I don't get all the resistance to putting a cop in schools

[BarackTheVote]

Not a rent-a-cop, or a puffed-up vigilante: a beat cop, assigned by the police department, and trained for special assignment. S/he's not there for drug enforcement, s/he's not there to stop bullying--s/he's there only for the worst case scenario. Some people have raised the objection that a shooter would just go after the cop first--well, at least that would buy time to get the other kids out of the building. And as for how one cop can keep watch over an entire school? Security cameras in the halls, cafeteria, and other large communal spaces, routed to the security desk, manned by the beat cop.

And speaking of the building--they obviously need better security. Common sense here, but you should NOT be able to gain entrance to a school by breaking in through a window as Adam Lanza apparently did. You do that and klaxons should be going off everywhere and everyone should immediately be going into a prepared and drilled evacuation mode. There should be multiple points of egress--every window should open enough for a person to escape through, and if there's more than one level, every window should have a fire escape--and, again, each and every one of these points of egress would be protected by a hair-trigger alarm if anyone tries to break in through them.

I also think a dress code would be a good idea, so no one can walk in decked out like Neo at the end of The Matrix. Coats should be removed immediately upon entering the building.

I know some of this might scream Big Brother to some of you, but why shouldn't schools receive the same kind of security as other government buildings? Especially since the kids are basically sent there and are required to be there. Those kids are supposed to be the most precious things in the world to us, right? So let's put our money where our mouths are and keep them safe. How to pay for it? I dare say this would be a perfect and appropriate use for the money in the Homeland Security slush fund.

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Do you have children or grandkids? This says the 'why not' better than I can.

http://www.politicalgarbagechute.com/the-most-revolting-press-conference-in-history/

Every American should be shocked and appalled that this was the great NRA’s suggestion. It takes a special kind of evil or stupid to suggest not a week after twenty children less than ten years old were viciously gunned down that the reason it happened was a lack of armed guards at our elementary schools. The irony of a group that’s run by a bunch of NeoConservative neanderthals who belch out platitudes about freedom while un-ironically insisting the only way to protect our children is to turn our schools into prison camps with armed guards is simply too delectable to not savor just a tiny bit.

But the humor of the moment dies down as soon as you realize that not only did the NRA not learn anything last Friday, or from the subsequent outpouring of sorrow and grief over the tragedy, they’re doubling-down on their obsession with and promotion of guns. Just stop and think for a moment. In Wayne LaPierre and the NRA’s minds, it is more acceptable to turn our schools into armed facilities than it is to tell Americans we have to temper a Constitutional right with prudence. Rather than ask gun nuts to relinquish their assault rifles, which no non-combat civilian has any logical reason to own, it’s better to put yet another gun in our children’s lives.

Their solution is to simply put another dangerous firearm next to your sons and daughters, on a daily basis. What kind of message is the NRA sending the American people? I’ll tell you what kind of message they’re sending. The profit margins of the corporations they represent are more important than your children not growing up with armed guards in their schools. That is not a conducive learning environment, to the say the very least. “Johnny, please stop staring at the hulking man with a semi-automatic firearm at the front of the class and tell me who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb.”

[samsingh]

227. well well argued

the nra is a disgusting out of date organization that should be shut down. at least, smart members should leave it immediately.

[tblue]

254. Dear sinkingfeeling,

bless you! I'm a teacher and a parent. This kind of talk is off the rails. Thank you and Merry Christmas!

[CBGLuthier]

2. if we insist in living in an asylum we need better walls?

[LynneSin]

3. OK how do you pay for it?

Do you think some highly trained skilled marksman is gonna want a low paying job in a school?

We can barely afford the teachers and books.

[obamanut2012]

13. They can't afford the books, either

Or even basic supplies.

[Riftaxe]

127. Hmm my school district finally bumped average teacher pay to over 60k

I suspect they will be astonished to find out they have not been able to afford books all these years.

Of course, with every multimillion dollar extra curricular project we pay for, average test scores plummet even further....it is enough to suspect we need better teachers and less money in the system.

[Chemisse]

131. You must live in a pretty affluent school district.

I have worked in schools where ordering books for a class was 'discouraged', and the suggestion was to create your own materials to teach with. If I insisted on books, I would see it come out of my chemistry lab supply budget.

One school I worked in forced me to teach biology in an old lecture hall, with broken seats that billowed dust every time someone sat in them. We had to do our dissection labs sitting on the floor.

I have never seen a school pay more than a couple of thousand dollars for an extracurricular program or project.

The school I work in now has no technology for science classes (like Pascoe or Vernier probes) and the computers throughout the school are too old to support current word and powerpoint software.

I had a principal who would stand by the copy machine and glare at people who made a lot of photocopies, and make comments about saving trees. She finally stopped doing that to me when I explained to her that I taught 4 different classes and only one had a textbook to use!

I'm not big on complaining. You work with what you have and make the best of it. But when someone makes remarks like this (including that catch-all insult about needing better teachers), I feel I have to respond.

[raccoon]

136. Thank you! nt

[Riftaxe]

137. We make up for it for in property taxes

You could do the same, if your district is as impoverished as you claim.

In the last 5 years, we have had a track field revamp, and a new football field.

Check the education forum, salaries are transparent.

Local politics are debating which lower school to close and will be doing so for years to come, we even carry extra facilities.

[pnwmom]

143. School districts that are impoverished can't make up for it in property taxes

because the reason they're impoverished is that they are in poorer cities with low tax revenues.

[Ed Suspicious]

178. How very homogeneously upper middle class your perspective is. n/t

[Squinch]

188. Seriously. The proud product of astonishingly narrow experience.

And in this district where they are revamping football fields and providing multimillion dollar extracurriculars, he is pissed that the teacher pay has topped 60K. I can just imagine the cost of living in his neighborhood.

[OldDem2012]

186. If a district is financially tapped out, who the heck is going to be able to pay additional....

....property taxes??

Come on...impoverished school districts don't vote "yes" to raise their own property taxes.

[Chemisse]

209. Where I live people vote on whether or not to increase taxes for the school.

When people are struggling, they just say no. It's really as simple as that.

You may have more layers of government than we do, but the same principle applies. If people don't want to pay for it, they vote out the officials that are approving that kind of spending.

Salaries are different; they are negotiated, and usually reflect what is typical in the area of the country you live in. The average pay also reflects the level of experience and education among the staff. Where I am, only those on the very high end of the pay scale are earning 60K, so the average is probably more like 50.

[obamanut2012]

140. Most districts cannot afford enough books or supplies

The average teacher is your district does NOT get 60K.

[dionysus]

157. +100000

[Posteritatis]

156. Congratulations, you live in a wildly atypical district. (nt)

[napoleon_in_rags]

19. 132656 schools in US

132656 * $28000 (about $12 an hour for guard, plus training money some benefits ) = $3,714,368,000 a year. Like 1/4 NASA budget, so yeah that's spendy. The major issue is that the majority of guards will never in their entire life do the thing they were hired to do, and the mere fact they are there almost ensures none of them will.

Amazingly, this may be cheaper with robots. Every school gets cameras (useful for less serious crime prevention, like bullying in the halls), and every classroom gets a red button the teacher can press. When a shooting occurs the red button gets pressed and school is instantly connected with professionals to control the droid. If, with mass production you could get this system down to $100,000 per school, (cameras, connectivity are dual use and so don't count, mostly just robot) and that robot is able to last 10 years, its substantially cheaper. Shockingly, that's possible.

[Warren Stupidity]

103. far better that than to inconvenience anyone's access to their precious toy guns.

[napoleon_in_rags]

122. Reality is heavy.

People think they have the big bad, when what they have doesn't really matter very much at all.

I support marijuana legalization and prostitution legalization. Why? Because my theory of statecraft says that the people will do what they will, and the objective of the state is to never allow the will of the people to create a counterbalance to the state more powerful than the state... e. g. black markets. A huge weapons black market - diversifying into missiles, big iron, and the rest is clearly stupid. Power, you see, just is. It isn't directed by any one person, but rather springs from the collective will of the people.

[Mojorabbit]

123. +100 nt

[Riftaxe]

128. My freezer is full of venison

which you did not offer to buy for me! Do you not like me anymore?

On an off guess you are an urbanite perhaps?

So, ban guns, how are you going to replace 3 months of food for me?

[Warren Stupidity]

141. For which you need a semi auto high capacity light infantry weapon?

No. Not until the deer can shoot back.

[Ed Suspicious]

182. In Wisconsin, at least 20 years ago when I hunted guns were to only be allowed

to carry 5 rounds during deer season. If I remember correctly, while hunting ducks you could only have 3 rounds. We had to install plugs whose purpose was to limit the gun's ammunition capacity.

This hunting argument for large capacity semi-autos in the most specious piece of shit argument ever.

[OldDem2012]

187. Just curious, but how many guns do you personally need for hunting purposes?....

....Do you use a semi-automatic rifle when you go hunting, or are using something else like a single-shot rifle or a bow? How many rounds do you carry when you do go hunting?

[sulphurdunn]

241. The issue has revolved

around assault weapons, particularly short range .223 and 7.62 semi-automatics. Both of them are piss poor deer rifles and illegal in many if not most states for hunting deer.

[raquel69]

204. Like the idea of

a panic button.

[napoleon_in_rags]

257. Cameras plus panic buttons are a low cost solution.

(with the panic button instantly connecting to police, so they can see what's going on)

An intelligent researcher with an international eye can identify solutions cheaper than my deathbots for neutralising threats as well.

[phleshdef]

36. My suggestion? Bullet tax!

Fine lets go there. And we are gonna tax the shit out of bullet sales to pay for every single school in the country to have the added security. Lets see how well that goes over with Mr. LaPierre.

[Travis_0004]

112. We could also see how well it would go over with the supreme court (who would throw out the tax)

[BarackTheVote]

162. I like it.

And also, Chris Rock is a genius:

[libdem4life]

173. We don't. The Gun mega-industry will pay...count on it.

That will be their only hope against the Clint Eastwood cold-dead-hands solution...it will just take a whole lot longer. They have been allowed to run amok because there was no "tipping point" situation and because there are a lot of good citizens with legally registered firearms involved, as well.

Now, different story. It will change, and none of us will like parts of it. We are justifiably outraged at the carnage, yet pisssed by not only what it says about us as a society...through no fault of our own, but the remedies that will be required.

More than once, I was almost late for flights...race to the front of the line, apologize, get my ticket and race to the plane just as they were closing the door. That was a privilege, we found out, not a right. So now I have to go two hours early, stand in a long line, practically strip down, go through metal detectors and a hand frisking, wear a non-underwire bra so I won't trigger the sensor and get excessively fondled. Kids have to go through it too, and they're not traumatized that I know of.

Yeah, I liked the old days better. But we had an enormous tragedy, and we are grateful there hasn't been another. Does that mean that no hijackers ever tried or wanted to get on a plane? Do we know how many got caught first? No. But the cards are now seriously stacked much heavily against them...and they know it.

Same with the elementary schools. Sad, but necessary. And anyone that doesn't currently have a K-3rd grade child or grandchild that would have their sensibilities so upset by visions of Nazis and Police State paranoia, and would upset their kids, maybe the public schools have grown beyond your ideas and needs. So, homeschooling or a charter school is a good option. The public school system will still support you.

Personally, if I were the parent of a 1st grader and my school was not seriously discussing how to prevent the what used to be unthinkable, but is now a fresh terror and a feeling of helplessness in our minds, and allowing me, as a parent to participate in that discussion, I'd be making different arrangements for my child.

[OldDem2012]

185. We pay for school supplies for each kid out of our own pocket at the start of each....

....school year, and we're considered to be living in a fairly affluent area in the state of Alabama. Teachers are constantly leaving the school system to go out of state to better paying jobs or leave the profession entirely. The state legislature is constantly "trimming" the education budget. After a fatal middle school shooting (yes, middle school!), we have had police officers showing a presence in every school in our system, but not on a 24/7 basis.

So, where are we going to get the money to pay for 24/7 trained security personnel for each school in our system?

We're personally tapped out. It was the NRA's idea....let THEM pay for it.

[AngryOldDem]

203. Here's my idea.

You tax the living shit out the guns and ammo (others have said the same in various threads) with the revenue going thusly:

1) Community mental health programs.
2) Beefed up security at schools. It should not be a responsibility of the schools to provide a remedy to a societal problem.
3) Victim's assistance funds.
4) Costs of investigation and clean up of the crime scenes that inevitably ensue from the use of said guns and ammo.

I think a police presence, say, at the front door, could be a deterrent to some. It's not the ultimate answer, but I think it should be looked into if we as a country are not willing to have a mature discussion about gun violence in this society.

Any other solutions I can think of are just too ridiculous and sad to be considered in the light of easier, more common-sense solutions such as tighter gun restrictions, banning of war weapons to the general public, etc., etc.

[liberal N proud]

4. Do you fight a house fire with more fire?

Now you have a gun in a zone where there are no guns allowed. The shooter is going to know they have one initial target, the guard. By taking out the guard, they gain access plus another weapon to have and to hold/use.

Next, who is going to pay for this cop? School budgets are cut to the bone now, Municipal budgets are cut to the bone, states keep squeezing everyone. Where will the money come from?


I could go on and on about how stupid this idea is. MORE GUNS is the ANSWER?

[BarackTheVote]

37. Not necessarily and also not likely

But tighter security and a more vigilant eye might be. I'm talking about centralized security. It seems like a big issue when these shootings are in progress is a lack of coordination. People don't know where to go, where the shooters are, if there's more than one, what the safest place to flee to might be. That's largely solved by having somebody who is watching things unfold in the context of the whole school building. And, like I said, schools should be super easy to escape should the need arise--you shouldn't have to go through high-volume traffic areas that could become a kill box, like libraries, hallways, and cafeterias. You should be able to leave the building FROM THE CLASSROOM.

[Kelvin Mace]

62. Why is it we seem to be the ONLY industrialized nation

in the Western world that is looking to turn our schools into a SuperMax prison?

[BarackTheVote]

70. If it was a supermax prison, the goal would be preventing people from getting out

everything I'm suggesting is the ends of making them harder to get into and easier to escape.

[Kelvin Mace]

82. OK, why is it that this kind of security is NOT

needed in any other Western industrialized nation?

Apparently other countries manage to not have their children slaughtered in schools without turning them into mini-police states.

[BarackTheVote]

161. It's NOT about the police state

it's about protecting something we love. You have a high concentration of kids in one building, who are required to be there, and then you don't protect them? You put them in a box they can't get out of? That makes zero sense to me. In any case, you deal with the hand you're dealt, and wringing our hands wondering why isn't going to save anyone from the world we actually live in today.

[Kelvin Mace]

256. Again you keep not answering my question

WHY is the US the only nation in the Western democracies with this problem?

Fear is the mindkiller. Fear gave us the Patriot Act which has made us a DE FACTO police state as it is, and you want to inculcate children to accepting a police state as the norm?

Armed police will not stop this from happening. The had an armed deputy at Columbine and the massacre STILL occurred.

Lanza was wearing body armour, which will defeat even police 9mms. Are you saying we should now send the police in with assault rifles to patrol the halls?

Do you not understand that fear is used to control people and you are playing along?

[Care Acutely]

130. You want to commit our children to armed prisons and retrofit every single classroom in every

single school in the country with direct exits?

FUCKING INSANE. What are you going to do about all of these "soft targets?"

Baseball games at the park
Swimming pools
Recreational lakes
Art galleries
Day care centers
Grocery stores
Hotel convention rooms
Every fast-food eat-in lobby
Family fun centers (mini-golf, go-carts, etc.)
High school sports & practices
Pee-Wee sports & practices
College sports & practices
Professional sports
Every super-store (Wal-mart, Target, etc.)
Every home improvement center
Car shows
School plays & rehearsals
Every department store
Museums
Medical clinic waiting rooms
Flea markets
Community theaters
Every church service
Senior centers
Craft shows
Big-box toy stores
Dance recitals
Chuck-E-Cheese and similar places
Scout meetings
Community celebrations like Octoberfest, etc.
Retail outlet stores
Bowling alleys
Tourist attractions
Large hair salons (some can easily have 50+ people in them)
Parades
Movie theaters
Graduation ceremonies
Sports Bars
County fairs (multiple for each event, livestock area, bake show, etc.)
Charity walks
Every nursing home
Public Zoos
Fireworks displays
Libraries
Every office building, for large ones, every floor of every office building
Every wedding
Every funeral
Every reception
Factories (inside, and outside at shift change)
Every honky-tonk, club and bar
Community festivals (art in the park, etc)
Children's birthday parties
All school buses
All public buses
Public playgrounds
Petting Zoos

All of these need guards armed with military-style weapons according to the bat-shit crazy gun-humpers.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

211. Seriously, that is the gun humpers' wet dream. Everywhere they go they could admire the objects of

their fetish.

[Blackhawk44]

216. a school is a lot like a part-time prison

where the teachers control the movement of the students.

those places you listed...
when trouble starts, people will just run off...
unless the place is a small island

[JustAnotherGen]

5. There was one

A regular old police offer who was assigned to Colombine. Let's start there. I honestly didn't know that until about an hour and a half ago. It didn't stop it there . . .

Next - how do you propose we pay for that? Can we tax bullets to the point of them costing a $1200 for a pack of 50 and use all of that money for this?

Won't work in NJ - our teachers, police men and women, etc. etc. have been getting picked on and picked off by Christie one by one. And he will never ever go along with forcing NJ to pay for something like this. No way - no how. He's moving towards NO public services - and this is an expansion - at a high price tag.

[arcane1]

60. Colombine had security cameras, too n/t

[JustAnotherGen]

120. Even more info

Thats good to know. Really? We need to be watched allllll the time? For what purpose? Whose interests does that serve. Yet film police brutality and . . .

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Cause the response to a fire is not to pour gas on it

[DainBramaged]

7. wHAT'S NEXT?

Tanks in the parking lot? Helicopters? All because the gunhadists won't concede a single gun?

[whistler162]

16. One of the elementary schools I work in already has one of those

well on the lawn of the VFW next door.

[Squinch]

195. They'll probably insist that the kids are all armed. This has gotten that crazy.

[spanone]

8. well, once all the schools are covered, maybe they'll move on to daycare centers

or old folks homes, or mcdonalds...there's no end to this madness

[BarackTheVote]

166. ... beat cops do cover McDonalds...

it's their job to patrol and keep the peace. But there is one eight hour period during every week day when we take all of our most vulnerable citizens, and cram them in a box. That box should be guarded with at LEAST the kind of security that f*cking gated communities can expect. And a well-paid, well-trained, on-duty police officer, who is ALREADY on the state's pay-roll is a far better option that a rent-a-cop paid by the school. This is all about coordinating the public resources to where they need to be when they need to be there.

[Squinch]

192. Beat cops are not required to dedicate themselves to the neighborhood McDonalds. And we need to go

through all these gyrations because gun imbeciles can't have their hobbies interrupted with pesky rules? Get a grip.

The public resources should not be used to amass firepower against the gun glut that has been created by the NRA's business practices to ensure maximum profit for gun companies. The public resources should be used to limit the gun glut.

Your suggestion of a school in which students can leave from each classroom, and video surveillance of every room, and dedicated firepower, is ridiculous. For one thing, it is simply not possible for any area where property is costly. Which is most of the country. Second, the cost of education is already something our nation will not pay. There is no way that they would pay the multiple billions your plan requires.

Gun control has worked in other countries. It does so without any downside other than the fact that it annoys gun nuts.

My freedom does not need to be held hostage to someone else's hobby.

[Chorophyll]

9. Because some of us don't want to be constantly in DEFENSE mode against our fellow citizens.

In your second paragraph, you're proposing re-designing school buildings. Are you not aware that in many school districts kids have to bring their own toilet paper from home? That they're using 10-year-old school books? That teachers are riding herd of over classes of 35 kids? That every school district in this country has to fight its own residents to get the budget passed every year? That art, music, and phys ed programs have been cut all over the country? That teachers, aides, and administrators are being fired?

And your third paragraph: no. Just no. Who can the schools spare to be on front-hall non-Matrix coat-monitor duty?

Let's work on the source of the problem. Just this once. Please.

[BarackTheVote]

44. Schools are public institutions

When a kid is in a school, it is the public's responsibility to protect them. Police are our civic protectors, that's their job, it's what they're paid for; this would just be part of a beat, a normal rotation, and their salary would still come from the PD. They'd be watching cameras, making sure a no-coats rule is enforced at the front entrance at the beginning of the school day and whenever, and they'd coordinate with the school and with the PD if an incident occurs. I'm saying no money would come from the schools for this. And for improvements to school's security and to modify schools to be escape-friendly, the money would come from the DHS.

[sulphurdunn]

88. No offense

but there are so many things wrong with your line of reasoning I don't know where to begin, but I'll try.
1.There is no physical way to keep a determined intruder out of any building.
2. An armed guard is more likely to be shot than to shoot.
3. You would not want to be an armed adult in the hall of a school building when the SWAT team entered.
4. Escape routes are more likely to make students sitting ducks than to protect them, especially if there are multiple intruders or if the intruder leaves the building.
5. The best security is locked doors, and bullet proof windows in classrooms, restrooms, gyms, libraries and cafeterias. Doors that cannot be forced and windows that cannot be penetrated.
6. Unfortunately, none of this protects you from the intruder who shoots his way into the building during a class change or spares those trapped in halls during a lock down.
7. It is only possible to reduce the number of casualties by quick response on the part of teachers, students and police, not to eliminate them.
8. The best way to cut the odds is to eliminate high capacity, automatic firearms and materials for the illegal manufacture of high explosives.

[Chorophyll]

91. Thank you. Also,

children occasionally go outside during the school day. Unless we want to also eliminate recess instead of guns.

[sulphurdunn]

96. It is and will remain

about guns and especially guns with the capacity to slaughter large numbers of defenseless people quickly.

[vankuria]

142. Good point

If the security is such that a shooter cannot obtain access to the building, if he's determined enough he'll just wait until recess or when kids are entering or being dismissed from school.

[Chorophyll]

144. Right. The fact is that we are never going to be free of people with bad intentions.

The only thing we can do, short of barricading ourselves in wherever we go, is restrict their access to guns. Why keep punishing the innocent people when we don't have to? I just don't understand that attitude.

[BarackTheVote]

160. 1. The person most likely to shoot up a school, goes to that school

so it's not always going to be a matter of keeping the shooter out of the building, because they're probably already in it. The most important thing is early warning, accurate information, and escape routes.

2. Security guards are positioned at every entrance in courthouses, capitals, and federal buildings, as well as some post offices. Do you feel that these are unnecessary as well?

3. This one just makes no sense. This is part of the guard being a uniformed on-duty police officer. He would know the damn SWAT team and they'd know him, and they would be in communication with each other.

4, 5 & 6. You want to put your kids in a cube that they can't get out of? What if there's a fire? The building you're describing would be a death trap in so many ways. Besides, these school shootings are usually perpetrated by one or two gunmen, there has yet to be an all-out invasion or siege scenario. Locking down the school, trapping students in large areas, and not giving them ANY way out of class rooms is the worst case scenario. You've turned the halls and cafeteria into killing floors. If you can escape through any classroom, then you're less likely to find yourself int he line of sight of a gunman, and once you're outside, your survivability rate skyrockets.

7. Quick and coordinated evacuation strategies that can avoid the gunman or men is absolutely necessary. And I agree that it's probably not possible to stop all casualties at the onset of an incident. BUT, depending on how the school is designed, and the readiness of the teachers, students, and police, you can cut the casualties by a huge number. Nobody should be sitting ducks in a classroom or hallway, everybody should have a place to go where they can flee the building.

8. Agreed as far as the firearms go, but improvised explosives are not difficult to make using common and readily available household items. Besides, who's to say the maniac of the future won't just light a bunch of fires in the school building, because with the school building you described, his mortality rate would be close to total.

[sulphurdunn]

174. 1. Not in elementary schools

2. No security guard is likely to survive a gunman shooting his way into a building. The best they can be are sacrificial early warning systems.
3. Like I said, your uniformed guard will most likely be among the first casualties or will not be able to respond in time to stop a massacre.
4, 5,6. You put the kids in a cube the intruder can't enter. No entrance, no casualties. Public schools do no burn readily, but if an intruder were able to set a fire in a hall that is all the more reason to have the students secured behind secure (fire doors). Trying to evacuate a building during an armed attack is likely to result in more targets of opportunity than defensive protection in classrooms. It takes several minutes to evacuate a school during a fire drill when everyone is calm. I can't imagine what a stairwell would look like with stampeding students trampling one another while being slaughtered. No sale
7. Staff and students in secure classrooms are safe. They are not sitting ducks.
8. The most likely causes of injuries from a school fire would occur during evacuation as a result of panic and smoke inhalation. Schools are evacuated during fires because the location of the fire is known and students can be moved away from it. The kids who committed the Colombine killings had planned to set off bombs to induce an evacuation so their targets would come to them.

[BarackTheVote]

193. 1. Not necessarily, and if they break in, alarms would go off

alerting security to the exact attempted point of ingress, so that it can be avoided.
2 & 3. I think they'd have a good chance, and I definitely think they'd be able to get a call off and hunker down, buying vital time.
4, 5, 6, & 8. Not talking about stair wells, I'm talking about fire escapes. Most casualties in evacuations come from large volumes of people using very few routes. Increase the routes, decrease the amount of people using each route and decrease the time it will take to evacuate; additionally. In the Columbine instance you brought up, their strategy wouldn't work at all, because the evacuees would not be using halls or high traffic areas, they would not be corralled toward the gunman, because there's no way a gunman could cover a hundred different escape routes.
7. Intruders could still break in, and because, in this world, there's no security officer to take action, they'd have all the time in the world to break in, and once in, that class is dead, period.

[libdem4life]

250. A part of a School Guard's life especially in the elementary school, is integrating with the

kids, the parents, the teachers, on the playground, in the cafeteria, at birthday parties, looking at the kid's artwork they are taking home...they are as much a member of the school as the teacher or the custodian or the principal. He just carries a gun...just in case. Kids are used to be around guards with guns...almost every where else.

They patrol the parking lot...begin to know who should be there and who should not...or to question those. Of course hang around school entrances...and it isn't perfect. It will be known that a school is no longer gun free...I can see PTA meetings, local civic leaders participating...it's a community event and welcome.

[raquel69]

202. Vigilance has worked at airports

and on airplanes. Schools need to step up security as they are sadly targets of these killers. Thanks for bringing some common sense to these discussions.

[libdem4life]

212. Yes it has, and no child has been traumatized. In elementary schools, they are Officer Friendly.

Not Nazi jackboots.

Thank you for your support...it's sparse around here. This hand-wringing of ... All the lights aren't green, so let's just stay home ... is getting old.

As a nation, we do well when we need to or attempt to regulate anything (airports, borders, travel, etc.) when it involves Them. It's a no-brainer. War on Terror, TSA, Homeland Security...no end of new protectors for "Us" against "Them".

Sandy Hook has gouged our social consciousness in one of our most vulnerable places...where we drop off our kids for hours a day just down the street from our home and hearth and expect them to be safe and return home. And, it is "one of Us", as in culture, class, skin color, language, intelligence etc. We feel especially violated, as we should.

The denial of this shows in vague, decades long, solutions (mental health overhaul, school building retrofitting, banning all 300 million guns) and are what I call magical thinking fixes, and have absolutely no use come January. None.

[sulphurdunn]

242. Magical thinking comes

from the belief that school shooting can be avoided by putting guards in approximately 130,000 K-12 schools. If anyone has suggested banning 300 million guns it's news to me. Banning weapons with massive firepower, restricting legal gun ownership, the number of guns owned and registering them is not magical thinking anymore than school upgrades and bringing mental health out of the closet.

[libdem4life]

245. Not much in life can be completely avoided. But we shift our priorities, as needed.

Who would think that a foolish shoe bomber or 12 hijackers with box cutters were all that dangerous...no guns at all...but they were able to penetrate our airspace. And as a result, and in the protection of 100,000 or so airplanes full of 100 or so...that's 10,000,000 passengers a day, if my math serves me, we were able to figure it out and make the necessary sacrifices.

Every area you mentioned is in need of considerable improvement but unfortunately, they are time consuming and massively expensive and subject to heavy tax increases. I do not believe the public will is there to do that to the extent or in the timing necessary.

I consider Sandy Hook a 9-11 and just as the TSA works now for passengers and airline safety along with the airlines, the same can work for a new system to protect the little ones...funded by the massive and under-regulated weapons sector...directed by the government and the school system.

Start with the K-6 schools, then move on up. Many Middle and High Schools already have security...previously for the weapons brought in by students and to protect other students. Not perfect, as some will leap to quickly challenge, but better nonetheless.

[duffyduff]

214. Furthermore, these attacks on schools are extremely rare

Schools are one of the safest places for students to be, certainly safer than being at home for many of them.

[Cali_Democrat]

10. This is the reason why America has become a laughingstock around the world

Most people around the world, as well as many Americans, look at all the gun deaths in the US and logically come to the conclusion that the availability of deadly guns is the problem.

However many Americans think we need more guns, more cops and more security and we don't need to address the issue of our rampant gun problem.

The problem is not lack of security. The problem is the availability of deadly guns. This is why other industrialized countries don't have thousands of gun deaths a year. It's not because they have more security. In fact, they probably have less security. It's because they don't have a gun problem.

[laundry_queen]

118. Exactly.

It's the guns, period.

Putting armed cops at schools is stupid. You'd have to have one at the main entrance, stationed there the whole time. You'd have to make sure no one else came in the other doors (which is hard to do at recess, when kids are streaming out of those doors, anyone could sneak it) or you'd have to have a cop for EACH entrance. And they wouldn't be able to move. Ever. Because someone might sneak in. And you'd have to make sure that cop knew the person walking towards him was a parent, or a sibling. I have younger children with older siblings that come and pick them up. What if someone's teenage son, dressed in 'goth' clothing, walked up to the main entrance and a cop shot him, thinking it was some sinister person? Or what if it WAS a sinister person, and by the time the cop figured it out, ooh, wait, it's too late, he's been shot dead. What it the cop goes to the bathroom? What if 2 people decided to commit a massacre, like Columbine, and one distracts the main entrance cop while the other goes in shooting?

Putting police in schools is NO solution.

The whole thing is so utter brainless and stupid, I'm beginning to think people are trading their brains for guns. I cannot even comprehend how messed in the head these people have to be to think this is some kind of solution. This is the general response I get from fellow Canadians when we start talking about this issue and the NRA:

[treestar]

159. +1

Why do we have so many nuts in the country? Who buy all that BS?

[obamanut2012]

11. lol

[madmom]

12. Are these kids never to go outside then?

[BarackTheVote]

46. Outside is less of a concern than confined interior spaces

More room to maneuver, more vectors of escape, and the danger of improvised explosives, like those used at Columbine, are much reduced in open air.

[madmom]

102. What about sniper types?

[BarackTheVote]

168. Gunman type, you run outside; sniper type, you take cover inside

when there's both... that's a very fucky situation and I have no good answer. It's basically your worst case scenario, and thankfully, extremely rare. But again, coordination is paramount, and also, it makes it that much more vital for there to be multiple escape routes because one sniper won't be able to cover all exits. But, yeah, that's a bad day. :/

[madmom]

184. Why not make it simple and make it harder to get the guns in the first place.

[BarackTheVote]

196. I'm not talking either or here

I agree with new and stricter gun legislation.

[backscatter712]

14. Because that solution doesn't work.

As mentioned, there WERE cops at Columbine.

This is fundamentally a reactive solution that will almost always be ineffective. The cops will arrive too late.

Let me know when you have a solution that actually works.

[Coyotl]

15. Sure, and just fire a teacher to pay for it, right?

What the hell, we are a nation of non-producers already, so why not have another 200,000 people sitting doing nothing but waiting to be the first one to get shot!

[ellisonz]

17. LaPierre proposed putting Zimmermans (it's the new Pinkerton) in the schools.

LAPIERRE: Now, the National Rifle Association knows there are millions of qualified and active retired police, active, Reserve, and retired military, security professionals, certified firefighters, security professionals, rescue personnel, an extraordinary corps of patriotic, trained, qualified citizens to join with local school officials and police in devising a protection plan for every single school.

[Voice for Peace]

18. I have no problem with professional security for schools

as long as an "armed guard" isn't a distraction to the kids,
or providing a scary presence, in any way.

I think all aspects of school security can be upgraded and
that it's just sensible.

But without the much stricter regulation of (especially)
any kind of assault weapons of mass destruction, all of
the above probably isn't a solution.

[BarackTheVote]

51. Thank you

And I'm not saying gun regulation isn't important and necessary, but it seems irresponsible to leave our kids in outdated buildings with poor security and that are difficult to escape from. Because, let's face it, guns aren't the only danger kids could face at school--what if someone comes in with a backpack full of improvised explosives? Pipe bombs, etc... you can cause a lot of havoc without a firearm, and someone tweaked enough to attack their fellow classmates isn't going to be deterred that they couldn't get a gun.

[1StrongBlackMan]

20. because ...

it would be ineffective.

A person intent on shooting up a school or a house or anywhere else will not be deterred by the presence of an officer. That would be just one more target, if the officer got there during the shooting.

[Liberal Veteran]

21. I'd say putting cops in every school would be admitting our society has failed completely.

Why stop there?

One in every grocery store, convenience store, at every mall kiosk, and each church and public park as well.

Can't be too safe, you know.

[BarackTheVote]

57. It's a government building

Capitals, court houses, federal buildings--hell, some posts offices--have tighter security. Why should our elected officials and other civil servants receive so much more protection than the children that we confine in a box for eight hours a day? It's not saying that we've failed, it's updating our systems to the level of other government installations.

[YvonneCa]

169. Define 'building'...

...does it include open playgrounds?

[RC]

191. They already have cops/security in some of the grocery stores here in Kansas City.

[Sancho]

22. We have uniformed cops in Florida schools now...it doesn't make any difference.

The HS where my kids attended saw two administrators shot (one killed) in 1988. Columbine had an armed cop on duty. It's a dumb idea to put any more guns anywhere near schools.

My view:
1.) Ban all guns that shoot more than 3 shots (long guns) or 6 shots (handguns) without reloading. Ban all large clips or modifications.
2.) You should get a license to buy, possess, use, or own a gun or ammunition.
3.) The license is renewed regularly, like a car tag, driver's license, etc.
4.) To get the license, you have to have a background check, mental health clearance, a safety course, gun-owner's insurance (so that the insurance company will check hospital and doctor records for mental heath treatments, prescriptions, proper storage of guns, etc.).
5.) Even with a license, you should have a buyer's waiting period of a month or more for guns and bullets.
6.) All sales (gun shows, private, internet, etc.) must record the gun's serial number and license of the buyer.
7.) All guns should be registered.
8.) If you violate the license law, you lose the gun and go to jail (like a DUI) until cleared by a judge.
9.) Possessing an unregistered gun should be a felony.
10.) All youth cannot have a gun in their possession with a licensed adult supervising plus a learner's permit.

Some of those license fees should go to mental health services for potentially violent people so that there's a treatment program in every town.

BTW, I'm a gun owner.

[Toronto]

50. Bravo!

I couldn't have said it any better.

[kydo]

52. Yeah there were cops at my kids hs in FL

But it is also public relation. I don't mind the cops in the schools. Mostly because they are not just there for security.

What I don't want is armed guards.

On guns I posted something here , thats pretty much what you said

Cops are fine, that is a crime determent, community engaging, educational etc but armed guards no way, armed guards guard prisons not schools.

[BarackTheVote]

74. Agreed

They'd basically be like the security at an airport, but less invasive. "Don't forget to take off your coat"--and then when most kids are inside, they'd be watching cameras and monitoring for alerts.

[Mojorabbit]

124. I grew up without cops in schools

and this was a time when there were bomb threats almost routinely. We seemed to evacuate to the school lawn every day for a good while. I am torn because I think it is a bad thing to teach children young that they must submit to state authority. We read about cops arresting elementary school kids often and worse.

[libdem4life]

163. We no longer have local cops on foot...friendly blue...like we used to who would get to know the

kids and were part of the community. No little kids were traumatized by the nice, local Police Officer in their neighborhood. For god sakes, they were part of the reading curriculum books.

I see this as the same thing...submit to state authority???? We'd not be asking the Nazis or Federal Marshalls to patrol FFS, or requiring them to keep their vaccination papers to show.

Talking nice people, local people, vets, retired military, retired police, train retired parents...friends to the kids. A part of a kid's education and learning culture is how to interact with teachers, store owners, peers, local police, emergency helpers, fire department...in fact they take teacher-led field trips just for that purpose. Those department often come to schools with cool booths and interactions and stuff for the kids...along with letting them get used to the emergency vehicles...especially the fire engines. Kids love it.

And I don't think a child has ever been traumatized by waiting for two hours in a long, long line to go through a metal scanner, get patted down, and notice a whole lot of police and security guards before going to see Grandma. Nor are they traumatized by seeing a Federal Marshall onboard the plane. Why? Because their parents have already taught them about it, are doing so willingly, and yes, they will feel safer.

Think Friendly Crossing Guard...that we figured out when we wanted to protect kids crossing streets. Teachers/parents walking their young kid to the bus and home...in case some idiot car flies out of nowhere. Try passing a stopped School Bus with the red lights and stop signs flashing...very bad idea. Protection for school children increases all the time.

These are just professionals at school, trained to be a first responder on site. No one says this will DO IT ALL...that's the rhetorical defense of idiots. Kids still get hit in the street, too. Just not so often. It's another layer of protection for our kids...and the Gun Complex WILL PAY FOR IT.

[BarackTheVote]

170. I agree, and I like the image

But I would say that I think a trained police officer would be more practical than training vets, retired military/police/parents for the job, if for no other reason than that they're already paid by the PD and it would not be any extra cost to the schools, which, as plenty of people have pointed out, are cash-strapped (understatement)

[libdem4life]

179. Thanks. Problem I see is that, like teachers, police officers are also in short supply.

I was thinking more about the already-trained retirees because the salaries aren't likely to be equal to what police officers get paid. There would definitely be training, and assemblies with the kids with fun things to do, to talk to and get to know and make actual relationships with kids. It happens at Crossing Guards. Also I was thinking that most would be local/retired/vets who are known to the community and would be proud to stand up for and with the kids. New jobs!!

The training wouldn't be too much different from what they already had...because the main object is to be a resident First Responder, rather than the Principal or Teacher. They DO NOT WANT TO BE required to have weapons and training and don't want to anyway...not what they were trained for. Guards ... two ... would have each other and would have 911 on speed dial the miniute anything happens.

Policemen should be for apprehending and completing the job. No police officer I know would want to be stuck at an elementary school all day any more than a teacher wants to own/be issued a firearm in her class. Boring and not what they are trained for.

[BarackTheVote]

189. Which is why I say that this is the perfect moment to reinvigorate

our public funding of police and fire departments. They need to be saved from privatization efforts. Republicans and their irrational hatred of all things government funded, we can stomp that right down. This is the moment, not just for sweeping gun legislation, but also to put the spotlight on what Republicans have done to make our streets and schools less safe. Also, for updating school buildings, a lot of which are, what? 70+ years old? It's all part and partial of the New New Deal: public works, renewed investment in infrastructure, and an increase in well-paid civil servants.

[libdem4life]

194. I see what you mean and like it. That would include mental health care, rearranging policies

for non-violent drug use...yes, A New Deal...a 21st Century Deal. Use the momentum and move full steam ahead.

And I remember how angry I was when they put down the Vets Jobs bill. I'm, betting that back in FDRs days, it put many people to work, including many veterans and retirees as there were many different levels of work created.

Then, we might just "peek" into the War budget a bit? Now that would be A True Miracle on 4th Street.

[Mojorabbit]

208. I like the picture you paint

and I hope it would be just like that but we have seen article after article after article of children being tazed, put in handcuffs, etc for minor things. That is my fear.

[99Forever]

23. Nice Drive-by-posting.

I see you haven't bothered to respond to a single one the fine folks that took their time and energy to answer your "question."


Why is that?

[BarackTheVote]

53. Forgive me for not obsessively tapping the refresh button for ten minutes

I was wrapping Christmas presents

[dlwickham]

56. don't say Christmas

people on here will start harping at you for that one as well

[99Forever]

77. "...obsessively tapping the refresh button for ten minutes."

It was well over an hour and mine was the 23rd reply.

Excuse me for wondering why someone would pose a question then not be around for the answers.


Merry Christmas anyway, hope you got your wrapping all done.

[BarackTheVote]

165. LOL

Guess I lost track of time... wrapping presents is very engrossing

[BarackTheVote]

84. And NOW I'm going to go Christmas shopping with ma mère

followed by a birthday party (I got all of my Hanukkah shopping done weeks ago)

So no freaking out when I don't respond for the next 10 hours

[ecstatic]

24. Because people are viewing it as an "either or" situation when it

really doesn't have to be. We can do gun control and make sure that a place housing hundreds if not thousands of students has at least one trained security officer guarding the place.

It's true that the cop could be the first to go in the unlikely event of an active shooter, but to use that as an excuse to have nobody there at all doesn't sit well with me either.

Seems like it should be standard practice to have at least one trained officer present at a place with so many people inside (particularly when it's 90% women and children). Malls have guards. Movie theaters have guards. My office building has a guard. My supermarket has guards at night. Are people suggesting that the only things worth guarding are money and merchandise? Why can't students have one too?

Again, NOT AS A REPLACEMENT for gun control, as that clown suggested today, but in conjunction with a bunch of other measures. If cops have time to sit on the highway harassing drivers, they have time to guard a school. Another option is for them to volunteer for tax breaks. Redirect the tax breaks for the top 1% to police volunteers. I'd love to see Boehner and Co reject that.

[Union Scribe]

26. Makes sense to me.

It's likely that the gun control fight will be lengthy and incremental, so in the mean time I don't see what's so horrible about security. Like you said, people seem to attack the idea because it isn't gun control, when both are reasonable measures.

[BarackTheVote]

63. 100%, thanks for getting where I'm coming from

I am absolutely NOT saying we shouldn't also concentrate on gun control as well, but, as you said, in the meantime we can use this opportunity to improve our physical school buildings and make them safer places for our kids to be.

[libdem4life]

248. Count me in ... we can do "yes...and" The gun folks will pay for the

Officer Friendly...beat cop in Blue of the old days... 2 of them per elementary school. These are the officers they no longer have on their streets and read about in their reading books. Community Helpers and the field trips and the classroom visits...the kids adore them.

I don't have enough information to be in a gun control conversation, but I am an expert when it comes to schools and kids and parents and administrator. And our worlds are going to have to learn to come together. We don't need Rambo. We can hire those who have already been trained...vets, retired military, retired police...re-train and re-group for the little ones, check for their kid-quotient, include them in the birthday parties, etc.

The NRA or La Pierre ... our newest demon we love to hate ... will have nothing to do with the system or how it will work. We can do that.

[jehop61]

25. Police are people too

How would you like a job where you just stood or sat in a place 6 hours a day. Standing always on alert, befriending no one, just scanning your eyes to check out passerbys. Perhaps you might get a very brief bathroom break, but not too many. Eat lunch at your post, always scanning, scanning. No closing your eyes to doze and no contact with others. That, my friend, would be the job description for millions of security officers all over the US. Do you think you can find them?

[ecstatic]

30. Why do you say they can't befriend anyone? nt

[jehop61]

38. According to the gun culture

Armed sharpshooters can't have feelings toward their targets. And anyone in a school is a potential shooter.

[ecstatic]

45. oh. I guess we're all picturing different things

I think any officers placed in school should be all purpose, not necessarily sharp shooters. Just someone to maintain order, break up fights, etc. I'm envisioning more a friendly presence, not a hardened military presence.

[BarackTheVote]

65. I'm picturing a cop

on rotation, paid for by the PD; not necessarily the same person every day, either.

[libdem4life]

249. From an educator's view...these people would be an integral part of the school and the kids lives.

that they are protecting. They will be on the playground with them, meeting them at the bus, saying howdy to the parents, walking in to school with them, checking out their art work, almost like a mentor. They'll pick some of the slack of the grateful overworked teachers and principal.

And forgive the gender here, but most elementary teachers are women and there are few men there. For decades that has been a known gap because a lot of the kids don't have Dads at home. I keep calling him Officer Friendly to make a point...and yes he carries a gun which makes him different from the usually beloved Crossing Guard. There are a lot of these guys out there who would be perfect for this job.

[RomneyLies]

27. Other than the fact that there WAS a cop on campus at Columbine and it had no effect

and it sends a message to kids that schools are inherently unsafe, I can't think of a damned reason why not.

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2000/columbine.cd/Pages/DEPUTIES_TEXT.htm

[LanternWaste]

28. While I certainly don't mind life-jackets on a boat

While I certainly don't mind life-jackets on a boat, I'd rather see first priority given to preventing holes appearing in the hull in the first place, rather than simply shoring up the leaks afterwards. Police in schools, while one of may possible and viable deterrents, does not address the fundamental problem.

Every gun death, regardless of whether intention or accidental, has one and only one common denominator.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

29. Then you must lead a confused and challenging life

Because it should be obvious to most emotionally mature adults why it is a problem.

[Yavin4]

31. Columbine Had A Cop and Security Cameras

I would guess that VA tech had guards and cameras as well.

The only way to stop massacres is to remove high capacity weapons from the hands of the public.

[raquel69]

205. Yeah but they

weren't on alert for this type of incident. Why have there not been any successful 9/11 attempts on airplanes since? Increased security and passengers know they have to act if there is such a threat.

[graham4anything]

32. BTW-WHO is going to pay for this? Republicans are cutting school funds & don't want taxes

the NRA of course are morons thinking the republicans will go for a major tax scheme to fund cops in schools.

Do you think cops are free?
And it would require 2 or 3 different ones. One is not enough. You need TWO at all times.
That makes 6 cops for each school needed

on top of the already financially strapped police departments

so, WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR THIS???

Why not just ban all guns from streets?
Let hunters be like the Native Americans and use bow and arrows.
Go to shooting ranges and get a gun like mini-golf players get equiptment
Collectors can keep their guns but they don't need bullets
There is no constitutional right to any bullet

and, as you agree you need security, let's have eyes in the sky, cameras and drones and when guns in the street are illegal- ZERO TOLERANCE for anyone found with one
BEFORE THEY ENTER A BUILDING.

reclassify the guns as a terror instrument in the war on terror
then freeze the assets of the nra
we don't give terror orgs a forum for press conferences

[Buns_of_Fire]

80. Irony alert: Grover Norquist is on the NRA Board of Directors.

Yep, the same fuzzy-faced little bastard who has the teabaggers right by the teabags. I'd love to know what money tree he has the seeds for that he intends to pluck for this.

[Uncle Joe]

33. How would you arm the police in schools, with automatic weapons?

Thanks for the thread, BarackTheVote.

[Go Vols]

55. The cops in schools

here carry semi automatic pistols.

[Uncle Joe]

79. Well without a ban on assault weapons, that may not be enough.

It used to be swat teams were limited now they're everywhere whether needed or not.

I suspect that's what LaPierre really wants, an arms race but instead of it being the U.S. against real or imagined adversarial nations, it would be among Americans and their governments.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

34. I don't see a problem with a uniformed officer,but I'm somewhat skeptical about its effectiveness...

...in the absence of other meaningful gun control measures. Which the NRA will undoubtedly fight tooth and nail. Thus, I don't see it as anything beyond a token gesture on the NRA's part.

What I do have a problem with are "private citizen guards" being posted in schools as the NRA advocated. What we don't need is George Zimermann the Second creating some sort of mess.

Nor should we force our teachers to be sharpshooters. They have enough on their plates, thank you very much.

[Agnosticsherbet]

35. there are 98,817 public schools.

(http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/pub_overview.asp) So, we hire 98,817 police officers at $50,000.00 a year, plus health-care, plus retirement, plus insurance in case he gets shot on the job. But wait, that is just one. Some of these schools have up-wards to 400 or 500 students, and cover 20 acres. A gun nut could kill a lot of students while that one cop is running across campus. So to be safe, you'd need two or three officers. That is called a prison.

Where that is quite a jobs program, it is not they type of place I want my kids to live in. Hiring cops to police schools is the NRA's way of saying, we love our guns, we want to keep millions and millions of guns, and we don't give a damn how unsafe that makes the world.

No, we don't need to put police in schools. We need to pass meaningful gun control laws, reduce the number of guns, require gun owners to buy insurance for every gun they own, limit the size of magazines, get rid of all military style, semi-automatic weapons. Because the NRA are cowards who can't come out of their hidey holes unarmed most of us prefer to live lives gun free.

[whatchamacallit]

43. I was pondering the scope and logistics of it too

An absolutely absurd idea.

[Agnosticsherbet]

121. That doesn't include charter schools and private schools.

Hiring, training, writing the necessary regulations for that many people would be a monumental task. And who would manage it? Would that system be managed by individual schools systems, by cities, states, or by the Secretary of Education, which would make the Secretary of Education the head of a military of considerable size all on his own.

It is a stupid, unworkable idea. And why do we want to live in a world that has become dangerous because people are addicted to guns and fear.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

39. Aren't cops already in a lot of schools?

Also, don't you think that that's a bit much given that school shootings like the one in Connecticut, though horrific, are generally pretty rare? Even with what happened at Columbine and in Newtown, I don't feel that it's very likely (or probable) that it's going to happen to any of my kids or to the vast majority of kids out there, at least not to the point that we need to have police in every school. I imagine that most of them would end up sitting on their hands just waiting for something horrific to happen- that is more than likely NOT going to happen.

[WinkyDink]

48. No, they aren't. Where Iive in PA, anyway.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

49. Well, maybe not

though they seem to be called upon by some schools to handle a lot of things nowadays- some of which USED to be handled by the school and/or the children's parents.......

[justabob]

68. they are in my city - Dallas

My son's high school has 2-3 on duty everyday. Depends on where you are, I guess.

[Ilsa]

94. My experience is that they are

generally in high schools and many middle schools. They handle issues like illegal substance abuse, too.

I've never worked on an elementary school campus with resource officer (police officer).

[OregonBlue]

40. Oh brilliant, instead of dealing with the problem of gun nuts and paramilitaries and mental illness,

and doomsday prepers we'll just make it worse. By all means, let's put people with guns in our schools to scare the kiddies and remind them that they could be attacked at any time.

Sounds like the perfect Republican solution to me.

[libdem4life]

73. Uh, they go to the mall and that doesn't seem to bother them. They walk into a bank...at least mine

and see a cop every time. Doesn't make them afraid go to the bank. I could go on. The sky is not falling...really.

[ancianita]

115. It's a practical solution, a preventive one in Chicago. One officer and security guards are in all

high schools, and have been for the last twenty years. Metal detectors are in mandatory use at the main entrances of all high schools, where students' book bags go through scanners. Students and teachers wear ID's at all times. I've seen security guards in middle schools and elementary schools. The Board of Ed pays for security guards, and the city pays through the Chicago Police Dept. budget. It's just seen as part of neighborhood policing.

The stats as of my last year in a Chicago high school, five years ago, were that there have been no injuries or deaths by guns inside high schools. The CPD does its usual car patrols through all school neighborhoods, and there is backup if any is needed. I was in a college prep high school with plenty of tough kids, and none of them felt in danger inside the school. Corporate media reports of murders around schools have tried to imply that they happened in the schools, but Chicagoans know the stats and that Chicago kids are safe within their schools. It's out in the world that they are vulnerable, which is why many stay for after school sports and other programs.

I honestly don't see how the public doesn't buy into the idea that it gets what it pays for. It's the cost of raising children.

[BarackTheVote]

171. +1!

[otohara]

42. Columbine Had An Armed Guard

On the scene that day was Neil Gardner, an armed sheriff’s deputy who had been policing the school for almost two years.

[PA Democrat]

69. You are correct.

There was also a person carrying a weapon in Tuscon when Gabby Giffords and 18 other people were shot. That individual says he almost shot the wrong person.

And Fort Hood...

More guns are not the answer.

[WinkyDink]

47. It would be some major "cooping" at the vast majority of schools.

[dlwickham]

54. makes sense to me

in the same way we have guards and security people posted in other places like airports and whatnot

[PA Democrat]

71. How did that work at Columbine?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/17/1171099/-Columbine-High-School-had-an-armed-deputy

[dlwickham]

98. and?

After the exchange of gunfire, Harris ran back into the building. Gardner was able to get on the police radio and called for assistance from other Sheriff’s units. “Shots in the building. I need someone in the south lot with me.”

he got a call off to the sheriff's department and he did exchange gun fire with the murderers

I don't know the specifics but how many lives did that save

[Kennah]

129. Law enforcement doctrine at the time said with an active shooter to call SWAT and wait

[CTyankee]

58. Why do we have to accept living like this in the first place?

Why do we need to accept the idea that we live in Somalia and therefore there is nothing that can be done except make the "best" of our violent society and its apologists.

Plaid Adder said it best: we live in a failed state.

[Kelvin Mace]

59. Seriously?

Can't have a police state without the police now can we?

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

61. Don't we at some point have to ask;

what is causing all this violent, destructive, anti-social behavior?
As it stands now, putting a policeman or armed guard in schools because of what happened last week is akin to standing next to a river where wounded and dead people float by on a regular basis. "Let's build a hospital and morgue here" someone says. And everyone agrees. But that doesn't do anything to stop the flow of wounded and dead bodies..............

[RC]

198. STOPIT already! You are making too much sense.

We gotta deal with the symptoms, dontchaknow? To do other wise requires too much thinking and logic. We gotta look at all the jobs all this school security creates. Never mind reality. Never mind if it can't work. Never mind the cost. Never mind it is obvious it is the excess of guns of all kinds that are the root of the problem. But at least we'd be doing something, right?


For those that think more security by more guns is the answer -->

And in case you missed it --> <--

The collective IQ of DU is dropping daily. That is not sarcasm.

The basic purpose of guns is to kill things. No other legal item, whose basic purpose is to kill, is in such wide spread use.
Trying to distract from the bloody trail of death caused by guns by comparing guns to cars, or anything else, is no more than straw man arguments. None of those other items have as their basic, killing. Only guns have the designation of "Weapons". While other items can be used as weapons, that is not their primary purpose, as is with guns.

There are 7 billion people in the world.
There are 311.6 million people in the united States.
There are 600 million guns in the world.
There are 300 million guns in the United States.
The United States has less that 4.5% of the worlds population.
So why do we have or need one half of the worlds supply of guns?
How can this not be a problem?

[Sekhmets Daughter]

64. There was an armed sheriff's deputy at Columbine High School....

Didn't do much good. Are you expecting to post guards, armed with assault weapons, at every entrance? Every school needs multiple entrances and exits, if for no other reason than fire safety.

I am old enough to remember when living in America was not like living in an armed insane asylum and I grew up in Brooklyn, NY.

[Rex]

66. Been done since the mid 1980s...where ya been?

Cops in schools is old news...I haven't seen people protesting that much about it, are you sure this is such a big issue here on DU?

[libdem4life]

72. Just resistence to the new awful recognition that this isn't the inner city or hormonal teenagers.

Truly...we don't want to believe that when we drop off our little ones, they might not be safe. I know parents who homeschool and form charter schools for that very reason...their fears, whatever they may be.

I remember the outrage at car seats and weight limits and and mandatory seat belts. No parent gets in their car planning to have a car accident...but they happen...and sometimes the restraints don't work in spite of the rules, but it sure has markedly improved the death rates.

[theKed]

135. Its a bit like

car seats, with the addition of those seat advocates not making a peep about the car makers putting a bottle opener and a 6-pack cooler in the front seat.

[libdem4life]

158. Huh? Guess analogy or metaphor is lost on some people. Maybe you meant to say holster and handgun

but I'll go with the silliness...bottle opener would be great and a 6-pack cooler would be good too...Sprite for Mom and Pediasure for the kid.

It's about protection...to restate succinctly...and how it can influence what we do. And we're going to have to do it again. Other posts I mentioned TSA and the War on Terror...others, we knew how to protect every single person and flight that comes in and out of our domestic airports. Or, treat guns like cars in terms of sale, registration, taxation, transfer, licensed dealers, and especially like DUI...jail time. We can do this

Now we have to figure out what to do with it when it's "us". But most of us will survive...even without the bottle opener silliness...so sorry I failed to clearly spell out my thoughts.

Again, our kids need protection whatever cost it may take ...

[Toronto]

67. Even if it were not a repugnant notion to begin with

the only schools that would be able to afford such security would be the ones with a healthy tax base, so effectively you are advocating protection for the rich kids only.

[Lokey]

75. Don't think it would make a difference

Unfortunately, in the current case I don't think it would have made a difference. This guy came in shooting. Any armed person wouldn't even have the gun out of holster in time to stop him.

I don't disagree that a police presence at school helps out with other things that go on.
At one of the bigger malls in our area we have a strong police presence due to some issues with teens and I have witnessed the cops breaking up congregating kids and making sure that the shoppers don't have to be afraid.
But cops aren't super heroes they are only regular people. Don't get me wrong, I know they are trained well in watching things that the average folks don't notice, but there is only so much they can do.

[Nye Bevan]

76. What if the next massacre is in a candy store? Put a cop in every candy store?

How about if it's at a school bus stop? A cop at every school bus stop? A playground? Put a cop in every playground? Are you starting to see what this would lead to, logically? Armed cops wherever anyone goes? Is this the kind of society we should be trying to achieve?

[randome]

81. Day care centers.

Toy stores.
Malls.
Every child's birthday party.
The idea of having armed cops everywhere is so ludicrous it's almost laughable if it wasn't so short-sighted.

[frylock]

78. VA Tech has the equivalent of a SWAT team stationed on campus..

how did that work out? how many police do you propose are stationed at these schools? one in each classroom? one at each entry point, including windows? please do enlighten us.

[rainlillie]

83. Good points. I agree.

[libdem4life]

85. Not one public dime. Paid for by the gun industry and their gigantic profits. Blow a hole

in their profits. Executive Orders. Tax Code changes. Regulate and tax the entire industry. Cease protecting the delicate nature of gun owners as they need to grow up as do their politicians that enable the faux fear with them.

Hell, we can barely pay the teachers and deliver a somewhat adequate education.

I remember an old bumper sticker in the school parking lot in the old days...something to the effect...we can pay for unending war on the world, but have to hold a bake sale for supplies in our schools.

Want to know why charter schools and homeschooling are becoming more and more popular? Those who can will take their kids out. That's not a great solution, either, but within the power of many parents...as opposed to vague notions of overhauling the mental health system, retrofitting schools or waiting until guns are banned...none of those things relevant today.

[mainer]

86. Only if paid for ENTIRELY by taxes on bullets and guns

Then it becomes a terrific job creator -- all funded by the gun lobby!

[Iggy]

87. That's Because There's NOTHING to Get Here..

A cop per school, two-three cops in large high schools is perfectly acceptable and in fact must happen.

The people pushing back agains this apparently live in some sort of fantasy land-- i.e. the notion that any law (maybe passed by congress 2-3 years from now) will protect their children at school/college.

First off, any law that congress (maybe) passes will not be retroactive, and it remains to be seen if they even have the balls to stop gun purchases w/o background checks which are sold at gun shows.

[politicat]

89. It turns schools into an arms race.

Around half of all high schools already have a resource officer, either part or full time. It does not stop violence. Having one didn't do a damned thing for Columbine and it didn't prevent any of the ones that came after.

Most college campuses -- including VaTech -- have campus police, often armed. It does not stop violence. (In the past few years, there have been almost as many shootings on college campuses as on high school and middle school campuses.)

Putting an armed cop in the halls means that when the bullets start flying, there are just more bullets. Remember the Empire State Building shooting this autumn? All of the casualties were because of "friendly fire."

Cops are expensive, so is security. We have schools that can't afford new shingles or more than one electrical outlet per class room as it is. Where do we get the money? You think this Congress will appropriate it? (Sure, jobs program for about 150K people, but expensive jobs program.) This Congress can't agree on paper or plastic.

Let's say we can figure out a robotic system, where when the cameras notice a shooter, they power up some sort of arming and aiming system -- perhaps with tranquilizer darts instead of bullets. (Because personally, I'd rather see justice done -- we have a functioning judiciary for a reason.) That's within technical capacity right now. How do we test it? Systems that aren't used often are more likely to fail when needed. (See: Hospital generators during Sandy.)

Assume the system works perfectly, every time. How do we secure it? That's the sort of technical challenge hackers love. And even better -- a remote controlled shooting, even if only with trank darts. (Which for a 5 year old, can be just as deadly.) Even better than remote controlled, it's pretty risk-free -- if a hacker can get into Sony without getting caught, they'll use the same or better tools to get into a security system.

So now we need security in depth -- fences, walls, double doors with secured access. What stops a determined shooter from calling up the principal and making some sort of plausible sounding meeting to get through the gates? All a shooter has to do is get past the first line of defense.

So place that line of defense outside of high powered range. And now, we have some sort of moating system. Is this how we want kids growing up? Inside a moat, inside walls, inside a security perimeter? With armed guards standing over them? With cameras on them all the time?

How do we get the kids to and from these fortresses? Parent drop-off? Well, the school run is every day, twice a day... so how about a car bomb? Worked for the IRA. Buses? Better buy the armored type used to transport prisoners.

A security system might be the answer -- I've seen some that only trigger from the outside -- but really, the kids will find it endlessly diverting. Math class sucks? Okay, let's pull a false alarm. So, too, will criminals -- need a diversion from a supermarket robbery? Trigger the alarm at a school. How is this conducive to a learning environment again?

Windows as points of egress are also points of ingress, and thus needs to be secured. While I would LOVE if every classroom had a garden right outside (there's so much that could be done with that) it's another point of failure. School design is not random -- it serves the greater needs of the greater number most of the time.

Assume endless funding, perfect technology, sharpshooters with perfect aim who would never accidentally hit an innocent bystander. It just means that when someone decides to end their misery and take out a lot of others in the process, they go to a mall, or a crowded street, or a movie theater. Secure all of those, and they figure out how to build a bomb or a missile.

[hatrack]

93. Eventually, you end up with tactical teams for every school, by this logic

Which would be lovely for the NRA, I'm sure. A near-perfect outcome.

[politicat]

114. You end up with an arms race, and the way arms races end is disarmament.

So let's skip the useless part of this experiment and go directly to the end-game.

[left is right]

90. I have read at least a half dozen or so postings asking the same question

and each time my gut instincts scream “No! For F*#(-sake NO!” I haven’t responded to any of these postings because I have been unable to explain my gut-level reaction but I now have a starting point. No police officers in school because I do not want a frustrated teacher/teacher’s aid to say, “If you don’t behave this instance, I will go get that officer out in the hall and he will put you in jail.” For that matter, frustrated parents will do the same thing.
As someone else has already said police officers whose duty station is the local elementary school is an admission that we a failed society.

[hatrack]

92. Pierre wasn't talking about cops in schools - he was talking about a volunteer militia

This volunteer militia - which would supposedly be made up of retired police, military reservists and so on - would not be paid.

Who would be responsible for the training of this militia? Ostensibly the NRA, but if it costs any serious money, then their involvement will almost certainly be a short-term thing. .

Who would be legally liable for the actions of members of this militia? Certainly not the NRA. They might provide model "contracts" for these unpaid school staff members, or whatever they'd be qualified as. However, you can bet your boots that they'd immunize themselves completely from any ickiness - accidental shooting deaths, negligence, child molestation, whatever might pop up in a cadre of hundreds of thousands of "Safety Guardians" or whatever the fuck they're going to call themselves.

Who would screen these people so that they wouldn't end up utilizing the "free" services of people with criminal backgrounds, mental illness, known propensities for violence? Certainly not the NRA, if it cost them any money. Again, along with legal liability, costs would rest squarely with the school districts and administrators.

Who would be responsible for maintaining militia members in place in schools if volunteers quit, or screwed around? Who would "hire" and "fire" militia members? Not the NRA or gun manufacturers, certainly.

IOW, the NRA just walked up to America's school administrators with a bucket of flaming shit. They then said to the administrators, "We understand that you've been having problems with smoke alarms and bad odors in your schools. We think this bucket of flaming shit would be just the thing for you. Let us know how it works out for you once you've created the entire system of flaming shit creation and distribution and paid for its upkeep for a few years. If you need it, we can call in some friends of ours who are really good at contracting flaming shit systems, and we might even be able to get some federal money for it."

[BarackTheVote]

175. I'd heard this and had discussions about it days before the NRA presser

And I absolutely, completely, and 100% DISAGREE with them about arming citizens and schools hiring security guards and all that stuff. I thought I made it clear in my post that I believe it should be a cop who's already on the pay-roll of the police department, NOT someone the school has to cough up dough for, not some gun nut, but a real life bonafied police officer who's already gone through all the training, even received some extra training to work around kids in a school environment. I guess the whole point of this thread is that just because Pierre said something similar, it doesn't mean that it's not proper to have a cop guarding our schools, and we shouldn't pour the baby out with the bathwater here. Let's not be like the TEA partiers, here, who shoot themselves in the foot just to spite their enemies.

[RC]

201. Isn't a "volunteer militia" what we already have with all these gun nutz and their armories?

Anywho, that's their interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Yeah, that's gonna work out real well.

[tledford]

95. Everyone KNOWS that a squadron of marines and a couple of tanks ...

... in every school is what is REALLY needed.

[wickerwoman]

97. Kids shouldn't be habituated to living in a police state.

It just feeds the climate of paranoia and fear that prompts people, on hearing of a school shooting, to run out and buy more guns instead of pausing for a minute to be a human being.

Also, and I say this with all due respect, I've worked in companies that had cops doing regular patrols and many of them were not the kind of people I'd want working around kids packing heat. Some were not the brightest bulbs on the tree, some were racist or sexist or homophobic, some were lazy, some got off on power and authority, some were just irritable and didn't like children, some enjoyed high-risk, thrill-seeking behavior, some were just miserable alcoholics.

If you think we have problems now with six year olds being tased or handcuffed or restrained on the ground with a knee to the neck, wait until we have armed cops patrolling every school in the land. We practically do already and yet school shootings continue to occur and if anything seem to be happening more frequently.

Also, kids rise to the level of your expectations. If you treat them like criminals, that's how they will come to see themselves and that's how they will act. A teen's response to cops patrolling the school halls is not "Thank God he's here to keep me safe". It's "since I'm going to be monitored like a criminal anyway, I might as well act like one and get the benefit".

Seeing a cop doesn't increase the feeling of security. It serves as a constant reminder of one's insecurity and I think that's psychologically unhealthy for kids disproportionate to the risk of them being a victim of a school shooting.

[Toronto]

100. The whole cops and/or security guards in schools

(and I agree with the point that you really don't want someone who hasn't undergone psychological screening near your kids) overlooks the fact that kids are even more exposed when they are outdoors. Unless you want to surround all schools with un-scalable concrete walls, the nut job that wants to kill children can do it drive by style, while the kids are outside playing. By the time the cop or guard got there you'd already have a bunch of dead kids and the perpetrator would be long gone.

[JDPriestly]

99. Sounds like you have a yen for a police state.

Let's see. I bet you like the idea of armed guards at our border protected by barbed wire fences. We would be so safe. But maybe not safe enough.

Maybe we should add some towers so that the guards can see wide and far with their high-power binoculars. And they need radio communication with the tanks stored a few feet behind the fence and of course rifles just in case mobs of troublemakers try to enter (or escape).

Everybody has a passport, and woe be to the person caught without one on his or her person.

To be really safe, we should make sure every financial transaction over $10,000 is copied to the authorities. (Woops! That's the way it is now.)

Plus guests in hotels will be spied upon, especially "furriners," and especially, especially those weirdos who talk funny, wear funny clothes and have suspicious-looking skin.

Then of course the police will read your e-mails, get your Netflix information, check through your bags at the airport and occasionally even on trains. Oh, and when you travel by train, the ticket-taker will look under your seat as well as at your ticket. Wouldn't want to miss anybody trying to sneak in or out of the country.

Your phone is, of course, tapped by the police just to make sure no one is plotting against the government and also to get those handy little details about who is meeting up with whom -- possibly for a romantic rendez-vous. Never know when that kind of information can come in handy. Many a dangerous person has been stopped because gossip about his extramarital you-know-who was made public. Wow! Should have seen his wife. She was furious.

Takes almost nothing to get a warrant to tap phones in a country in which the children wear uniforms to schools guarded with guns.

Add surveillance drones entertaining you during the parties in your back yard. (You won't even know they are there. They are so small, and make you so safe.)

Oh, and there will be a special number that you can call to report any suspicious goings-on at the neighbors. Is Mr. Anderson lounging in his skivvies with a lady friend by his backyard pool on Sunday again while his wife is at her mom's? Better report that. Woops! How were you to know that lady is his sister? Well, I guess now you do.

The East Germans tried so hard to keep their citizens safe. Just imagine how safe the East Germans would have been had their police had the equipment we have today.

Instead of a chicken in every pot, a gun at ever table. Instead of a crucifix on every wall, a gun on every wall.

Sounds like Wayne La Pierre's fondest dream.

But it isn't mine.

[libdem4life]

167. Take a deep breath ... think School Crossing Guards...just one level up,

as first responders ... onsite. Nothing new in the Jr. Highs and High Schools. Hiring a security agency for kiddie protection is a long way from the Gestapo. Oh, and radio communication with 911.

And just because La Pierre says something foaming at the mouth...does not make it true or untrue. He's going to be footing the bill anyway...count on it.

[JDPriestly]

246. Armed guards are one step up from school crossing guards?

The suggestion is completely unrealistic.

Semi-automatic and automatic capacity should be only available to people trained in police forces at the most. Even military training is not enough. Military training has a different focus that police or security training.

Before La Pierre's speech I was more sympathetic to the gun lovers. But after that speech, it is clear to me that the NRA and its members are in total denial about their responsibility to the children and elderly and other vulnerable people in our society including the mentally ill.

The idea of an armed guard in every school is hideous.

The idea of armed guards looking through our baggage at airports is also hideous.

We are already on our way to a police state like East Germany.

Have you read much about East Germany in the post-war years? Have you read much about life in NAZI Germany? We are really close to those conditions. Much closer than people realize.

[baldguy]

101. 1. The suggestion comes from the RW fascists at the NRA. That's reason enough.

[Logical]

104. Wow! FAIL. Schools cannot hire teachers or buy books. You want to spend $50,000 - $100,000 on cops?

[BarackTheVote]

177. The gov't owns the schools. The gov't already pays the cops.

We're just coordinating resources here. The school would NOT be paying for the cops.

[Warren Stupidity]

105. Oh and one other thing about this bullshit NRA talking point post...

The Colombine shooters were not Goths and were not into trenchcoat attire.

Now carry on.

[Earth_First]

109. +100 pts. for providing the truth and accuracy.

Non-factual OP's seem to be standard fare nowadays...

[HooptieWagon]

106. They have had it in FLA for a while.

There have been no mishaps, and parents seem to support it. Even when I was in HS in the early 70s, a cop w/gun would walk through school as part of his beat, though not permanently assigned there...it was no big deal. Don't recall ever seeing a cop at elem or Jr high.
I don't like the idea of arming teachers at all, and don't think armed private security guards are the best answer, but armed municipal police trained for the job I don't have a big issue with. I don't know how effective one would be against multiple intruders, though.

[kenny blankenship]

107. More guns is clearly NOT the answer to America's gun & violence problem.

If living with more firearms and converting daily spaces into something like prisons and/or warzones was the right way to go to make American life less violent and to reduce the incidence of shoot-em-ups IT WOULD HAVE WORKED BY NOW.

More guns, more oppressive and alienating, prison-like conditions leads to more alienation and violence. The actual result of your proposal is just as likely to be the armed guard at a school become a magnet and provocation for the violent impulses of the potential nutters in the student body, which is I'm sure the opposite of what you intend.

[JohLast]

108. Most schools in my area already have police officers assigned to schools.

Several of our schools have their own police departments.

[csziggy]

110. Who would pay for it?

The cash strapped police departments that local, state and federal governments have cut the budgets for?

The school systems, equally cash strapped, that cannot afford to pay for enough teachers even at the reduced salaries some people think are still too high? Whose school buildings need basic maintenance, not just work to turn them into fortress/prison complexes?

Nice for the NRA to suggest a 'solution' without providing material support for that solution! I've got an idea - taken from another DU member - tax every bullet sold ($10 per bullet I think was the suggestion) and use that money to pay for extra police at every place people gather. Schools, malls, theaters, where ever people have been shot in the past.

The NRA should be all for this. After all, they are the ones suggesting more cops, so their members should be willing to fund them!

[Livluvgrow]

113. I believe we

are already paying for it. There are alot of cops already hired, what is wrong with shifting their priorities?

[csziggy]

116. Lots of cops? But most places have cut back on the numbers

So neighborhoods are not being patrolled as much, cases go cold from lack of officer's time and resources, and there are not as many cops out in the areas that need them.

I've read of towns cutting their entire police force because lack of money. They certainly don't have lots of cops. Every facet of local government has been cut back. If we decide to add more services, we have to pay for them.

I just think if the NRA's idea of solving gin toting murders killing in schools is to have police at every school door, the NRA members should pay for that.

[BarackTheVote]

181. Flag waving "patriotic" Repugs, slapping you on the back and stepping in for the photo op

And then stabbing you in the back and slashing your financing. We need to find some money to strengthen our police and fire forces, and not, under any circumstances, privatize them a single solitary whit. If the problem is that there aren't enough cops to protect our schools, then that really just reflects on the Republicans and what they've done. The Republicans want to burn down all municipalities so that their buddies can take over and take over for profit. That needs to stop. And, not to sound opportunistic or anything, but THIS is a great time to blare the spot-light on the Republicans for crippling our domestic security so they can go gallivanting around conquering countries half a world away.

[billh58]

111. Just because Pepe LaPew

says that armed guards in schools is the answer, does not make it so. I am aware that some schools have guards on the campus now, but this is only a band aid fix, and not a cure. How do we protect people, including children, in shopping malls, or in theaters, or from drive by shootings? How do we prevent the proliferation of semi-automatic, high capacity weapons in our society?

Instead of considering adding more guns to the equation, we need to work on reducing the overall number, type, and specific use of guns allowable in this country. The USA has a miserable record when it comes to gun violence, and we need to take lessons from other civilized developed nations who do not have anywhere near the problem that we do.

Reducing gun viloence is possible if we just stop allowing right-wing, neoconservative organizations like the NRA, and their members, to beat us over our collective heads with the fucking 2nd Amendment. It does NOT trump the other nine Amendments in the BOR, and it does NOT prevent the regulation and control of guns.

[Bake]

117. YOu gonna put two at every door?

In case the first one gets shot with an assault rifle?

One cop per school does NOTHING. It's a non-solution.

Bake

[wickerwoman]

119. By the time a madman breaks into a primary school with an assault rifle, we have already failed.

We failed to stop the madman from acquiring the assault rifle; we failed to provide treatment or restraint to stop or prevent the madman wanting to kill babies; we created a society that gives fame to people who do these kinds of things; we failed to stop the bullying; we failed to instill a moral code; we provided easily accessible training exercises for the gunman in the form of shooting ranges and graphic video games; we may have given the killer drugs that altered his brain chemistry in ways we don't completely understand. Take your pick, but somehow we failed.

Turning our schools into maximum security lockdowns is unfair to kids. They're not the ones who failed.

Someone who is determined to kill babies is going to do it as long as they have access to the means. A beat cop and an alarm system is not going to stop or deter them. All of the things you suggest have already been implemented since Columbine and the number and scale of these incidents continues to increase.

To significantly reduce these tragedies you need to take away the means or take away the motivation. You can't effectively take away the opportunity without turning schools into prisons and asking six year olds to live in constant terror.

[quaker bill]

134. Well said

It is like pollution, you can only control it effectively at the source. Once it gets loose in the environment, the laws of physics (entropy) make it all but impossible to clean up.

With gun violence, the only source where it can be controlled is at the gun shop. Once guns and ammo are loose in the environment, they are nearly impossible to clean up or control.

You are correct, failure is the moment an unbalanced person comes to possess a gun, and breaks in anywhere. Success is not shooting them before they do harm (although that is better than allowing them to do harm). Success is not enabling them to do such harm.

Then we don't have to turn our schools, movie theaters, and malls into shooting galleries, where hopefully the good guys are always there and are always better and quicker shots.

[Raine]

125. How is this to be paid for? How many schools are there in this country? Which schools

are included ... preschools, elementary, middle, highschools, colleges, private schools, public schools, continuation schools, charter schools? Are trade, tech schools, dance schools, nursing schools, bartending schools etc etc included?

[Democracyinkind]

126. Let's create a police state in order that the gun nuts can enjoy their freedoms

Someone page Dr. Festinger!

[Le Taz Hot]

132. Thank you for your opinion, Mr. LaPiere.

"I don't get all the resistance . . . " That is the problem.

[southernyankeebelle]

133. I don't think that idea is a good one because it isn't a healthy learning environment. The

dress code might be good but having the school with armed guards is a scary idea. I remember seeing armed guards at airports when I was a kid in europe and I will tell you that was scary.

[Taitertots]

138. People are resisting it because the NRA said it

A guess some people think doing absolutely nothing to protect America's children while they are at school is an acceptable response.

Instead, they want to punish the 99.999% of people who will never use their firearms in an illegal act because they are terrified.

[JohLast]

139. I guess I am too dumb to understand the problem with officers in schools.

Most, just about all, the schools in my area already have officers in the schools. My school taxes did not go up when my school district created it’s OWN police department. We even have officers on the pre-school/head start campuses. When it comes to security, money is not a problem, and my school district is not rich, it is very poor.

[99Forever]

145. Ahhh ...

... so well trained, armed security is free?

Well then, by all means, let's put them everywhere!

Whodda thunk it?

[Motown_Johnny]

149. we are against treating one tiny symptom and ignoring the disease

nobody is against police in schools


we are against the belief that this will curb gun violence

[Motown_Johnny]

146. Please research the recent cuts to police forces

Besides the fact that you are treating one tiny little portion of the symptoms wile completely ignoring the disease



This will just allow wealthier communities to be even safer while the poorer ones become less safe


The money needs to come from somewhere and if you don't think the (R)s will start trying to cut any federal funding for this even before it is passed you are kidding yourself

[jwirr]

147. In our small county the police are going to have an armed guard available UNTIL the school can

get better security in the schools. This makes sense to me only because there are so many immediate copycat threats happening right now. It would take a lot of time to design and build the needed equipment installed in all of our schools.

[libdem4life]

231. This is sanity and public safety before politics and hysteria. Someone on the PTA and the school

board and local officials were talking and listening proactively...I guarantee you that would be happening if I had a kid in elementary school...and I hope we hear a lot more about situations like this..while we continue to do the other work necessary. They empower others.

[morningfog]

148. You are six time more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist. Cops would kill kids in school.

Guaranteed, it would happen. More than once. No cops in schools. Let's clean up the gun problem, not cower to it.

[Live and Learn]

190. +1 nt

[libdem4life]

232. Good lord. This is beyond belief. In what decade do you predict we'll "clean up"

the gun problem of 300,000,000 weapons when we can't even agree on what the problem is?

Cower? Yeah, 26 people cowered.

[morningfog]

233. No, following the NRA fucknuts would be cowering to the guns.

By clean up, I mean strongly regulate the gun problem. Those who deny that the types of guns available in such quantity and easy access is not the major problem are lying or stupid.

[libdem4life]

236. Seriously...so what's a timeline...best guess. It's vague and non-actionable, thus useless IMHO.

Step 1, Step 2, etc. 300,000,000 of them on nightstands, under the seat of a truck, under beds and some even locked, but god knows where. So, we burst into their houses and vehicles and search?

Meanwhile, school starts back in January. Myself, I don't have a clue about how to do it...that's not my job nor my temperment. I just know that we better damn well protect our little ones, regardless of the wringing of hands.

There are around 100,000 plane loads of passengers taking off daily in the US...say times 100 passengers. And not one of those 100 million daily passengers or flight crew fears for themselves or their families. True, the cost of a ticket is higher. You have to go 2 hours early, etc. Hell, we even created a new federal agency... TSA.

We know how to do this...we are not helpless victims.

[morningfog]

240. Where have I suggested banning and confiscating all guns?

I haven't and don't. Strong and meaningful regulation that creates a safer society is possible.

[LWolf]

150. Let's put our money where

our mouths are and create a safer society by providing economic and health security to all.

Put those funds at the source, not the symptom.

While you are at it, if you want to send funding to schools, send it to create appropriate learning environments with abundant resources. Cops and guns in schools...not an appropriate learning environment.

[kestrel91316]

151. A single, token armed guard is kabuki theater.

Not actual protection.

If you spent, oh, about 3 minutes actually thinking about it, you'd get that part.

What's wrong with tightening gun laws? Restrictions on the casual irresponsibility that leads to people who shouldn't have guns GETTING guns - that's putting your money where your mouth is.

Legitimate gun owners aren't harmed in any way by restrictions that diminish foolishness.

[mn9driver]

153. It is an absurd proposition.

My grade school kids deserve a school that is not an armed and armored compound. They deserve a school day that doesn't include duck and cover drills.

The problem is not in the schools. It is ridiculous to pretend we can solve it by looking everywhere but directly at it.

The problem is weapons and ammo designed for mass killing. You can walk into a gun store and purchase everything you need for an efficient and easy mass murder for less than $1000.

That is the problem.

[trixie]

154. We have locked entrances at all times.

You have to ring the bell outside to be let in. Cameras are right at the front doors and you hold up your driver's license. Our newest elementary school lets you in a set of doors that lock behind you and then you ring the bell. If suspicous they don't let you in and you are locked between steel doors until the police come.

Did I hear right that the Sandy Hook school had a confrontation with the shooter the day before? If so, why wouldn't they cancel school and contact the police?

[Fumesucker]

164. That seems to have been (more) bad reporting

The best info now is that the shooter did not go to the school the day before.

Hard to keep up with the facts on this one, some of the worst reporting I've ever seen.

[trixie]

172. thanks for the info

It is hard to get a straight answer but then it's a screwed up and horrible situation.

[randome]

155. While the cop is breaking up a fight, someone takes his gun.

It's very short-sighted of you to think that more weapons are the answer.

[Live and Learn]

176. Because cops have emotional crisis's and breakdowns too.

It has been shown over and over again. I don't want my kids around guns, period.

[Iggo]

180. We had a cop in school when I was in high school.

All he ever did was arrest children.

[patrice]

183. Self-fulfilling prophecy. People react to how they are being treated. You will make everything worse

even if you get a certain amount of compliance, you're not addressing the causes that affect peoples "choices", so even the compliance will not necessarily result in better happier children and students. Likely worse.

[rainlillie]

197. "I don't get all the resistance to putting a cop in schools"

Neither do I. Gun- control is part of the solution, it's not the only solution. Remember the good old days when we only had to worry about fist-fights in schools? Times have changed and we should change too.

[Warren Stupidity]

199. Jesus Christ said the atheist, what has changed is we are flooded with guns.

The solution to "we are flooded with guns" is not MORE GUNZ.

[rainlillie]

200. Whatever! The solution isn't to sit around while both sides bitch

about policies that don't have a damn chance of passing. My nephew has been teaching for three years, and having a police presence along with tight security has stopped a lot of weapons from getting into the school.

[Iggo]

219. They don't have a chance of passing..,

...because of people who want a perfect solution or nothing.

[BarackTheVote]

207. It's not about more guns

it's about allocating police officers to where they're needed most.

[Warren Stupidity]

222. Well really no that is ridiculous.

No sane rational allocation of police resources would include schools with no history of violent crime.
What waste of police resources. But of no expense should be spared, think of the children, blah blah blah, anything but do something that might actually reduce gun massacres.

[BarackTheVote]

235. So, wait until a school DOES have a violent crime?

I'd rather there be preemptive measures than wait for an incident to occur.

[Warren Stupidity]

238. As I said, an insane mis-allocation of police resources

all to divert us away from impinging on all these grown up little boys' access to their Precious Toys.

You put police where the crime is, not where the crime isn't. There are indeed police in schools where they are needed, but for the most part, they aren't needed.

You are off supporting a ludicrous idea from that idiot LaPierre, for I have no idea what reason. A huge expense, an expense to be incurred by whom? An expense that will have to be paid year after year after year. Meanwhile we have 300,000,000 guns floating around, millions more in circulation every year, and many of those guns are high capacity semi auto "military style" weapons capable of killing people in large numbers, cop or no cop.

Where are these cops, being assigned permanently to schools with no crime, coming from? Oh yeah, from where they are actually needed. Really great idea. Plus every child gets to go to their formerly crime free school, now a locked down armed guard threat level situation. Yeah much better that than regulation of semi-auto weapons.

What do we want? "GUNZ" When do we want it? "GUNZ".

[rainlillie]

244. You're preaching to the choir.. it seems as though some people here

can't see past the one solution of gun-control. It has to be a combination of things. I wonder if they realize how long it it will take for any type of legislation to pass. This congress and Senate can't work together on anything. You've offered some real sensible solutions.. and I applaud your efforts.

[rainlillie]

225. I agree it isn't about more guns, glad you can hold two ideas in your head at the same time.

Republicans and Democrats can't even agree on a damn budget, people are dreaming if they think any reasonable gun legislation is going to pass any time soon. Both sides have dug in their heels and are not going to bend. In the meantime kids will continue to die. I'm glad that school districts like the one that my nephew teaches in, didn't sit back and wait.. they acted and only have to deal with the occasional fist-fight.

[80-10-10 raw vegan]

206. No, it's a great thought...

Get the kiddies used to seeing armed personnel...

Say, what about military members on street corners? To keep us "safe," you know?

[bhikkhu]

210. I asked my daughters about this, not having an opinion myself

They said they already have cops in their schools, and they're fine with it. My middle school daughter says they have one unarmed officer, who's very nice. The school was offered two armed officers if they were willing to pay for 1/2 of one ($70k for the school year or so), but they turned the offer down. In the high school there is an officer with a sidearm..."no big deal" my other daughter said. They both expect to see more police presence before long.

With that said, cops in school is not a solution, and everyone is agreed that easy access for all to rapid fire military style assault weapons is a big problem. When I was little I remember growing up afraid of nukes, wondering if we were going to live very long. I see a similar fear nowadays among kids for assault weapons.

[duffyduff]

213. It costs an enormous amount of money,

and school districts are under tight budget contraints.

It's bad enough middle and high schools have campus police.

[LeftyMom]

215. A school is not a castle.

I'm thinking of my high school right now: One cop couldn't possibly protect that space effectively because it takes five minutes to run from one end to the other, and there are nearly infinite ways in and out. It's a school, not a castle, it's not designed to be a defensible space.

I don't know how we'd have banned coats on campus either (Is this my senior year of high school again? Dr. Douglas, is that you?) because like most schools out here on the left coast we had a spread out campus with detached buildings separated by grassy areas and open air walkways.

The only school I know of out here that's one gigantic enclosed building is 100 years old, give or take. It's also miserably hot for a reasonable fraction of the year, which is why nobody builds like that out here any more. The notion that one person can monitor a single entrance and buzz people in and out might make sense in snowy areas where schools are designed as enclosed heated spaces, but in much of the country that's not how schools are constructed and the notion is just ridiculous.

[Zoeisright]

217. Congratulations!

That's the dumbest fucking post of the day.

[libdem4life]

218. So, let's hear an undumb post...on this subject. Assuming other posts were read.

[rainlillie]

226. LOL! Don't hold your breath.

[Marrah_G]

220. Zoe is right !

[Iggo]

223. My thought exactly.

[WinkyDink]

221. Dress codes? have you ever sat on one of those committees?! Coats off immediately? With books?

Did you ever attend an American high school?

[rainlillie]

224. I do suppose it's easy for people who don't have to go into schools

where gang members attend, people who haven't had their cars vandalized or have been threatened by students and parents, to say no police presence is needed in schools. I challenge those people to spend a whole month teaching where my nephew teaches; without security and the police there.. Then get back to me. The police and school security have confiscated everything from guns, switchblades, box-cutters and pepper spray.. even bottled bleach.

[LeftyMom]

237. Switchblades? What, no zipguns?

[rainlillie]

243. Yeah, weapons in schools always bring a smile to my face too.

[RKP5637]

228. Probably because it's a sad commentary on a supposedly civilized society. We have failed as a

civilized society and cops in schools is clearly an omission of that failure. It holds a mirror up to the mess we are as a species and confirms it ...

[CBHagman]

229. For starters, it more or less declares that shooters are the new normal.

It says we're giving up. It says better to risk a shootout in which staff, faculty, and students are wounded or die in friendly fire than to take other steps that will stop future attacks.

[LeftInTX]

230. School districts do not want to be dictated by the NRA

It wreaks of nothing but privatization.

Cops in schools aren't a bad thing, but the NRA trying to get their hands in public education is just plain old sick. Schools will be forced to support the NRA and that only means less gun control and more guns.

[Yo_Mama]

234. Lots of schools already have them. N/T

[Nikia]

239. My sister went to a high school with an armed police officer

All the schools in the small metro area had them. While they may or may not stop a person intent on killing as many students/teachers as possible before dying themselves, they do stop more common forms of violence.

[vaberella]

247. They are in schools. That doesn't help mitigate violence 100%

Not to mention there has been a lot of accidents with firearms around kids. Where innocent bystanders get hurt in the crossfire between the police and perpetrators.

[Skittles]

251. because it SCARES CHILDREN, COSTS A LOT, and DOES NOT ADDRESS THE PROBLEM

it's the SICK GUN CULTURE in America that needs to CHANGE

[Dems to Win]

252. It's silly to think an officer will stop the next massacre.....it didn't work that way at Columbine

All the money spent on school security means fewer resources in the class rooms.

I don't really object to assigning officers to schools, but we shouldn't pretend we are solving the problem of gun massacres. For that, we need REAL gun control.

[applegrove]

253. Even if you buy the crap about keeping kids safe while someone is

armed...which isn't true since there was an armed guard at Columbine who couldn't do anything and a concealed carry at Tucsan who couldn't do anything.... then what about the playgrounds and movie theatres and other places kids go to? Are you going to put an armed guard there too? If not, why not? Are kids going to movies not deserving of protection?

[Historic NY]

255. Why have a cop hanging around when there is stuff he is duty bound ..

to intervene with. From your description you want a guard watching cameras. That won't happen period with most police depts.