum, the weapons that make it possible to kill all the kids that they say they’re protecting from the word gay? I swear to God

[rampartc]

11. thats right, walleye

they want to arm the "pedophile groomers!" what can go wrong?

[Walleye]

12. Making my tired old head hurt

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. Amendment: all the guns must be silver or black. ...

... none of those pink or rainbow-colored guns in our schools.

[Novara]

13. What bothers me most about this idiotic argument ...

... is the absolute capitulation that we expect school massacres. Think about it. What they're saying is that yeah, people are gonna come into your school to murder children. Instead of trying to prevent that, we'll make EDUCATORS responsible for fending them off. And when they fail - because they're trained teachers, not trained mercenaries - we will blame the teachers for not protecting the children and not stopping the next massacre. This shifts all the responsibility - and blame - on teachers. I dunno about you, but if my life's goal was to educate the next generation and my state tried to turn me into a gun-toting mercenary instead, I'd quit.

And this is exactly what they want - to dismantle the public school system. They're trying to do it by preventing teachers from teaching our history, making them be silent about any social issue, and now they're going to use mass murders in school as another reason to dismantle public education. WHO is politicizing this???

I FUCKING HATE REPUBLICANS.

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. Well, it is Texas. The teachers probably all own guns

and know how to shoot. The kids probably all know how to shoot, too.

[bottomofthehill]

15. The cost of the firearm is only the tip of the iceberg

Your $500 per teacher to arm them is way low. Handing a teacher a $500 dollar pistol and telling them to go out and engage an active shooter is asking them to commit suicide. A police active shooter kit is thousands of dollars and the gun is the cheap part.

The training and range time is the real cost. Teaching one to shoot is not difficult. It’s easy to shoot at a piece of paper that does not shoot back. Training someone to shoot while being shot at in a school full of children…… another story. Hundreds of hours to train, thousands to become experts and learn to shoot under that type of pressure.

My daughter is a teacher. If she wanted to be a gun toter, she would have joind the Army or Marines, maybe become a cop, instead she was in the school of education, got a masters in special education and is now working on a masters in administration. She did not join this profession to carry a firearm. J she became a teacher to teach.

[crickets]

26. Right you are. And none of the people proposing this have even thought

of a certain unavoidable requirement that makes the entire conversation moot. (Aside from the fact that the idea is absolutely crazy.) Take dozens of armed civilians looking after hundreds of school children and go find an insurance company willing to provide any sort of affordable liability coverage - no, any coverage at all.

Not going to happen, not in a billion years. Nor should it.

The whole idea is beyond ridiculous.

[jmowreader]

27. Yeah, it is going to be slightly expensive...

…to ship all your teachers to infantry school and Delta Operator Training Course.

Not to mention all the refresher training. Active duty Delta operators kick in doors EVERY SINGLE DAY on Fort Bragg. I don’t know the price of constructing a blockhouse on school property, but you’d need at least one; in somewhere like Houston where they have big schools and many of them you might need one per school.

And will it be local, state or federal funds that pay for this? My property taxes are already high; how high are they going to go if all the teachers need to be commandos too?

[SKKY]

17. My wife is a paraeducator in an elementary school in a very red state...

...I can tell you firsthand that almost to a person, their attitude to carrying a gun in class can best be described as aggressive indifference. They want no part of it. I heard from three of them, "It would then be time for me to retire."

[Emile]

19. It's hard to make sense when they blame the unarmed for a slaughterhouse.

[Midnight Writer]

20. The "arm the teachers" proposal is a talking point to derail the discussion

They do it again and again.

Respond to any problem with a nonsensical "solution".

There is no way to argue against nonsense. Once the people you are dealing with embrace a fantasy, your response is irrelevant.

Their new talking point is going to be that these killings are caused by "evil", and therefore nothing can be done except to change the hearts of murderers, because there will always be "evil".

[GPV]

22. I will not be responsible for a firearm.

[MissMillie]

25. It's not just the money (though, yeah, money is an issue)

I have absolutely no desire to point a gun at another human being. And that should not disqualify me from being a teacher.

When it comes to fight or flight, even if I have access to a weapon, I am more likely to flee than to fight.

I don't consider this to be a character flaw. It's just who I am.

I imagine if I were actually in such a situation, I *may* choose differently. Who knows until you're actually in the situation.

It's hard enough for schools to recruit and keep teachers. It will only get harder if the teachers also are required to have weapons training.

Weapons training to be a teacher... just the thought of it... it's insane.

(edited to add: for the gun to be of use it needs to be accessible. If it's accessible, it's not safe.)

[jmowreader]

31. Of course the gun will be accessible

When you get dressed to go to work in the morning, you’ll put on your clothes, your lipstick and your gun in that order. Because we all know the perfect accessory for a dress is a pistol.

And the men teaching in your school will have to wear cowboy hats and western boots because (1) if the Hard Right wants to push us back to the mythical Wild West they need to dress the part and (2) if you thought the HR is bad now, wait until men teachers start wearing lipstick.

[johnp3907]

29. Gun industry profit is what this argument is all about.

The high cost is a benefit, not a drawback.

[Cuthbert Allgood]

30. Here's the biggest problem with arming teachers (aside from the sheer stupidity)

Because of our profession, we are trained in a way that would make it ridiculously nearly impossible to do this. We are here to care for each kid. Kids that are assholes we still deal with. We don't lose our cool. We know that they are being an asshole not because of something we did but because of something in their life. We let a lot of shit go.

Now you want us to shoot a kid? You want to undo all the years of not thinking like that to then be OK pulling the trigger.

I'll be honest, I'd die to protect my students. I have bats in my closet, and I'll do everything I can to protect kids in my room. But if you are going to hand me a gun, you can fuck right off.