Arming Teachers

[Phi for All]

2 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

Boy, do I love these "Let's all rail on the far right and republicans" threads where we ask people a question we've already made our minds up on.

They accomplish so much. 

Like complaining. 

And mocking.

And definitely not getting shit done.

Why does the far right defend the arms industry when it so clearly has reached extremist levels in our country? Why do virtually all the suggestions from the far right include more guns and ammunition, in clear support of the arms merchants? Can you honestly say you think this country needs to have more extremists with guns?

Perhaps complaining and mocking about this mindset the Republicans have about profit over people isn't the best tactic, but it's pretty hard to understand all the contradictions. You usually seem like such nice folks, all right-to-life and everything.

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

I'm not sure good people just randomly become unhinged at any given moment, grab a gun, and go on a shooting spree.

Or do you mean a stressed out person could snap at any moment, regardless if they're a good person or not?

People are not one or the other, they are a mix of positive and negative traits and any number of things can tip the balance. i suspect a lot of killings are out-of-character actions due to a perfect storm of events in the perpetrator's life. It's not too difficult to lose ones sense of proportion. Sometimes we need to protect ourselves from  ourselves and make the things that may harm us, and those around us, a bit more difficult to reach in the heat of the moment.

Edited February 23, 2018 by StringJunky

[Strange]

6 hours ago, StringJunky said:

They seem to forget good people can become unhinged people at any time.

Which, of course, includes teachers who have a very stressful job (even in normal countries). 

And if (god forbid) a teacher uses their weapon to kill their students, presumably the answer would be to arm students?

[StringJunky]

6 minutes ago, Strange said:

Which, of course, includes teachers who have a very stressful job (even in normal countries). 

And if (god forbid) a teacher uses their weapon to kill their students, presumably the answer would be to arm students?

Of course. The NRA's position is to throw more weapons at any problem that may appear.

[Strange]

A more practical problem is how people will actually react under stress. Even if some teachers were willing to be armed (and no doubt some would be) they may find themselves unable to act. See also the news reports of how the armed guard behaved. 

Edited February 23, 2018 by Strange

[StringJunky]

11 minutes ago, Strange said:

A more practical problem is how people will actually react under stress. Even if some teachers were willing to be armed (and no doubt some would be) they may find themselves unable to act. See also the news reports of how the armed guard behaved. 

The only people that can do the job with a cool head are armed response units that are routinely conditioned to situations like that. 

[Strange]

2 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

The only people that can do the job with a cool head are armed response units that are routinely conditioned to situations like that. 

That's it then. Station one of those outside every school. Problem solved.

And when a good kid has a tantrum and yells "I hate you. I hope you die. I'm going to kill you" and ends up dead ...

[interested]

9 hours ago, Phi for All said:

The first step was to teach the kids to run around and make a lot of noise if an armed assailant steps into the room with them. This buys everyone else a little more time, more time to escape, more time for first responders, and more spent ammo trying to hit moving targets. Arming the teachers is the next step in this strategy, since it will obviously sell a lot more guns, and the amount of ammunition used goes up considerably. Finally, they make small caliber guns, but the grips are still too big for children. Perhaps we could lobby for subsidies to incentivize arms manufacturers to make guns the kids themselves could carry comfortably. 

The main thing is we keep this important industry alive at any cost. Morally, once your right to life is observed at birth, we're under no obligation afterwards, right?

I assume you are taking the piss. 

Does the law apply to arms manufacturers and the NRA in the USA

In most of the world the law is supposed to protect people not guns.

It appears that gun manufacturers can sell weapons in the USA to anyone without risk of prosecution.

Is it not about time the US constitution was amended to ban guns or at least restrict there availability.

I understand the right to bear arms was written into the constitution in a time of conflict, I think that conflict ended over hundred years ago.

 

[StringJunky]

15 minutes ago, Strange said:

That's it then. Station one of those outside every school. Problem solved.

And when a good kid has a tantrum and yells "I hate you. I hope you die. I'm going to kill you" and ends up dead ...

Yes. Even our ARU's won't mess about if you don't respond to an order swiftly. I think that's the reality of weapons and if a highly trained officer doesn't have much room for manuever, how can they expect teachers  to behave better..

[swansont]

I'm shocked, shocked to find that the gun manufacturing lobby organization is advocating more guns as the solution. 

9 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Only about 40% of households have guns. Closer to 90% of households have a car. So it isn't quite as bad. Additionally it is a crime to let minors or those without a license to drive. It is common, in my experience, that parents inquire about who is driving or if someone is driving when school age kids get together. There is a known risk associated with young drivers. If such awareness could be created towards guns that would be great. 

At one mass shooting per day, that's ~3650/10 years in the 40% of the ~125 million households in the US.

0.007% is not much of an indicator.

8 hours ago, Raider5678 said:

I'm not sure good people just randomly become unhinged at any given moment, grab a gun, and go on a shooting spree.

Why does that matter? It could be a bad person who has decided to do this, and grabbing the gun becomes (part of) their plan. They would have the element of surprise on the first victim. It's not like the teachers who carried would remain secret very long.

They might even write "now I have a machine gun ho ho ho" on the teacher's shirt after killing them.

[interested]

45 minutes ago, swansont said:

I'm shocked, shocked to find that the gun manufacturing lobby organization is advocating more guns as the solution.

Your president is also according to the OP, which is even more shocking. 

If a company sold a drug which was found to cause cancer or other life threatening illnesses as a side effect of its benefits, the product would be banned. How is this different to guns which cause death or other life threatening problems.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by interested

[Strange]

10 hours ago, Ten oz said:

Only about 40% of households have guns.

According to this, it is more like 25%: https://qz.com/1095899/gun-ownership-in-america-in-three-charts/ 

[StringJunky]

21 minutes ago, Strange said:

According to this, it is more like 25%: https://qz.com/1095899/gun-ownership-in-america-in-three-charts/ 

Because there's no compulsory registration, there's a fair bit of latitude in the numbers. the high bar seems to be 40%. Even so, this should be focussed on, rather than absolute gun numbers, because it shows  the degree of influence of a minority of the population. The distinct majority of American households don't feel they need weapons; the NRA are not speaking for the majority of Americans.

[Ten oz]

8 hours ago, iNow said:

Like I said, technically true, but functionally useless. Such an approach makes my 4 year old a likely shooter merely because she lives in a house with me and I happen to own guns. 

Not exactly. I said it is a risk factor but there are others obvious ones like being a teenager and having access to the firearm which wouldn't apply to your 4yrs old. Nikolas Cruz had access to guns, had been involved with a White Nationalist group, was known to people on his social media as anger, and so on.  I understand that for political reasons a lot of people are uncomfortable labeling White Nationalist  as hate groups or domestic terrorist. I understand that political reasons people are uncomfortable saying that someone posing with a gun on social media is exhibiting questionable behavior. That said at some point we do need to take our heads out of the sand. We can acknowledge risk factors without imposing a door to door collection of all guns.There is a difference between a kid with a gun that he or she uses to go pheasant shooting with their parents and a kid with a gun they use to exhibit there frustration and hyper masculinity and/or insecurity on social media.  Mental health history, medication, history of anti social behavior, problems with a girlfriend or boyfriend, etc are also all important risk factors.  

8 hours ago, CharonY said:

Yeah, the data is more correlated with self-injury risk (i.e. having a gun increases the likelihood of completed suicides) or accidental injury for example. But there is no quantifiable relationship between number of guns and shooting risk (as only a very small subset actually become active shooters).

This is looking at risk factors in isolation. There are many risk factors that apply. As one checks the boxes and add they up the picture becomes more clear. When my doctor asks me about my families history of cancer or heart disease they know it doesn't absolutely mean anything about my health but it is a risk factor for consideration. My blood pressure, weight, diet, pulse, and etc are also rick factors they consider.

[swansont]

55 minutes ago, interested said:

Your president is also according to the OP, which is even more shocking. 

There are a number of elected government officials who have received substantial contributions from the NRA, of whom Trump is one. (Being shocked was sarcasm. See Casablanca for the reference)

[Raider5678]

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

You usually seem like such nice folks, all right-to-life and everything.

 

I'm assuming that's sarcasm because we're usually cursed at, called bigots, called sexist racists, etc, when we say we're pro-life at a public protest/gathering.

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, swansont said:

At one mass shooting per day, that's ~3650/10 years in the 40% of the ~125 million households in the US.

0.007% is not much of an indicator.

True but the percentage as an indicator of those who are a combination of being school age, have access to the firearm in their home, owning tactical accessories, is known to feel disenfranchised, is on anti depressants, sympathizes with hate groups,  and so on would drive the number up. A very small percentage of people with space heaters burn their homes down yet every winter people are still asked to be aware of the associated risks of space heaters. It seems to me that Guns being such a charged political issue prevents it from the standard level of open risk assessment we see among other things that kill people. I can causally mention to a parent that laundry detergent capsules can be hazardous to have around the house far more easily that I can broach the issue of having a gun around the house. Many people are reflexively defensive when it comes to Guns. It isn't healthy for dialog. I believe it does contribute to the problem. 

Not every kid that comes to school with bruises is being abused at home. That said it is a risk factor some teachers and school administrators consider. Add bruising to poor school performance, the parents not attending events, and administrator might decide to sit down and spend a few minutes discussing what might be going on. It isn't a bad thing. While mass school shooting are rare there are also an increasingly occurring. I think teachers and school administrators should have some basic training in the potential warning signs. Perhaps owning a gun or living in a home with a gun shouldn't be considered but I think it is obvious that something must happen. 

 

[Raider5678]

8 hours ago, Phi for All said:

Perhaps complaining and mocking about this mindset the Republicans have about profit over people isn't the best tactic, but it's pretty hard to understand all the contradictions.

I disagree with Trump a lot. I think he should be impeached.

Does that mean I love to see every other thread being a complaint/mocking thread about him?

 

It's a self-enforcing cycle. First one person complains, then a second person complains about that person as well, person one adds to the second person complaints, person two adds to the first persons, on and on and on. I'm not sure anyone in this thread is trying to understand all the contradictions. As far as I know, every single one of us can see them plain as day.

It doesn't accomplish anything. That's all I'm saying. It just reinforces peoples opinion that they're right without a shadow of a doubt. The right does this same thing as well, why do you think they're so convinced they're always correct? They start complaining about someone, then other people join in, and then it might as well be a contest to see who can complain about the person the most.

It's not that I don't think it's the best tactic, it's that I think it's an outright harmful tactic to either side that's doing it.

 

 

[Ten oz]

4 minutes ago, Raider5678 said:

I'm assuming that's sarcasm because we're usually cursed at, called bigots, called sexist racists, etc, when we say we're pro-life at a public protest/gathering.

This thread asks 2 questions: would arming teachers help and what are things campus can do. That is the topic! Thus far you have focused your post on complaining about the way you feel conservatives are being posted about. Start your own thread for that. In the OP I did not reference Republicans, Conservatives, Right-Wingers, or etc . 

[Raider5678]

5 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

 A very small percentage of people with space heaters burn their homes down yet every winter people are still asked to be aware of the associated risks of space heaters. It seems to me that Guns being such a charged political issue prevents it from the standard level of open risk assessment we see among other things that kill people. I can causally mention to a parent that laundry detergent capsules can be hazardous to have around the house far more easily that I can broach the issue of having a gun around the house. Many people are reflexively defensive when it comes to Guns. It isn't healthy for dialog. I believe it does contribute to the problem. 

2

Actually, tell most gun owners "If you have a gun in your house, it increases your risk of injury. Practice good gun safety procedures all the time." and they'd probably outright agree with you. 

[Sensei]

16 hours ago, Ten oz said:

The President has suggested arming Teachers as a way to prevent future mass shootings. 

"Speech is silver, but silence is golden"..

 

It matches almost perfectly each time when Trump is opening his mouth..

 

Edited February 23, 2018 by Sensei

[Raider5678]

10 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

Many people are reflexively defensive when it comes to Guns. It isn't healthy for dialog. I believe it does contribute to the problem. 

You said it.

[dimreepr]

Arming teachers is never the answer if we can't trust a cop/wannabe to fire a gun even in hiding. 

If we can't trust a big strong policy type guy why trust a wimpy teacher type guy if he only jumps in front of a bullet rather than a building.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

True but the percentage as an indicator of those who are a combination of being school age, have access to the firearm in their home, owning tactical accessories, is known to feel disenfranchised, is on anti depressants, sympathizes with hate groups,  and so on would drive the number up.

Your first proposal (i.e. what I responded to) did not include other risk factors.

How do you do this without violating medical confidentiality and free speech? How do you track tactical accessories, or "feelings of disenfranchisement"?

Do you cross a kid off the list because he doesn't have known access to guns? Despite the fact that he could get them later?

My high school had about 1600 kids when I was of that age.  So you might have had 500 or more who had some kind of access to guns (including me). In a group of 500 teenagers, how many are going to have these feeling and/or leanings? It's certainly not going to be just one or two. Now you have this burden of checking these students out, possibly stigmatizing them (and many will already have a dislike of authority; will this help?) . This sounds like a page out of the "the beatings will continue until morale improves" manual.

A system that generates too many false positives will eventually be ignored, and a system geared specifically for schools addresses a narrow slice of gun-related issues. 

 

 

[Ten oz]

"President Donald Trump wants to put guns directly in the hands of teachers to keep kids safe in school. Many people are wary of the idea, but Texas already allows teachers to be armed if they go through training to become school marshals. No one will disclose exactly how many educators bring guns to Texas schools — the state has deemed that information confidential for their safety. But the Dallas lawmaker who introduced the legislation authorizing school marshals says about 100 people — mostly in smaller, rural districts — have gone through the training, though some might not have completed steps to earn certification."

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/education/2018/02/22/trump-wants-arm-teachers-texas-already-allows-sort

 

For anyone who thinks/thought the suggestion of Armed Teachers wasn't serious or that this thread was designed to be satirical. It is a real thing.