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pnewton
Guest
But that is not a fair comparison. Accidental shooting rates include everything from hunting accidents and cleaning guns to kids getting hold of unsecured guns. None of these would be an issue.
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Rick09
Guest
They’re already trained in how to handle the kinds of situations that might arise in a school? Really? If true, that’s impressive that all license holders would automatically receive that kind of specialized training.
Or did I misunderstand you?
Regardless of how/when they’re trained, my gut reaction is positive.
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pnewton
Guest
They are trained in how to handle a firearm and shoot accurately, how to carry and secure it on their person and when they can and can not use their firearm.
info.sos.state.tx.us/pls/pub/readtac$ext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p_dir=&p_rloc=&p_tloc=&p_ploc=&pg=1&p_tac=&ti=37&pt=1&ch=6&rl=76
By the way, here is the total report of crimes committed by holder (a quarter of million). I tell you, these are by far more responsible than most citizens.
txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/ConvictionRatesReport2006.pdf
I tell you that the ones that teach this are great at what they do. I have a LE supervisor under me that teaches this class and it is all geared at safely arming reliable people. This is just some license you can walk in and pick up over the counter.
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stanmaxkolbe
Guest
What’s this you’re stating real facts!
Come on you must go by emotions only; not facts that’s not fair.
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melensdad
Guest
Where do you get the 12,000 year number? School shootings in the US are fairly rare (thankfully) but increasing in frequency at all levels from elementary through college level.
But using your style of logic it can be presumed that you do not have fire insurance on your home because the likelihood of a fire is miniscule?
As for the accidental shooting rate, please brake down your statement for us. You claim the accidental shooting rate is much higher than 1 in 12,000 but I’d like to see that proven. First, eliminate hunting accidents. Second, eliminate suicides. Third, eliminate cases where children ‘find’ unattended guns. Why? Simply because when someone is carrying a gun concealed it is not being handled, it is not being used for suicide, it is not unattended or able to be found by another person. Just use the figure that shows CCW holders who have accidentally shot someone. I can’t find that number anywhere and I’m curious where you did?
Here is what I found, from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics
According to the University of Utah, for 2001 there were a total of 802 deaths related to “Accidents” and that includes hunting, children finding guns in homes, etc. Given that there are something like 75,000,000 gun owners and 300,000,000 guns, that rate seems pretty darn low. Now again, factor out unattended guns, hunting, etc and the number drops substantially approaching zero.
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stanmaxkolbe
Guest
What is meant my school shooting? I remember reading a few years ago a guy got a flat tire at 11:00 P.M. pulled into a school parking lot to change his tire. He got shot when somebody mugged him. It was classified a school shooting by the FBI despite the fact that the school was closed and no classes were being held.
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Wolseley
Guest
I could not possibly agree more.
I am a certified, professional armed security officer. I carry a gun every day at work (.40-caliber Glock 23, for those of you who are curious). I have the same training that a certified police officer has insofar as weapons training, takedown procedures, cuffing, etc. And after having spent years as a campus police officer, I can tell you that if a perp is intent on doing somebody some damage, you do not want an amateur handling the situation.
I do not say this to denegrate teachers or anyone else who is not in the law enforcement/security field, but the simple fact is that if you’re up against an armed criminal who’s popping rounds off, a trained officer is going to have a steadier hand than Mr. Smith, the 6th period biology teacher…unless Mr. Smith has a law enforcement or military background and knows how to properly use a handgun. The last thing you want is a terrified teacher firing at a perp with his hands shaking so badly that he’s just as liable to hit a student as the perp.
Teachers are teachers. Let them be teachers, and leave school security to those who know what they’re doing. I have confronted armed, drugged-up loonies during my career and disarmed them, while the staff and faculty were cowering behind cars or brick walls so they wouldn’t get hurt. (And that was precisely where they needed to be: out of the way.)
Let me be clear: an educator has no business trying to confront an armed criminal, unless he or she has extensive training, is proficient with the weapon being used, and has the professional experience and the guts to do what they need to do. If any of these qualities are lacking—and I’d say this is the case for the vast majority of American schoolteachers, they need to stay out of it.
So, what do we do to prevent school shootings? Unfortunately, none of the answers are easy.
You can require all of your staff and faculty to undergo enormous amounts of weapons training and takedown procedures, and most of them aren’t going to want to do this. It’s expensive, it’s not their field, and academia being what it is, many educators are going to be of the “guns are ucky!” bent and refuse to so much as look at one.
You can arm them with things like pepper canisters; but bear in mind that while effective up to a point, they only have a useful range of about 10 feet, whereas a handgun has a range of approximately 50 meters. This means you’re going to have to have somebody who’s willing to expose himself to the possibility of a large ballistically-induced hole in his torso in order to get close enough to the perp to hit him in the face with the pepper stream. Mrs. Smith from 3rd-period Home Ec, who’s 57 years old with a heart murmur and is two years from retirement in Flordia is not going to want to do this. In addition to this is the fact that if a perp is hopped up to the gills on God knows whatever substance, the effects of pepper can be substantially reduced.
Or, you can install fencing and metal detectors, and hire a fully-trained, professional police or security staff, appropriate to the size of your campus. This is also expensive, and again, academia being what it is, many people are going to balk at this, using the standard arguments that “Our children would be forced to attend school in a maximum-security prison!” (The level of security is not even close, by the way), or “It will be more dangerous with all of those uniformed thugs walking around armed to the teeth!”, and so on and on.
This last, however, is the best course of action, in my professional opinion. In any institutional environment, whether its a school, a hospital, a factory, or anything else, your best security option is not confrontation and disarming after the fact, it’s access control—you identify the perpetrator and deny him entrance to the facility before he has the chance to do any damage. Again: this calls for gates, fences, cameras, metal/weapons detectors, a certain amount of personal searching, and a trained staff of security or police professionals who know how to operate the equipment and are thoroughly experienced in the procedures needed.
A setup like this will approximately double the cost of running your average school. But, it will cut down on the number of school violence incidents; it just depends on how safe you want to be. 60 years ago, you could walk into any airport in the land and never have to worry about searches, security checkpoints, metal detectors, X-ray machines, etc.; but you sure do now.
The only other option is the coin toss/“you have better chance of being hit with an asteroid” defense or lack thereof that some here have espoused. There is no doubt that drawing your cards and taking your chances every day is more risky, but it’s also cheaper. Yeah, it’s a one in four million chance that your kid will be shot to death in a public school. But when it’s your kid who was the one in four million, that won’t help you much, will it?
But maybe you can be comforted by thinking about all the money you helped save the school district by voting against security measures and staff. I’m sure the school board will appreciate it.
And just incidentally: we homeschool our son. There is no way in hell that I would ever allow him to attend a public school, and security is only one of many reasons why.
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melensdad
Guest
I think you** completely miss the point.
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The only way a teacher or administrator would become involved is if they were the ONLY ones ON THE SCENE when the shooting broke out.
In interviews with the school superintendent it was stated that the armed teacher would be in a defensive role, not involved in going out and ‘clearing rooms’ like the SWAT team would do later when they arrive.
Specifically brought up was the “Amish School” shooting where a mailman, who was trusted and cleared the security was the shooter. Nobody was there to stop him, nobody was there that could do anything other than die. The point of the armed teacher is not to go out and find and then confront the shooter but rather to defend self and students in the event of an imminent threat in their proximity. They are not to arrest and detain the shooter, but rather to engage the shooter with defensive fire if the shooter enters their room, meets them in the hallway, etc.
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*]As a gun owner with a wife who is a teacher, why should she be doomed to die if someone with a gun walks into her room with intent to kill?
*]Does not our Catechism say that people with responsibility to protect those in their care have the grave duty to defend their lives?
*]Why would you require my wife to deny a grave duty as defined by our Church and die like a whimpering victim?
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Wolseley
Guest
I’m not missing anything. If you had professional security people on site to begin with, there wouldn’t be any need to arm your teachers.
As I said: keep the perps from entering the facility initially, and you don’t have to worry about what may break out once they’re inside.
As I said: keep the perps from entering the facility initially, and you don’t have to worry about what may break out once they’re inside.
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melensdad
Guest
To that you and I may agree.
But not all school districts can afford to hire armed security guards and staff that at every school in the district. Realize that many school districts are nearly bankrupt and in many cases local residents pay, via property taxes or other forms of tax to support schools and typically when revenue needs to be raised those same residents vote NO on referendums that would increase funding. This is the reason so many schools no longer offer band, orchestra, arts and other extra-curricular activities. It is also the reason that many schools have cut back on scholastic/academic courses like foreign language courses, extra science courses, etc.
If the school has the money to afford armed security, then I see no reason for teachers to take up private arms. The question may simply boil down to allocation of money when the schools are struggling to stay open and still provide basic classes.
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pnewton
Guest
Thank you, on both posts. Those are exactly what the district was dealing with: isolation from law enforcment and limited resources. Something is better than nothing. The question is not who would be best able to deal with a shooter, but who would be best that would be available at the time. Also, the caliber of people I know going through the program is pretty high. Most have handled guns their whole life. This is Texas, after all.
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melensdad
Guest
Sometimes we must deal with the realities of the situation as it is handed to us. That is, I believe, what this school district is doing.
It should probably be noted that while this school district is getting a lot of attention for this, there are school districts in many states that have allowed similar practices for years. This is not a new development, it is simply new in Texas.
My views of things changed when I moved out of suburbia where the police always seemed to be ‘just around the corner.’ Out in rural areas, where these schools exist, and also where I live, it is not uncommon to see response times of 30 minutes or more. That is not the ‘fault’ of the police/sheriff, it is the reality of geography and proximity.
I do not believe that the Lord would have us give our lives to injustice because we happen to be in a rural setting. Rather I believe that we are to be responsible for our own safety as best as we can be, and to protect those who we can protect, from an unjust, violent action as best as we can do it. I believe that is why our Catechism describes the duty as a “grave” one.
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The_Barbarian
Guest
Sounds a little odd, no? But like it or not, those go into the numbers that show any given school in America can expect a shooting about once every 12,000 years. I suppose you could argue that the odds are a bit better than that.
But even the inflated numbers show that we’re talking about a student having a one in 14,000,000 chance of being shot at school.
Oh, BTW, I don’t have a problem with an licensed peace officer on premises. The likelihood of them shooting someone by mistake is tiny enough that it is essentially negligible. It’s very unlikely he would be asked to protect someone from being shot, but there are certainly crimes like theft and assault which are somewhat more common in some schools.
An urban district near mine pays the salary of an officer who has an office in each high school. Since the district started treating fights as criminal assaults, the number of fights has dropped dramatically.
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melensdad
Guest
But the school district in Texas is not urban. It is very rural. It is also concerned about elementary and middle schools, not just high schools.
The Amish school where a mass killing took place was rural, elementary/middle grades, and the killer had no connection to the school or its children other than he delivered mail to that building.
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Rick09
Guest
Thanks, that’s great information.
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childofmary1143
Guest
How would professional security people prevent a Columbine from occurring? As students they couldn’t be banned and walking into the school already having shot some students, I doubt a security guard would stop them.
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madam_ladybug
Guest
Originally Posted by Wolseley
I’m not missing anything. If you had professional security people on site to begin with, there wouldn’t be any need to arm your teachers.
I don’t think this can ever be true. Perhaps a school can afford $50,000 or more for one security person, but that is more than most schools can afford. Allowing teachers with CCW to carry their own weapons should cost very little. In addition to the expense, a professional security person can not respond quickly to an attack on students in a class room on the other side of the school. You are obviously proud of what you do, and that’s nice, but It is apples and oranges. Ideally, a school would have both types of security, but a small school may not be able to afford the full time professional. Allowing teachers to carry is certainly better than no security.
I’m not missing anything. If you had professional security people on site to begin with, there wouldn’t be any need to arm your teachers.
I don’t think this can ever be true. Perhaps a school can afford $50,000 or more for one security person, but that is more than most schools can afford. Allowing teachers with CCW to carry their own weapons should cost very little. In addition to the expense, a professional security person can not respond quickly to an attack on students in a class room on the other side of the school. You are obviously proud of what you do, and that’s nice, but It is apples and oranges. Ideally, a school would have both types of security, but a small school may not be able to afford the full time professional. Allowing teachers to carry is certainly better than no security.
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melensdad
Guest
Excellent point. Remember the Northern Illinois University shootings. Police and security were at the scene in less than 3 minutes. It was long over by the time they arrived.Wolseley:
I don’t think this can ever be true. Perhaps a school can afford $50,000 or more for one security person, but that is more than most schools can afford. Allowing teachers with CCW to carry their own weapons should cost very little. In addition to the expense, a professional security person can not respond quickly to an attack on students in a class room on the other side of the school. You are obviously proud of what you do, and that’s nice, but It is apples and oranges. Ideally, a school would have both types of security, but a small school may not be able to afford the full time professional. Allowing teachers to carry is certainly better than no security.
I know that it takes about 6 minutes to walk from one side of the high school my wife teaches in to the other side. If the security guard is in the middle of the building and walking a beat, he’s and average of 3 minutes from any given point, shorter if he is running to scene, but what if he is at one end and needs to be at the other end? Even running it will take him a couple minutes. Historically many of these school shootings are over in 60 to 90 seconds, not minutes.
The only ’first responder’ that can arrive on scene during one of these events is one who is ALREADY THERE when it starts.
Remember the mall shooting where a police officer engaged the shooter? That police officer was off duty, shopping with his wife. He was carrying a concealed weapon and was on the scene. The press reports made it sound like the SWAT team arrived in time to resolve the situation but that is far from the actual events.
How about the Colorado church shootings where a very heroic woman pulled her gun and engaged the shooter? She was on the scene, along with several others who were armed, and she stopped the shootings. The whole event played out in less than 60 seconds.
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geezerbob
Guest
Another school shooting this morning. Statistics are great as long as you or yours aren’t the 1 in XX,000.
wbir.com/news/breaking/st…62505&catid=29
wbir.com/news/breaking/st…62505&catid=29
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melensdad
Guest
I don’t mean to sound in any way coy, but how could that happen?
*]Schools are “Gun Free Zones” so its not legal to bring a gun on campus.
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*]Students are forbidden from bringing guns to school.
So, since kids are not allowed to bring guns to school, and schools have a piece of paper stuck on their front door proclaiming them to be “gun free” then this is clearly media hype.
Now in all seriousness, I’d hope we all send a prayer out to each of the families involved in this situation.
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