NOT Gun Control

If even the moderators are going to dismiss making a case for my opinion as "foot stamping and whining" then I'm done. Someone else can take up the contrary opinion.
 
If even the moderators are going to dismiss making a case for my opinion as "foot stamping and whining" then I'm done. Someone else can take up the contrary opinion.
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For what it is worth, if we want a law which will state school districts must allow for teachers to conceal carry that law will have to include means of training for the teachers. Whether we think it is necessary or not, I do not think said law will not pass without it. Just to drive a school bus, even with years of experience driving, the applicant must go for additional training to get the job. Is the extra training necessary, don't know, but your not going to get the job without it. I don't see a law getting passed to carry without extra training any different. On the bright side, getting the law passed is a step in the right direction and is the only "solution" up for debate that will actually save lives and that is the main goal.
 
Some states require training (or "proof of firearms safety training") as a prerequisite to issuing a carry license/permit. Some don't. My home state requires the NRA Basic Pistol course, or approved (by the State Police) equivalent. Florida accepted my almost 40-year old DD-214, showing that I had qualified with an M-14 in 1966, as satisfactory proof. Pennsylvania didn't have any requirement for training, all I had to do was pass a background check.

Each state is different. Perhaps (just perhaps) there should be some baseline of training for teachers who want to carry in school. MAYBE. But it doesn't have to be the full police academy or Army Basic Training firearms and tactics course. It doesn't have to be like the Federal Flight Deck Officer program for pilots, wherein pilots who wish to fly armed have to take a week (or is it two weeks?) of their own time, unpaid; travel to a single training facility in who knows where, and go through a bunch of training that would probably make a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant puke over the stupidity.

Most (not all) states that require training accept the NRA Basic Pistol class. The NRA has a couple of somewhat more advanced classes that could probably contribute elements to an armed teacher course: Personal Protection in the Home, and Personal Protection Outside the Home. I'm certified to teach the former, haven't gotten the latter yet so I don't know exactly what's in that lesson plan. IMHO an armed teacher course doesn't need to be more than two days, and realistically could be one day if the class sizes are reasonably controlled. We're not trying to turn out teacher Ninjas or SWAT teachers, we just want to have some assurance that the armed teacher will be a help rather than a hazard.

It might be that the NRA PPitH or PPotH as-is would be adequate (or better than adequate) training. If not, the NRA training folks could probably draw on those two classes plus their new Carry Guard courses to come up with a one- or two-day class specifically for training teachers on appropriate use of a firearm in an educational setting.
 
Every deliberate killing of innocents is a sickening and tragic event. The sane sorrow over it when it occurs and consider things that might prevent a re-occurrence. Unfortunately some people are insane, and some are evil, and there will always be some of both. Therefore people will be killed, including the innocent.

In response to the various dangers in our society, a significant number of our population have chosen to carry weapons whenever possible in an effort to better defend themselves. If the sensible and law abiding consider that a reasonable thing to do, very serious consideration should be given before denying that opportunity simply due to location or circumstance.

Liberty doesn't come cheap. The initial cost was high; and power, greed, and evil make it expensive to maintain. For those who place a high value on liberty, the cost is worth it. Others are willing to give up liberty for more security. Count me among the former. I would encourage the latter to find another place to call home. There are plenty of other places to live in the world if you don't mind giving up some liberty. Those seeking liberty have very few options.
 
I'm kinda shocked that arming teachers and lunch ladies is the go to argument for an armed response to school shooters. We live in a world of specialization and specialists, yet this argument depends on part time non-specialists.
If we want to increase the armed response, wouldn't armed guards be the better answer? Individuals specifically trained to defend against school shootings would be better able to respond than amateur teachers who honestly have enough on their plates as it is.

There is another side to the armed teacher argument addressed by this teacher in a Washington Post editorial.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...a-gun-in-my-classroom/?utm_term=.d20864e592b0
"But legal liability isn't the reason I will never carry a firearm into a classroom. If it's my responsibility to shoot someone to protect 25 others, I will have been drafted unwillingly into an ideological army to protect the rights of some civilians to own and operate military-style weapons. And I will not be conscripted.

The National Rifle Association has been accelerating and expanding the ideological warfare it wages on behalf of gun manufacturers for decades. Once legitimately a member-driven organization focusing on service and safety, it is now devoted to lobbying on the part of gun manufacturers. Because guns last a long time and are often kept and passed down, there's only one way to support the continued manufacture and sale of guns: by rebranding them as fetish properties to collect and own with pride. That is how we come to a situation where 3 percent of Americans own half of the guns in the United States, with collections averaging 17 guns per owner, and individuals frequently owning 40-plus guns. Add in a load of specialized and controversial accessories like bump stocks and silencers, and you have a business that can stay solvent for a little longer. Another way to boost sales? Arm teachers. The Department of Education counts roughly 100,000 schools in the United States. The number of classrooms varies, of course. A gun in each one looks like a very profitable bulk order.

But whatever its logic and motivation, I will not join that army."
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Arming teachers is not simply a utilitarian argument, it is also an ideological one. Should teachers be forced to carry ideological water that they personally oppose?
 
Buzzcook said:
Arming teachers is not simply a utilitarian argument, it is also an ideological one. Should teachers be forced to carry ideological water that they personally oppose?
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Nobody is talking about forcing all teachers to go armed. The proposal is to allow those teachers who choose to go armed to do so.

The teacher quoted in that article sounds like a conscientious objector from the time of the Vietnam conflict. There were some who claimed CO status falsely, and there were others who genuinely believed that it was a sin to take a human life, even in war. They were offered options for fulfilling their military obligation. Many became medics, and performed bravely--while unarmed.

But this teacher is also what Jeff Cooper called a hoplophobe -- a person with an irrational fear of weapons. She doesn't want to shoot someone to protect 25 others (her students). Fine. A dedicated young teacher in the Sandy Hook Elementary School, Victoria Soto, didn't have the option of shooting someone to save 25 others. She was unarmed, and she died heroically trying to shield her students from the shooter's bullets. I wonder if she might have preferred to have the option of using a gun to protect her students and herself. We'll never know.
 
Larry Correia addressed this in his Opinion on Gun Control at www.monsterhunternation.com/2015/06/23/an-opinion-on-gun-control-repost.

It's the best treatment of the issue I've read -- and lines up with President Trump’s call to arm only those teachers who volunteer and are (or want to be) capable of shouldering this responsibility. They'll of course drill together with any security on the premises, and have a plan for working with law enforcement.

I might be wrong, but one of the key arguments against an integrated approach is the fracture and isolation of parts of the same community from each other, and a culture of risk avoidance rather than principled planning -- a root problem with more danger to ordinary people as a symptom. The SRO(s) who hesitated to enter are a case in point.

In my view, that measure has succeeded as long as attackers leave them alone -- the chance that they might encounter any amount of armed resistance is enough to cause most of them to pick a different target.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
The Armed Teacher proposal here calls for 40 hours of firearms training, psychological testing, and annual qualification to APOST standards. I don't know if it says where the time and money are to come from, and what will be omitted to cover it.

My crystal ball says we will get some repressive but useless gun control measure and the actual subject of student protection will fade quietly away, until the next time.
 
As far as school shootings, I wonder what actions would be taken if someone actually took responsibility for school safety. It seems right now, nobody is held responsible for school safety (or at least school shootings).

Background checks were run on the shooter when he purchased firearms. Is there any fault there? If so, is anyone being held responsible?

Did the school have appropriate safeguards in place to address a school shooting? If not, are they being held responsible?

Was the response by local law enforcement appropriate? If not, are they being held responsible?

It just seems the focus is centered around guns as opposed to persons or organizations that might be negligent in the matter.

If going forward a person or organization was to be responsible for, and held accountable for, school shootings, one wonders what their course of action might be (or what they would recommend). Let's say, regardless of the circumstances, they will be held accountable for a shooting that occurs in a school. Would they simply rely on laws (existing or new) and background checks to prevent a bad guy from getting a gun and shooting up the school? Or might they also consider the possibility that someone might break some laws (such as stealing a gun and committing murder with it)?

Sound thought would consider the latter. But as Jim Watson suggests above, the majority of citizens and lawmakers (who will not be held accountable for any future school shootings) will likely rely on the former.
 
Aguila Blanca: I don't think the author has a fear of guns. Or at least he doesn't say he does. His objection is that carrying a gun in this case is a one sided compromise with an aim of not protecting student, but instead a case of protecting your ability to own a certain type of firearm.
Many teachers have died heroically, many of them didn't want to carry a gun.
Many teachers who have survived school shooting also say they wouldn't want to be armed. I wouldn't diagnose that as fear of guns.

Jim Watson: I suspect you are right, though most gun control measures seem to be paper tigers.
The kicker in this is the kids. If they can keep their momentum for a couple years, we may see a sea change in our ability to own certain firearms. After all it will only take one seat in the supreme court to void recent changes in the interpretation of the 2nd.
 
The long term threat is not just a law or two now. It is that there will be societal change akin to that about smoking. The inability to articulate a need for guns like the AR that makes sense outside the choir will erode support for such ownership.
 
The inability to articulate a need for guns like the AR that makes sense outside the choir will erode support for such ownership.
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I agree, the process began quite some time ago, and is ongoing.

There is no rational argument that will open a closed mind. Experience, however can. The old saying "there is no more staunch law & order advocate than a liberal who has been mugged" is not entirely untrue.

I always have an issue when anyone frames the question as a matter of "need".

"Why do you need xxx....???" (an AR, or anything, really)

My first response is to think, "Why do I have to justify my "needs" to you?"
Which always leads me to the other related questions like "what makes you the arbiter of what I need? "why do you think things that YOU think I don't need should be banned by law?" etc, and usually devolves down to "who died and made you GOD???"

Most of the time, that all stays in my head, but there are times I am very tempted to say it aloud to them... Especially the arrogant ones. If they aren't arrogant (indicative of an already closed mind) and are actually trying to understand, just using the phrasing they have heard so many times, I do try and explain, in principle. I usually use something they can understand. Personal liberty, defense against tyranny, these are things that are abstract to most of them, and while they hear the words, they don't understand the meanings.

I like to use money as an example. Nearly all of them understand (to a degree) money.

Why do you need an AR?
Why do you need more than minimum wage??
That's different!
Is it?? How???
My money doesn't kill anyone!
NEITHER DOES MY AR!!

or some variation on that theme. It does a couple of things, first is that it puts things on a personal level. Second, if they can see it, it points out how someone else deciding what you need is not always the good thing they think it is. They're fine with someone else (them) deciding what I need, when it comes to guns, but not fine with it when someone else (I) decide what they need when it comes to something they care about (in this case, their money).

doesn't always work, of course, but once in a while, some of them do seem to get it. That it is the same principle at work, and they realize that it's NOT the right thing to do, when its directed at something they care about.
 
hhhhmmmm.....

As an American (and a 'free' man), it isn't so much about need. it's about 'want'.

The item is legal, available, and I have the ability to pay for it. If I want that item, there shouldn't be any reason for me to be blocked. Atleast until I've proven myself incapable of responsible ownership.

No one NEEDS a Porsche, Lamborghini, or Ferrari. It is had based on 'want'. Just like a job that pays better than minimum wage.

Too many people concern themselves with what everyone else has. Especially when it is perfectly legal and harming no one. As for me, I would prefer EVERYONE be lifted up. Anyone using computers should know something about them. Everyone driving a motor vehicle should know how the basic function of that vehicle operates. Every capable, able-bodied person should work and pull their own weight.

This is America. If you want a firearm, have one. If you don't, then don't. But don't tell me I can't have one simply based on your fears. If I want a car, I will have one. The decision is mine to make. Not someone who lost their child in an auto accident.

The people that lost their lives in these incidents are no more gone because an AR was used. It would have been just as tragic if it were bombs, box cutters, or a jumbo jet driven into the building.

44AMP:
If your AR kills people, then I submit that money has taken ALOT more life over the course of human existence.

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I suspect that for many people here....this is just 'preaching to the choir'. for for others, perhaps not.
 
My wife just describes herself as a little old lady, who you wouldn't suspect, that she usually always carries. She practices extensively, using an indoor range in the winter, and a desert range in warm weather. Has her Glock, S&W Model 60, and even a Muddy Girl colored AR-15, that she hydro-dipped. Other than that, she's just a civilian.
 
The long term threat is not just a law or two now. It is that there will be societal change akin to that about smoking. The inability to articulate a need for guns like the AR that makes sense outside the choir will erode support for such ownership.
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Eh. I think they have lost that battle for at least a generation or two. When I was growing up, owning something like an AR15 was freakish and only for survivalists (not that any self-respecting survivalist then would have chosen an AR15) or serious gun nuts. All normal people had 2-3 cowboy guns, some shotguns for bird hunting and maybe a bolt-action deer rifle. The "forbidden fruit" of the ban era changed that for generations.

AR15 owners are the majority of gun owners now. Everyone has one. People who think Bernie Sanders is the bees knees have multiple ARs. Instead of Rawhide, Bonanza, The Rifleman, and Hollywood cranking out westerns, we have Call of Duty, Battlefield, Ghost Recon and Taken, John Wick, Jack Reacher, etc.

I'm not saying that societal change can't happen; but it will have to start with the generation that isn't even teens yet. Because all the younger ones like guns, and they like semi-autos in particular*

*Though as this thread demonstrates, that doesn't necessarily indicate opposition to gun control.
 
Buzzcook said:
Aguila Blanca: I don't think the author has a fear of guns. Or at least he doesn't say he does. His objection is that carrying a gun in this case is a one sided compromise with an aim of not protecting student, but instead a case of protecting your ability to own a certain type of firearm. I wouldn't diagnose that as fear of guns.
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It sounds to me like he isn't willing to consider that armed employees might make a difference because it is more important to him that you not be able to own certain kinds of firearms. He may not fear guns, but rather, hates them (and probably those that own them). The old tripe about the NRA only representing the gun manufacturers is another bogus talking point from Bloomberg and his ilk. Just another ideologue so blinded by his agenda, he isn't willing to consider an alternative that might help to accomplish what he claims to want to do.
 
I have read most of the posts here over the last several days..but may have missed some.
That said........
As a recently retired LEO of 40+ years.... suggest that everyone do their own research regarding shooting incidents involving well trained LEO's and count the number of rounds sent downrange to the number of rounds on target in each/most of those incidents. Anyone remember Ammado Dialo?

Arming teachers is the dumbest idea I've ever come across.

Not even getting into the arguments regarding liability personal and otherwise. Training regimes and costs. And the simple fact that Teachers did not pick that career path to be cops or warriors.
 
Arming teachers is the dumbest idea I've ever come across.
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Really? Are you saying that allowing a teacher his/her constitutional right to carry is the dumbest idea you've ever heard? I don't think anyone has advocated requiring teachers to carry.

Your logic is very much that of the folks who would make carrying a gun illegal because of the great risk to the general public. By your logic maybe we should go the way of the UK and take guns from everyone including most police officers.
 
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