Our Teachers Should Be Allowed To Arm Themselves

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There was an excellent article up on Most Wanted last week discussing the gun control debate, it’s a must read. In it the author, Larry Correia, argues that armed teachers should be allowed in our schools.

The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.

Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away. After Colombine law enforcement changed their methods in dealing with active shooters. It used to be that you took up a perimeter and waited for overwhelming force before going in. Now usually as soon as you have two officers on scene you go in to confront the shooter (often one in rural areas or if help is going to take another minute, because there are a lot of very sound tactical reasons for using two, mostly because your success/survival rates jump dramatically when you put two guys through a door at once. The shooter’s brain takes a moment to decide between targets). The reason they go fast is because they know that every second counts. The longer the shooter has to operate, the more innocents die.

However, cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse. They simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back.

So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do?

The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.

The teachers are there already. The school staff is there already. Their reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. They can serve as your immediate violent response. Best case scenario, they engage and stop the attacker, or it bursts his fantasy bubble and he commits suicide. Worst case scenario, the armed staff provides a distraction, and while he’s concentrating on killing them, he’s not killing more children.

But teachers aren’t as trained as police officers! True, yet totally irrelevant. The teacher doesn’t need to be a SWAT cop or Navy SEAL. They need to be speed bumps.

But this leads to the inevitable shrieking and straw man arguments about guns in the classroom, and then the pacifistic minded who simply can’t comprehend themselves being mandated to carry a gun, or those that believe teachers are all too incompetent and can’t be trusted. Let me address both at one time.

Don’t make it mandatory. In my experience, the only people who are worth a darn with a gun are the ones who wish to take responsibility and carry a gun. Make it voluntary. It is rather simple. Just make it so that your state’s concealed weapons laws trump the Federal Gun Free School Zones act. All that means is that teachers who voluntarily decide to get a concealed weapons permit are capable of carrying their guns at work. Easy. Simple. Cheap. Available now.

Take it from a cop….we can’t be everywhere. In South Central there are many of us, but by the time we get the call it still takes us minutes to get to a scene. Shootings, stabbings, murders and everything in between happen in seconds. In a low crime, rural area, it could be quite awhile for the nearest cops to arrive.

One armed teacher would delay and/or stop the threat to young children.

Contrary to the hyperventilating liberals, no one is advocating that teachers should be mandated to carry a gun. As Larry argues above, make it voluntary. One state that does has concealed carry classrooms filled to capacity with teachers:

More than 200 Utah teachers are expected to pack a convention hall on Thursday for six hours of concealed-weapons training as organizers seek to arm more educators in the aftermath of the Connecticut school shooting.

The Utah Shooting Sports Council said it normally gathers a dozen teachers every year for instruction that’s required to legally carry a concealed weapon in public places. The state’s leading gun lobby decided to offer teachers the training at no charge to encourage turnout, and it worked.

Organizers who initially capped attendance at 200 were exceeding that number by Wednesday and scrambling to accommodate an overflow crowd.

And as the scumbag Piers Morgan blabbers about changing our Constitution (and the Bible) we have newspapers printing the addresses of gun owners (while simultaneously printing the addresses of those who DONT have a gun to defend themselves…friggin idiots).

Jack Dunphy:

Based on what we’ve heard so far, this “conversation” amounts to little more than an attempt by one side to shame the other into silence and acquiescence. If you refuse to admit that you, the gun owner, are part of the problem; if you dare to suggest that the public at large would not be less safe but safer if more law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry concealed handguns; if you refuse to acknowledge what is so patently obvious to your enlightened betters living in colonies along both coasts — which is that firearms are inherently evil and have no place in a civilized society — then you are an abettor in the slaughter of children and deserving of public scorn if not imprisonment and even death.

Indeed, this “conversation” has been marked by ignorance and emotionalism on the part of those who would see Americans surrender their guns in advancement of the utopia envisioned in such places as the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Manifesting this ignorance and emotionalism for all to see was CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, who, while engaging in what was purported to be a “conversation on guns” with economist John Lott, seemed gobsmacked when Mr. Lott presented an argument in favor of fewer restrictions on citizens carrying concealed weapons — an argument based on his own extensive research. “I have to say,” stammered Ms. O’Brien, “your position, your position completely boggles me, honestly. I just do not understand it.”

That she did not understand Mr. Lott’s position was obvious, as she was so completely boggled that she failed to address even a single one of the points he made, instead veering off on tangents that did little more than reveal her own lack of knowledge on the subject at hand.

…All the heated rhetoric that has followed the horrors of Sandy Hook obscures the legitimate questions we so yearn to have answered: could the gunman have been stopped, and can future madmen be prevented from carrying out similar crimes? Is there a law that might have been passed, are there steps that might have been taken, could anything have been done to protect those precious children and those who cared for them?

I suspect that those who seek a legislative solution to crimes such as this one are on a fool’s errand. It would be difficult to tabulate the number of laws the gunman broke in the course of his murderous spree that morning; to think the enactment of one or a dozen more would deter such a man is to engage in childish fantasy. And talk of banning “assault weapons” is equally naive, not least for the fact that the very term has no real definition other than to describe rifles that some people find scary-looking.

Could he have been stopped? Yes. By someone armed and ready to take the shooter out or at least draw his attention away. Can future madmen be prevented from doing this again? No. There is evil in this world, always has been and always will be. Even putting away hundreds of thousands into mental institutions against their will, as we did in the past, didn’t stop it. Take away the guns?

Meat Cleaver: A man charged into a kindergarten in northwestern China with a cleaver Wednesday and hacked to death seven children and two adults.
knife: a man used a knife to kill eight children and seriously wound five others in the city of Nanping.
Hammer: Wang Yonglai used a hammer to cause head injury to preschool children.
Box Cutter: a female worker slashed eight children with a box-cutter at a daycare center for migrant workers.
Axe; two young girls and four adults taking their children to nursery school were killed with an axe.

And as we all know 2,996 people were killed by those only armed with box cutters on 9/11.

No, we can stop them by allowing teachers to be armed. Preventing them from ever happening again is fodder for liberal hippies who believe the world can be rainbows and unicorns someday if only there was enough hashish to go around.

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@Greg: Greg, why don’t you actually go to a gun store and buy a 9mm semi-auto pistol. Go through the background checks. Then go apply for your concealed carry permit. After the “minimal” training, come back here and talk to us about how you plan to use your new weapon and how the concealed carry permit will enhance your plan. I will bet that the extent of your concealed carry will be to place the pistol under the seat of your car in the event someone wants to steal you VW Bug. I doubt you will carry it into very many places. I will bet you will not get into situations that are beyond your capabilities. I will also bet that you will view personal safety quite differently. I will bet that you will also develop a training plan that will enhance your capabilities. Few if any of us concealed carry permit holders feel macho because we have a pistol under our jacket or under the seat of the car. We just are much more observant than the typical liberal in public places. Try it Greg and then you can really talk tous. It likely will only cost you about $800.

Wait a minute tom, first you argued you didn’t want guns flooding the streets and causing more death. Now that you have been advised they are already out there, you now want to claim that a lack of gun control is the problem. Wow. Talk about moving the goal posts and failure to examine your position.

@Randy:

No police (other than the volunteer firefighters who were shot) were there for this incident. So the answer to your question is no. Liberal or Conservative, only reasonable people would follow your logic to it’s end and conclude that it doesn’t work.

@Randy:

Regarding not knowing about guns, that may be true, but i very much suggest the opposite is true as well. Do you know any teachers in NYC, in Boston or Cambridge, or their suburbs for that matter? I con confidently tell you most of them will never carry a gun in a school. Should we fire them? You are insistijg on forcing your worldview and lifestyle on a world that isn’t equipped for it, and doesn’t want it. They dont want guns I’m their schools or neighborhoods. Is that not their right?

@Cary: So police do not routinely go to fires to provide crowd control? Gosh, we folks out in the sticks must be way behind the times! You city folks sure are modern.

@Tom: Actually Tom, I went to Iraq with many teachers from NY. I think thay were very capable to handle a 9mm and even an M-4 assualt rifle, because they needed to in order to protect my life and their own! You keep think that everyone is just like you. They are not!

@Tom:

Ummm tom, no one is FORCING them to carry a gun or proposing that we force them to.
No one is forcing them to have firearms in their neighborhoods.
We merely want to give them the OPTION.
The only one trying to force their views on others is you with your demands for gun control.

Cary, IIRC the police did show up and engaged the gunman which probably saved lives.

@Tom:

The guns didn’t grow on trees. The guns are here because of years of non-existent gun control, and now we are paying the price.

Is gun violence up or down?

Why is restricting weapons that serve no sporting or hunting purpose, but serve to massacre people time and again a bad idea?

“Sporting” and “hunting”? What about those of us who don’t hunt but want to defend our lives and property?

And before people jump in with “that won’t prevent every gun crime”, no law does prevent every crime. We wouldn’t need police otherwise. But a law is a barier, and a cause of legal action.

And yet haven’t you been providing just those same kind of arguments when posing “What ifs”, on “collateral damages” and citizens gone wild worst-case scenarios when gun advocates have called for less gun laws as the answer to less violent crime?

@Hard Right:

After the fact… they were not there for crowd control, as Randy stated.

,

Did you read the Correia link?

I did . I do not dismiss it out of hand and admit it sounds appealing. But as a solution it has the flaw of potentially creating more problems than it solves. Let’s assume, for arguments sake, it deters school shootings of this kind. You are still putting a gun, or more, into 100,000 public schools at least. How many chances is that for an accident, for a teacher who snaps, a student who overpowers a teacher. You create thousands, perhaps millions, of more chances for an incident. That doesn’t seem logical to me when trying to keep guns out of schools is an alternative strategy.

@Randy:

When they are in areas where there would be crowds, of course. Not this time. Heck, it was even a VOLUNTEER fire squad… not a big city thing at all. Can we stop debating something that didn’t happen, please?

Why is restricting weapons that serve no sporting or hunting purpose, but serve to massacre people time and again a bad idea?

Because they don’t serve to massacre people, tom. I have told you over and over how they are used in hunting and target shooting.
I’m starting to think you are doing nothing more than trolling.

@Randy: #51
Randy, I would have to strongly- very strongly- endorse your suggestion.
Greg:
I am endorsing Randy’s suggestion because it is a good one. Buy a handgun, get your carry permit, go to the range for some practice, then come and discuss your experience with us. Most of us here would welcome you.
I think you will find out that shooting, even if only at paper targets is fun. You will probably find that the people you meet, at the gun shop and the range, are some of the finest, most courteous, helpful, and friendly people that you will ever meet.
Not to mention, the safest. Because gun people are aware of the dangers inherent in handling firearms, and that awareness tends to carry over into other areas of our lives.
We also love to share our interest with people who are new to the field.
I carry, not because I’m Rambo, but to protect myself and those whom I have a duty to protect. I don’t want to carry, because by the end of the day, that chunk of steel weighs twice as much, is all sharp edges, and is covered in sweat. And I hope to God that I never have to use it.
Anyway, if you’re ever near Savannah, let me know. We’ll go to the range, punch a few holes in some paper, and just have a good time. I’ll even provide the guns and the ammunition. I’ve got a target pistol that I think you’d enjoy.

Tom would seem to agree with this

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/214652.php

Sporks at DailyKOS: Great Idea! A War on Guns!

@Wordsmith:

Sporting” and “hunting”? What about those of us who don’t hunt but want to defend our lives and property?

I have yet to read of an incident where an assault rifle with an extended clip was NEEDED to repel a home invasion. Perhaps one has been used, but was that degree of firepower necessary? I think we are fooling ourselves if we pretend they have a necessary function. They are a dangerous luxury, a toy. That, to me, is not upside enough to justify the horrible downside. Do you disagree?

@Cary: That is all you do! YOu guys debate all of the concealed carry people shooting up bystanders. You make up situations where trained people with guns in schools hurt innocents. In our little county, the police get the same emergency call as the fire department. They control traffic and crowds. They also keep people out of the way. It is a shame that big citys do not have the cooperative responses as we folks out in the sticks.

Why don’t you admit that you are afraid of guns because you never learned how to use them. You never had to protect yourself with a weapon. You do not trust what others have learned through experience. Am I right? Would you be one of the people who crawled under the seats in the theater or would you make an attempt to minimize the loss of life? I would bet you are a crawler.

@Tom:

I have yet to read of an incident where an assault rifle with an extended clip was NEEDED to repel a home invasion. Perhaps one has been used, but was that degree of firepower necessary? I think we are fooling ourselves if we pretend they have a necessary function. They are a dangerous luxury, a toy. That, to me, is not upside enough to justify the horrible downside. Do you disagree?

Los Angeles riots.
You are trolling.

tom, your number 65–Los Angeles.

It’s clear you are trolling when you have been shown how wrong your claims on semi-auto rifles are over and over, yet still spew the same nonsense.

@Randy:

Randy, how do you explain 10,000 gun murders a year if things are perfect the way they are?

Randy, cary is too hysterical to reason with and tom is clearly trolling, repeating the same thing over and over.

@Tom: Tom, an AR 15 is not an assualt rifle. One of the things I learned early in my military career was that it is better to have ammo left over in a hard situation than to run out. Also, the racking of a round into a pump shot gun and just the appearance of an AR-15 often causes a perb to soil his pants. No action is necessary. Also, the short stock and barrel allows the weapon to be deployed easier than a traditional hunting weapon. The 5.56 mm ammo is much cheaper than the .30 cal hunting ammo. That allows more practice and higher levels of profeciency. When your life or those you love is on the line, I want to err on the side of safety. 30 rounds is a nice round number.

@Randy:

Webster, NY isn’t a big city. Why are you typing this stuff? Also you don’t know me or my background or my experience, so assume what you wish. I may live in the big city now, but rest assured I can ride a horse. You fail.

Trained COPS incurred collateral damage here in the city during a recent shootout, you think it’s unreasonable to think some wanna be superhero like you wouldn’t? That’d be good for a laugh if it was at all funny.

So, if that’s all you’ve got, have a nice night.

@Wordsmith:

is gun violence up or down?

Don’t know. I know it is much higher than it is in any other industrialized nation. It is too high. It is completely logical to question the role of guns in our society given the carnage.

@Tom: And how many are in Chicago where the gun laws are most stringent? How many are drug related. Would there be fewer murders if the perbs had mandatory training? Tell me please how your proposals will stop those murders? Keeping me from protecting myself and family will do that? You only have to look at the statistics in England and Australia to see what happens when the guns of law abiding people are taken away.

@Cary:

Take a xanax already. Jeez.

I’m all or guns in schools, but not just teachers. Any employee who passes the requirements should be allowed to carry a gun. The main problem I have is publishing the schools and people who have guns in schools. That information should NEVER be made public. Anyone who goes on a killing spree will go after them first. Let’s keep stuff like that a secret.

@Cary: Well, we have about 1500 people here. Our police and fire department coordinate at every fire. Keep making up scenerios that I would not be involvd in. We are only talking about defensive roles for concealed carry people, not attempting to arrest criminals. We are talking about interrupting a crime, not capturing the perb. I also ride a hores when I want to, but that doesn’t make me smarter. So tell me oh wise one. Tell me about your experience with weapons. Tell me about the experiences you have had where you actually needed to protect yourself. If you have none of these experiences, then your discussions here are purely theoretical and not real. Maybe you should go some where else where a phony will not be detected.

@Tom:

Except you are not “questioning”. You are demanding restrictions and outright bans based off of ideology, ignorance, and bigotry.

@Hard Right:

LOL

Only after you take your Haldol, pal!

Have a great night.

@Randy:

With all due respect, this isn’t a military theater we are talking about. For every one in a million legitimate self defense with an AR, we have THOUSANDS of ARs floating around now waiting to get into the wrong hands, as they always do.

@Cary:

Sounds like you need it more than anyone else here.

@Randy:

Yes, I never ever had to protect myself here in New York City, in any way! Well, in fact NYC does indeed have the lowest crime rate of big cities in this entire country.

Says a lot about us liberals here, doesn’t it?

If you actually want to get to know me beyond your strawman arguments, you’re free to follow my Facebook page. Just click my name on this post. Otherwise, I accept that you’re projecting something to try to prove a point you can’t otherwise make.

@Cary:

Project much? Wow. The lack of personal insight you display is staggering.

@Tom: Well tom, First of all, how many are floating around? Then, how many are in the wrong hands. How many are used in crimes? There was one in CT, but was left in the car. two pistols were used, not the AR-15. Your statistics are all skewed. That actually means you have no idea what you are talking about. An Ar-15 is difficult to conceal which is why they are rarely used in crimes.

@Hard Right:

I’m content with beer, but thanks for offering your stash. Very kind of you.

I’d offer to share my beer in return, but it would be irresponsible of me, since you’re already staggering…

@Cary: Just trying to understand why someone who thinks he is intelligent says so may silly things. I will pass on face book. If you can not provide your reasons for your opinions here, then you are not likely to be candid on your face book page.

@Cary:

Again, project much? I’m not the one posting hysterically like you have been.

@Randy:

It’s hard to justify, “just because I don’t like them”. That’s really the root of his argument.

And no, I’ve never been in a position to have to protect myself by using a gun. That doesn’t mean I’ve never been trained to use one. Nor does that mean that this is a point that is in any way relevant. So many strawmen here, we could have a Ray Bolger chorus line!

@Tom:

I did . I do not dismiss it out of hand and admit it sounds appealing. But as a solution it has the flaw of potentially creating more problems than it solves. Let’s assume, for arguments sake, it deters school shootings of this kind. You are still putting a gun, or more, into 100,000 public schools at least. How many chances is that for an accident, for a teacher who snaps, a student who overpowers a student. You create thousands, perhaps millions, of more chances for an incident.

We’re a nation of 311 million. Over 100,000 public schools; countless more in public venues, theaters, etc. 270 million guns already in the hands of Americans. In relation to these numbers- in proportion, do we have an epidemic crisis on our hands of mass murders, homicides, and assaults? How do you prevent guns from falling into the hands of criminals and not just prevent them from being in the hands of citizens? When talking about accidents, how is gun accidents any more likely to occur than swimming pool accidents, burn accidents, and auto accidents? What other unsafe things can you think of currently present on school grounds that are potentially dangerous and lethal to children? More children also die from bicycle accidents than gun accidents.

That doesn’t seem logical to me when trying to keep guns out of schools is an alternative strategy.

How did “keeping guns out of schools” work out for Sandy Hook Elementary? How do we keep guns out of the hands of bad guys so that the good guys don’t need them as well?

Here’s another article that might interest you: The Case for More Guns (And More Gun Control)

Tom,

Sometimes what may seem like the conventional wisdom might actually achieve the opposite, undesired results.

I believe a number of liberal ideas and policies achieve unintended consequences.

@Randy:

Wrong. According to the CT State Police, the AR was the primary weapon. Saying otherwise is a serious accusation against their integrity I would not make lightly. Honestly, don’t tell me you are buying into the Right Wing conspiracy theory of the hour too?

@Hard Right: One of the things I have observed from the liberals who post here is that 1. They are poorly informedon the subject they are discussing. 2. They rely on feelings instead of facts. 3. They have a real need to make up facts that support their position because they rarely check out the references we provide to them. 4. They think that if they keep saying the same things over and over again it will be true. 5. They always revert to personal attacks when they can not get their way. It would be much more productive if there could be a real discussion on guns, personal protection, the reason behind the second ammendment and real statistics.

Gotta love the Conservatives and their ad hominems when they’ve nothing left. Rush and Anne would be proud.

Yeah, I get silly and snarky. Sue me. How stupid of me to think that a well intentioned vigilante in my city will cause more problems than solve them.

Thank God we have a mayor as stupid and silly as I am.

@Tom:

is gun violence up or down?

Don’t know. I know it is much higher than it is in any other industrialized nation. It is too high. It is completely logical to question the role of guns in our society given the carnage.

Gun violence is down. It’s been going down in most states for the past several years.

In regards to mass murders:

the high point for mass killings in the U.S. was 1929, according to criminologist Grant Duwe of the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Incidents of mass murder in the U.S. declined from 42 in the 1990s to 26 in the first decade of this century.

The chances of being killed in a mass shooting are about what they are for being struck by lightning.

Until the Newtown horror, the three worst K–12 school shootings ever had taken place in either Britain or Germany.

@Randy:

You’ll also notice the esteem they hold themselves in. Everyone that disagrees with them is is stupid, an “NRA zombie”, unstable, or utterly irrational. While they think they are wise, intelligent, saner than sane, and better than others.
They have no insight into why they hate firearms or those that own them. They actually believe they only want to do what’s right and protect others. They are in extreme denial that is not the case and cannot be made to face such a thing. Instead they project their shortcomings onto us and direct their venom at us as well.

The good thing is that anyone who comes across this thread will see how severely we destroyed their arguements and highlighted what was really behind them.

@Tom: CNN reported in detail:

Three weapons were recovered from the school: a semi-automatic .223 Bushmaster found in a car in the school parking lot, and a Glock and a Sig Sauer found with Lanza’s body, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said. The weapons were legally purchased by Lanza’s mother, the official said.

How can the liberal news media be wrong?

@Cary: So now everyone who wants to protect themselves are vigilantes? Your reasoning is really skewed. Are you also protecting the NYC population from 18oz soft drinks?

@Wordsmith:

Thank you for the Atlantic article. I am actually familiar with it, and it raises some good points. Here is the bottom line. I understand the Genie is out of the bottle and guns are here to stay. But there has to be some degree of control. Where are the honest brokers on the Right? The NRA will not support any measure on principle. How does one negotiate with that, with people who don’t support background checks, or think it’s fine to sell to potential terrorists. The fear of the NRA on the Right is really something to behold. There are a few brave conservatives out there, like David Frum, but otherwise it’s a monolithic call for more guns as an answer to everything.

@Hard Right: Well, maybe we need to start championing those poor slobs who want the right to carry 18 oz soft drinks.

@Randy:

Wow, you actually read an article about something! Good job! Yes, the soft drink thing is quite silly. Almost as silly as you believing that you’re going to protect anyone with your concealed carry when a lunatic covered in body armor and a gas mask enters a place after throwing a smoke bomb and starts shooting a semi-automatic, and not hurt any innocents trying to do so. For someone with so much real life experience, you possess the logic of a Die Hard movie. I bet you jump off of moving airplanes as they’re about to take off and shoulder roll onto the tarmac without a scratch, don’t you?!

Anyway, Happy New Year!