State of Washington School Firearms Program

[johnelmore]

A school in Washington state is one of the first to have their administrators carry firearms and have volunteered to respond to any incidents which may call for an armed response.

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/2014/06/09/3011214/11-toppenish-school-administrators.html?sp=/99/900/

This is a program I feel is greatly needed and would have prevented quite a few tragedies. If there is an incident, now there will be 11 armed professionals responding to the incident on the spot. I hope these professionals are provided thorough training by the school and conduct frequent drills. I also hope they are provided with more then just a pistol. A quick don kevlar vest and a rifle would be the tools to respond to the type of active shooter in these situations. School administrators should have the tools to defend themselves and their students against any threats.

I am very supportive of this program with some caveats. My personal opinion is all teachers and school officials, regardless of them carrying firearms, should be subject to the same type of background and mental health checks as the police officers in the community. Seeing some of the news articles which come up every now and then I suspect this type of background check is not being performed. For example, I saw an article in the news about a teacher who was a former pornstar and this was not detected during their background checks.

If such a program does not dissuade the typical active shooter it should, at the very least, provide an a response which will either stop or slow down the threat.

 

[Theohazard]

This is a program I feel is greatly needed and would have prevented quite a few tragedies

I have no problem with teachers carrying guns, but this program definitely isn't greatly needed. The truth is that -- as scary and as tragic as they are -- mass shootings aren't really a big problem at all. It's a logical fallacy of misleading vividness: Mass shootings are horrifying and they're constantly in the news, so people think they're a much more pressing threat than they really are.

It simply doesn't make any logical sense for a school to devote too much time, money, and effort to prepare for an incident that's so astronomically unlikely to occur. I hope it's all on the teachers to get their own training on their own time, because that time and money could be much better spent on actually educating the students.

 

[RickB]

And, predictably, we get comments like, "What happens when one of these armed administrators accidentally shoots a student?"
Since Washington is a shall-issue state, with no requirements for passing a class or shooting a qualifying score, it will be interesting to see what sort of training they seek, or who decides what's appropriate.

 

[kilimanjaro]

From the article, there will be ballistic vests for them, and 16 hours of training.

If these events are so rare we shouldn't bother doing this in schools, then give up your pistol license, you don't need it.

 

[Brian Pfleuger]

Drop the trolling nonsense.

 

[motorhead0922]

If there is an incident, now there will be 11 armed professionals responding to the incident on the spot.

Not quite. The 11 administrators are dispersed throughout the whole school system. They "hope" to have one armed person in each school.

This is a good first step, but they need to allow teachers to carry also. Nonetheless, the Toppenish school district just got safer.

 

[Theohazard]

If these events are so rare we shouldn't bother doing this in schools,

I didn't say we shouldn't bother doing it, I said we shouldn't invest too much of the school's time and money into it, because that doesn't make any sense at all.

then give up your pistol license, you don't need it.

I don't carry a pistol just to protect myself against mass shootings, that wouldn't make much sense at all; I'm unbelievably unlikely to ever be involved in a mass shooting. Instead, I carry a pistol to protect myself against any and all threats against me and my family; I'm much more likely to need my carry gun to protect against petty crime.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There's another one that just happened in Oregon.

The simple solution is to allow carry in school by licensed persons.

You can debate the need for special training to make teachers pseudo-cops. I'm all for training but since you can carry in the mall or place of worship - all high density - why special training for schools?

That being said - if you are going to carry in school, I will opine you have the moral responsibility to be extremely competent as a shooter.