If an armed teacher doesn't intervene in school shooting, will they be arrested, too? Read more...

[Sancho]

New questions are emerging about who is responsible for the safety of others during a mass shooting after Tuesday’s arrest of a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy who hid outside during the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

The sponsor of this year’s bill which allowed classroom teachers to carry guns, said Wednesday it’s possible armed teachers could similarly be on the hook, legally, if they don’t do everything required of them to keep kids safe during a shooting.

Read more here: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article231213983.html?fbclid=IwAR234OwHcV4F94p7SYtjWPCL4hGWDlX7ldiiO8GxUbx3NU2QBzC49dksy3c#storylink=cpy

[Hoyt]

1. Question is a good one. Also wonder what will happen when a George Zimmerman type teacher is armed?

[Sancho]

4. you can almost guarantee that the outliers will volunteer to carry guns...

[mainstreetonce]

2. That is a good reason

To not arm teachers

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Shooters don't even have to bring their own guns now, they take one from a teacher.

[Phoenix61]

32. That is exactly what I'm afraid of.

No one is supposed to know who is carrying but people aren’t known for keeping secrets. I’m especially worried about this at the high-school level. A lot of the students are larger and stronger than the teachers.

[brush]

5. We of course shouldn't arm teachers nor attempt to equate a trained...

Last edited Thu Jun 6, 2019, 12:47 AM - Edit history (1)

but cowardly, school resource officer who didn't do what he was paid for with a hypothetical, poorly thought out and hopefully never realized situation involving an armed teacher.

[Chin music]

6. +1z

What's next? teachers college cirriculum including range time and gun learning?
Someone posted in here the other day that the average cop earns 72k a year. plus every benefit under the sun, including "the doubt". Teachers make 25-30 to start and now are held to a cops level of responsibility?
NEVER KICK A FOOTBALL A REPUB HAS SET FOR YOU ON THE GROUND. We all know how that ends.

[SallyHemmings]

7. Good Luck finding teachers

How about changing the gun laws instead of arresting a deputy who freaked out?

Fire him, arresting him is nuts.

[Chin music]

8. Kids in his care were dying. He didn't even attempt to get the guy.

He hid outside, then lied about it. He was no rookie. All cake, until he had to step up. And he's ON CAMERA hiding, not for just a minute, through the whole thing. If you can't, or won't do the job, don't say you will.

[SallyHemmings]

9. I'm not defending his behavior but this is a slippery slope.

Do we arrest everyone who panics?

The fact this is a discussion is the problem. Children, teachers and safety officers shouldn’t have to fear for their lives going to a school or simply engaged in daily living.

[Me.]

33. I Can Understand Him Being Afraid

But he also held back others wo were willing to go in, from what the news reported

[Haggis for Breakfast]

11. "instead of arresting a deputy who freaked out"/"arresting him is nuts" EXCUSE ME ?

Before you make any further uninformed or poorly conceived remarks, may I suggest you review the arrest record of Scot Peterson, which was made public today by the Broward County Sheriff's office. It can be found on line. It lays out in very specific detail EXACTLY what his job description was. Despite his years of training and his position as a senior instructor in this area, he failed on every count. On video of the school campus, he can be seen hiding behind walls instead of advancing on Building 12. Had he done his job, it is entirely possible that they people murdered on the third floor could have been saved. That is the opinion of the experts who have had over a year to piece together, forensically, a clearer picture of the events of the afternoon.

Further, he committed perjury on numerous occasions to cover up for his failure to act. Because of his cowardice, FOURTEEN CHILDREN and THREE ADULTS were MURDERED. Perhaps that information got by you.

As someone with a very personal connection to the murders that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, may I suggest that you do some research about that day, February 14, 2018, in Parkland, Florida before you post any further insensitive, unconscionable and insulting drivel.

[Igel]

14. I agree.

Hindsight is always the safest foundation on which to predicate past action.

Why, I know that today both of us will carefully plan out our actions and activities given what we learned in October 2019. I'll just check my log to see what it is I know already happened later today to see what I know was the best thing to will have been done.

I might get a jump on next week, too, making sure that the things I'll have will done turned out best given what I did will know early next year.

It's entirely possible he could have saved lives. It's much more likely that he'd have run in, shot some of the wrong people, and then been killed. At least then we'd now be able to have will said he was a coward who had gotten what he deserved.

Yes, the tenses are screwed up. But that's going to happen when you try to use future foreknowledge from past situations in determining how you handled things yet future. You socially construct a kind of temporal slip knot and decree it actionable.

[LisaL]

15. Totally agree with you.

Instead of saving lives he most likely would have been killed himself. To start with, he wasn't armed with equivalent type of weapons the shooter was.

[Downtown Hound]

27. A semi-automatic handgun and an AR-15 are not all that mismatched in close quarters

Last edited Sun Jun 9, 2019, 06:02 PM - Edit history (2)

Both can fire as fast as you can pull the trigger. The only real advantages the AR has are longer range and it's easier to aim, and less recoil. And those advantages only really matter if you're shooting at each other over long distances. In fact, in real close quarters, sometimes the smaller handgun can have the advantage, because it takes less time to move and aim the smaller, shorter gun than the longer, heavier one.

[pazzyanne]

16. What you just said makes sense in my world.

Thank you for your courage to post your take on hindsight. We can always make better decisions after the fact. I myself tend to replay decisions after the fact with "If only I would have done this instead of that." So easy to judge others.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

18. For those who are unclear on the details.

He was a POLICE OFFICER, not a librarian, janitor or cafeteria worker.

His duties were spelled out in very specific detail in the arrest document which CAN BE READ ONLINE. As it clearly states, Scot Peterson FAILED to perform the DUTIES, RESPONSIBILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS of his fucking job description. Those are the words of the court.

Don't waste my time with your hindsight BS. This is what he was TRAINED to do. He failed. And SEVENTEEN people are dead.

[pazzyanne]

19. Taking your anger out on one person does not solve the school shooting problem,

or any shooting problem for that matter. You are right in that Scot Peterson should never be a resource officer again. Now channel that anger into real solutions for the future. Scot Peterson is not or should not be a problem in the future. Continuing gun violence is and will continue to be a problem until long term solutions are discovered and implemented.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

20. You know NOTHING about me.

Perhaps you missed the part of my post where I wrote that I have a DEEPLY PERSONAL connection to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. My family will never recover from that day.

DON'T YOU DARE PREACH TO ME.

[pazzyanne]

21. I did not miss that statement.

I can see the anger in your posts. That is what I know about you. I repeat, anger does not solve problems.

From another post of mine (#17) on this page:

"My main question still is "How are guns in classrooms going to be secured?" Teacher desk drawers will not do it, nor will a conceal carry by the teacher. You also assume that a poorly trained teacher will make the right choice in a panic situation. Let's go back to securing the school at entry points and using professional law enforcement for the gun play. We also need to work on sensible gun legislation with mental health components and funding to secure schools."

[mr_lebowski]

28. No offense, but has it occurred to you that your deep connection may be coloring your judgement

somewhat on this question?

If he committed perjury, which it sounds like he did, then by all means, prosecute the dude for perjury. That's a crime.

But believe it or not, it's not an unreasonable position to take that it's improper to PROSECUTE a police office for failing to protect members of the public due to fear/panic.

Should he be fired? DEFINITELY. Possibly lose some or all pension? Sure.

But to send a cop to JAIL for chickening out or 'waiting for backup', or whatnot? There's a reasonable argument to be made that this is going a step too far, legally. Esp. when, as a trained officer, he'd have known from the sound the type of weapon he was about to face, armed w/presumably a handgun.

Cases have already been adjudicated in the past, and the precedent set is, for better or worse, that police do not legally HAVE TO act to protect the public.

In the end I bet this guy will end doing some time for perjury, but that's it. And if he hadn't lied, he'd not be arrested right now.

[flotsam]

10. The deputy did commit one act for which he should be charged

According to news coverage he prevented other LEOs from entering the school telling them instead to set up a perimeter.

[customerserviceguy]

13. If an armed teacher is confronted by a shooter who appears in their classroom

you can bet your ass they will use their weapon. They won't have the option of cowering behind a vehicle, "securing the perimeter" which is cop-speak for doing dick shit while saving your own ass.

[pazzyanne]

17. And when that teacher confronts a gunman, who will be working with the children,

giving them instructions and trying to move them out of harms way. Dead teacher leaves those children without a leader helping them find and make appropriate decisions. My main question still is "How are guns in classrooms going to be secured?" Teacher desk drawers will not do it, nor will a conceal carry by the teacher. You also assume that a poorly trained teacher will make the right choice in a panic situation. Let's go back to securing the school at entry points and using professional law enforcement for the gun play. We also need to work on sensible gun legislation with mental health components and funding to secure schools.

[The Bopper]

22. Get a clue

Let me get this right, a teacher who more likely than not has his gun somewhere where the kids can’t get it, is going to outdraw the dirtbag who already has his gun out shooting. Under duress and with 25 panicking kids to be attended to AND accurately shoot at the guy without hitting any kids and save the day. I don’t know what little blue pill you’re taking but it must also contain an hallucinating aspect in it. Get on your pony John Wayne jr. because your fantasy world doesn’t exist.

[gopiscrap]

31. welcome to DU

[customerserviceguy]

36. Yeah, welcome

I think you know why the pills are blue.

[PatrickforO]

23. Well, I have to weigh in on this one.

Arming teachers is stupid. You're just asking for trouble even thinking of doing it. The last thing we need is gunfights inside schools.

I've got a friend in the Secret Service and he says it would be better to 'harden' schools, much the way we did airports. I'm not sure what that looks like because schools are a lot harder to just walk into now, and most have protocols about lockdowns and so on.

But arming teachers? Bad idea.

Sells more guns, though, which is good for shareholder earnings.

You all know how I feel about the primacy of the shareholder doctrine.

[raccoon]

24. And what if an arm teacher accidentally shoots an innocent student

And what if an armed teacher accidentally shoots an innocent student When she’s trying to take the shooter out? Is she going to be prosecuted for that?

[marylandblue]

30. Can't answer that until we know the victim's skin color and religion.

I think it would be perfectly okay if the teacher shot an obvious criminal or terrorist but not an innocent young teenager.

[aikoaiko]

25. If gun carrying teachers can be sued, then all teachers can be sued..

...if kids die and the teachers didn't follow "what was required of them".

[gopiscrap]

26. the teachers union should call strikes

where these type of laws are enacted

[elleng]

29. Sure, especially if the facts are skewed as in this article.

The deputy did NOT hide, was ascertaining what was happening and figuring out what to do, and I hope someone 'spanks' whomever decided to charge him.

[keithbvadu2]

34. One roadblock to arming teachers: Insurance companies

One roadblock to arming teachers: Insurance companies

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/one-roadblock-to-arming-teachers-insurance-companies/2018/05/26/59d6c704-5f7e-11e8-8c93-8cf33c21da8d_story.html?utm_term=.9b6f847c405c&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

Solution - NRA sell liability insurance…

Protects teachers, students and makes profit for NRA

[keithbvadu2]

35. Most alarming statement for teachers::: "...in August the state amended the Department of Education'

Most alarming statement for teachers::: "...in August the state amended the Department of Education’s insurance policy for teachers to exclude coverage for claims arising out of “armed instructional personnel while acting in the scope of their activities for the educational institution.”

Yet the same state laws might make the teachers liable?