NRA calls for armed police officers in every school
December 21, 2012 at 4:41 am in Duluth News Tribune
The nation’s largest gun-rights lobby is calling for armed police officers to be posted in every American school to stop the next killer “waiting in the wings.” Continue Reading
Sure great idea, are they going to pick up the tab in these tight budgetary times?!?!?
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No let the parents pay a security fee of around $50 per student each year.
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I am a former Army Officer; firearm owner; concealed carry permit holder; M-9 pistol expert qualifier 9 times over; and father of a second grade girl.
I would absolutely volunteer my services to her school one day a week free of charge. I’ll bet there are more like me.
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since when have liberals ever cared about spending more money?
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Since when have conservatives ever been willing to spend more money?
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How ’bout the NRA?
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Sorry, folks — this was in response to Deb’s question about who should pay for extra security in schools. And where is the limit on who receives this kind of protection?
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Guess who is in the business of selling guns?
“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
After this sad joke is over I imagine we will be treated to another ‘Plan B’.
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Actually Mr. LaPierre…..guns DO kill people.
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Yes, that’s good logic.
I’m a bit overweight. Can we please ban spoons as well?
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Yes, Magnum, they do.
Cars kill people…many more than guns. Should we ban them?
Alcohol kills people…many more than guns. We tried to ban that. Did it work?
Even doctors kill people (ever wonder why they call it a medical “practice?”) Should we ban them?
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Yes cars do kill people and they are strictly regulated: speed limits, licensing, seat belt laws, not texting and driving, mandatory insurance, air bags, etc. Could you imagine how many would die without those things.
I don’t have a problem with: smaller magazines, mandatory education when purchasing a firearm and other regulations on specific firearms.
No one is going to take your guns away, we need to be responsible though.
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Sure, cars kill people but is that their ultimate purpose? I think not, and this is about the weakest logic the NRA tries to use. Guns are for killing something or someone…PERIOD. And if you try to argue about target practice etc. you are a liar…and you know you are. I am a gun owner and hunter (over 45 yrs) & FORMER NRA member ( long ago) & I do not agree with them at all any more. They have gone “over the cliff” to use today’s venacular. No one needs an assault rifle out in the public….and that certainly doesn’t fall under the language of a “well REGULATED militia”. Wake up gun owners….we all need to change…and we won’t lose our rights…but the NRA will b.s. you into thinking you will.
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Not that this should even need to be said, but having access to firearms certainly makes it a whole lot easier for people to kill other people. You can’t argue that. I can’t possibly imagine a crazed individual with a knife stabbing and killing dozens of people before anyone managed to flee the building.
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Can you imagine someone, say an armed guard, dropping him in his tracks before he ever got inside?
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Really, what are you going to arm the “guards” with? How will you train them? We see more and more times where police fire every round they have at the bad guy, sometimes they hit him sometimes they don’t. They bad guys are wearing body armor and using high capacity mags rounds that will pierce bullet proof vests. I do not want anyone firing off rounds at my kids school, “good guys or bad guys”
The answer is not more guns, it is education, regulation on what and who can buy weapons. Extensive background checks should be mandatory for every gun transaction. It will not keep all the guys out of peoples hands, but its a start.
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No, it isn’t a start. More regulations aren’t going to do a thing to keep a bad guy from getting whatever weapon he wants. If more people were allowed to carry concealed weapons (yes, with the necessary education and training and background checks) a bad guy might think twice before finding a public place to shoot up.
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DanH said:
“If more people were allowed to carry concealed weapons a bad guy might think twice before finding a public place to shoot up.”
Do you honestly think that a person that has decided to arm themselves and go on a shooting rampage actually stops to think “oh, maybe I shouldn’t do this cuz I might get shot”?
The majority of the people that end up doing this kind of thing aren’t really ‘bad guys’. They are people with mental health issues and they aren’t thinking logically to begin with.
The fact that they are going to get shot is a given because, they are planning on doing it themselves.
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DanH, that still doesn’t address the slippery slope argument. If we fund armed guards in schools, then why wouldn’t a crazed gunman go to a supermarket, mall, transit center, or any other non-public building and do the same thing?
As for conceal carry laws, they make sense to a point but ignore the obvious consequences. First, Treyvon Martin. If people are always carrying a gun, they will always be on high alert and are more likely to make poor decisions (e.g. shooting an unarmed man because they assumed he was armed). There’s no perfect solution when it comes to gun violence. But the ideas of instituting a new police state or reverting back to the 1800s wild west ways of problem solving aren’t very practical.
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Sorry Dan…..your argument is flawed. Columbine had an armed security guard on duty.
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If an armed and trained 15 year veteran officer couldn’t stop what happened at columbine then what are a few teachers with guns going to do? Do we really want more guns in schools? What if we do arm our teachers? Will these guns be secure enough that they won’t fall into the wrong hands? Do we build watch towers with armed guards to cover school grounds? Armor plate the school bus?
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So their argument is the only thing that can stop gun violence is more gun violence?
Enough said.
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Noooooo, Katie. I believe they are saying that the way to stop gun violence is through deterence. That the threat of a bad guy being met by someone capable of meeting him on his terms will help discourage the attack in the first place, or end the attack more quickly with less loss of life.
“(Insert company name here) bans guns on these premises.” Translation: “There is no one here to oppose you. Come kill us with wanton abandon.”
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The problem with that Senty is that these guys all know what their end game is before the enter a school, theater etc. If your plan already includes not leaving alive, exactly how is this a deterrent?
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If their desire was to accomplish their end game, they’d shoot themselves in their basement or garage. Their opening and mid-game is to kill innocent people. The media glorify this: “2nd most deadly shooting…” What is this–a competition? Do we give gold medals for the highest body count? Their names are on the lips of every American…their lives scrutinized and trumpeted in every detail. Don Henley was indeed correct: We LOVE dirty laundry!
Name one victim from Columbine. But I’ll bet almost every reader here can name one of the shooters.
Deny them this. Deny them their infamy. “Help” them–if necessary–jump directly to their “end game” at the front door of the school with no other loss of life. If we fail, and they “win,” stop it at one or two lives instead of 26. Keep them out of the media’s “medal round.”
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If I’m not mistaken, the Colorado theater shooter is still breathing.
It goes back to the question of why choose a school, why not a police station? Simple, where can I inflict the most damage and encounter the least resistance. It acts as a deterrent in the same way that a room full of cops makes it decidedly less likely that a person will burst in and open fire. And, if a person chooses to attack anyway they can hopefully be stopped much more quickly.
A district in Texas and Israel both allow teachers to arm themselves. Strangely enough, no mass shootings there. Mexico and Norway have both chosen to take guns away from the civilian population. We all know how that story ends.
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I would bet the school was chosen because it was a perceived source of the killers pain not because it wasn’t filled with cops. The logic doesn’t follow. Almost any public place is filled with unarmed people. One security guard doesn’t guarantee successful deterrence anyway.
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James said:
“A district in Texas and Israel both allow teachers to arm themselves. Strangely enough, no mass shootings there.”
But, had there been any mass shootings there BEFORE the teachers armed themselves?
If not, that really doesn’t prove much, does it?
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Duluth doesn’t have any armed teachers….we haven’t had any mass shootings. I guess unarmed teachers works just as well.
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But that theory really doesn’t work because, it’s too logical.
1. Anyone that arms themselves and goes into a public building with the intent of shooting people is already beyond any logical thought process.
2. Probably 99% of the people that decide to do this know that they are either going to shoot themselves or commit ‘suicide by cop’ so, the fact that someone else might be armed is a moot point.
If the idea that you’d be killed for killing someone was an actual deterrent, then states with the death penalty should have much lower murder rates but…they don’t.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/deterrence-states-without-death-penalty-have-had-consistently-lower-murder-rates
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The threat to them isn’t that they might get shot themselves, although that would be the hope. They want to go out in a blaze of glory, take out as many as possible, be the next media superstar whose name everybody remembers. You’re right; these are not rational people. The real threat presented to them by concealed carry laws is that they’ll be stopped before they get to act out their fantasies.
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Here is a link to the full text of the speech by the NRA
http://home.nra.org/pdf/Transcript_PDF.pdf
It makes more sense now. If you can instill in every child that the only safe environment is one where there is a gun, you can create a whole generation of gun buyers. Very valuable strategic thinking from the gun lobby. God Bless America.
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Why do these types of attacks happen in schools? Ever think about that? Ever heard of this happening at a sportsmans club? A Police Station? A Gander Mountain? Hmmmm….
Strict gun control seems to be working very well in Mexico, maybe we should ask them for advice.
Anyone out there have a “Gun Free Zone” sign posted outside their home?
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Actually, let me call attention to the following headlines:
The Fort Hood shooting was a shooting that took place on November 5, 2009, at Fort Hood, the most populous U.S. military installation in the world, located just outside Killeen, Texas. In the course of the shooting, a single gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others. It is the worst shooting ever to take place on an American military base.
The sole suspect is Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army Major serving as a psychiatrist. He was shot and taken into custody by Department of the Army Civilian Police officers, and is now paralyzed from the waist down. Hasan has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder under the Uniform Code of Military Justice; he may face additional charges at court-martial. If he is convicted, he could be given the death penalty.
Hasan is an American of Palestinian descent. Internal Army reports indicate officers within the Army had discussed what they characterized as Hasan’s tendencies toward radical Islam since 2005. Investigations before and after the shooting discovered e-mail communications between Hasan and Yemen-based cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Hasan asked for religious advice, such as whether a soldier who “died while attacking fellow soldiers” would be a martyr.When these were forwarded to FBI terrorism task forces in 2008, they determined that Hasan was not a threat prior to the shooting and that his questions to al-Awlaki were consistent with his medical research. After the shooting, Awlaki quickly declared Hasan a hero, as “fighting against the U.S. army is an Islamic duty”.
So, all that background information on a perpetrator and on an “armed to the hilt” military base with highly trained military personnel with an arsenal of military weapons and he still manages to inflict such carnage. Do you think people such as this will allow 1 armed guard to stop them. Let’s get real; we absolutely do not need more guns to fight this violence. We need sane people to allow guns as always, but ban military-style weapons and high volume bullet clips. There shouldn’t be any argument here…common sense will do!
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That about sums it up. All you have to do is look at the statistics of per capita gun ownership vs per capita gun deaths. There were 11 gun deaths in Japan last year and 9000 here.
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How about Mexico?
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Mexico, a Third World Country,.. Oh, Ya, You betchy, thats a role model that fits us oroe and more.
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I see you’ve never served in the Military, and that’s okay.
However, those of us who have served know that a Military installation has some of the highest security anywhere surrounding their firearms. Soldiers aren’t simply running around willy nilly carrying firearms. They are kept under strict security and constantly being accounted for.
Do you honestly suppose that if these soldiers had been “armed to the hilt” as you suggest, that Maj Hassan would have lasted very long?
Sorry to burst the argument you spent so much time quoting.
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ahhhh resorting to personal insults I see. That’s a good substitute for a well thought out logical argument.
Perhaps if you took the time to read my comments, (or if you could understand them) you would notice that my retort to your earlier comment is simply calling the causal relationship you suggest between guns and killing into question through a satirical means.
In my later post, I’m suggesting that there is a causal relationship between the absence of guns in the hands of “good guys” in places and the propensity for those places to be the target of an attack.
Oh, and the part at the beginning where I said that personal insults are a good substitute for good arguments. (Again, I’m being facetious, I actually meant the opposite)
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Looks like they pulled the comment from magnumpi that I was responding to here. My reply makes a lot less sense without it. Sorry.
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James~ well somehow my post which should have gone up at end of thread got slammed into vacant spot by deleted post…which now really makes you look even nuttier..LOL…thought would point that out so folks didn’t think you lost all your marbles…
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I don’t think putting armed guards in every school is the answer. How about a guard on each school bus to and from school? How about security at the mall, movie theatres, churches, restauraunts, museums or anywhere else people get together? Who pays for the extra security? Why not put a tax on firearms and ammunition to cover the bill? I’m sure the NRA wouldn’t like that idea. Something needs to be done about gun violence. I don’t think it’s as simple as banning all guns or arming all citizens. Something needs to be done.
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John, there are “security guards” at the mall right now…unarmed. Those would be more properly called “additional targets.” Would you give a firefighter a hat, a badge, and a uniform, but no fire hose? So why do we fail to give “security” the tools to do their job?
Churches? You might be surprised to learn how many off-duty officers are present at every service–armed.
Restaurants / theaters…as in any private enterprise, the cost is borne by the customers. You pay for security at the bank…it’s in your interest rate. As for the White House / Congress / the Governor…it’s in your taxes. Somebody, somewhere deemed those people and that infrastructure important enough to protect with armed security, and we pay for it with hardly a second thought.
Aren’t our children at least as important as the things and people we DO choose to protect?
If you wish to protect something, you basically have two choices: Lock it up; or guard it, both present in any combination one wishes. We have made baby steps in protecting our schools, with lockdown drills and better management of entrance/exit doors. But walk down the hallway at your local school. There are fire extinguishers at each end of every hallway, a fire hose cabinet in the middle, emergency lighting, exit signs with power sources that will survive the Mayan apocalypse. Kids drill frequently on fire evac. How many kids have been killed by fire in U.S. schools in the last 50 years? Zero. Not one. But kids ARE being killed in schools. Yes, we must do something. We must protect them against an attack by firearms with the appropriate mixture of locks and armed security.
Farmer Joe doesn’t hang a sign on his fence saying, “This farm bans wolves on the premises.” He gets a sheepdog. The sheep don’t necessarily like it, because the dog resembles a wolf. But the sheepdog would never hurt a sheep. He does, however, keep the wolf away, or deal with him aggressively when he does show up.
It slays me…the logic that says a police officer in a squad car minutes away is okay, but one seconds away inside the school is not…when seconds count.
There is much dialogue that needs to happen to find common ground. Calling people “gun nuts” and referring to their perceived unintelligence and “fat face” will not get us there.
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I agree the name calling doesn’t get us anywhere. I’m not saying we shouldn’t put officers in schools….just that the problem goes beyond providing more security. You state…”Churches? You might be surprised to learn how many off-duty officers are present at every service–armed.”
Ok fine…what are those officers armed with? A pistol? And now that off duty officer is going to try to stop some gunman who has an AR-15 with a 60 round clip? Good luck. Where does the madness stop? Do we send our kids to school in armored vehicles? Is this the kind of country we want to live in?
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John,
I think we have to start by admitting to ourselves that there are evil people in this world who do evil things. We’re kidding ourselves if we believe that aren’t dangers in this world that need to be protected against. Sometimes, that means by people with guns. Sure, that’s a sad commentary on society, but the fact that it makes me sad, doesn’t make it any less true.
Is placing armed guards in schools going to guarantee that another child never dies at the hands of an attacker? Sadly not. But, that doesn’t mean that it should not be tested or tried, especially when there is evidence to suggest that it works.
You’re right, there is much discussion and solution exploration that needs to be done surrounding a whole host of issues regarding why and how people commit violence. I disagree, however, that we should start the discussion by taking the prospect of arming our schools to fight back off the table.
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I’m sure putting armed guards in schools would protect the kids while they are in school. Not that cost should matter when it comes to protecting kids….now you are taking money away from education and putting it towards security. As it is now Duluth barely has enough money to keep teachers in the classroom. Now we need to fund armed guards? Put a tax on assault rifles to fund the NRA proposal. Do you have armed security on the school bus? How about banning assault weapons? Do we really need clips over 10 rounds? Oh heavens no! You can’t take our assault rifles! Well….maybe we should ban them.
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One accurate shot with any handgun is much more effective than sixty shots that are not. Officers engage suspects every day with their service handgun, suspects who are armed with all manner of long guns.
And John, the standard magazines for an AR15 are 20 and 30 rounds. Yes, hybrids do exist, but I think we need to avoid sensationalism.
Finally, John, (snip) “…is this the kind of country we want to live in?”
To believe that we DON’T already live in this kind of country is denial. Denial is not a survival tool.
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Senty
“And John, the standard magazines for an AR15 are 20 and 30 rounds. Yes, hybrids do exist, but I think we need to avoid sensationalism. ”
Really?? Sure 20 and 30 round clips are standard. Everyone I know who has an AR went out and bought additional clips ranging from 60 to100 rounds. The 100 round is a rotary drum clip. Very impressive looking strapped on an AR. This is not sensationalism. I’ve fired these same weapons with these clips so they must exist. Ever heard of a slide fire? Basically turns your AR into a fully automatic rifle.
Yes we do already live in a country where we have violence. Do we want to continue with the same gun laws we have now?
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Columbine had an armed security guard….didn’t stop that particular mass shooting.
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“A mother in Oklahoma shot and killed an intruder to protect herself and her newborn.” “A 14 year old Arizona boy critically wounded a gun wielding attacker to protect his siblings.”
Should we keep going back and forth with 1:1,000,000 occurrences that tend to strengthen our position, or should we protect the most vulnerable people in our society to at least the same level we protect our money in the bank?
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Interesting comment by the NRA, but is it workable? School districts and school boards are one governing body closest to the public so what do school board say about the idea? Second what do parent say? Third, are all the taxpayers in a school district willing to pay extra? Who pays and do they want it?
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According to some quick googling, there are about 100,000 public schools in the US. Let’s keep it simple and say one guard for per school at a cost of 100,000 for salary, training equipment, etc. That’s $10 B./year.
Based on permit applications, manufacturing and import data, it would seem that there are about 20 million guns sold per year. Data on sales is hard to find, since most sales are not regulated. I suspect this figure is low, but it’s best I found with quick look.
$10B / 20 million sales = $500 per sale. I suspect gun buyers/sellers aren’t going to willing to pay for this themselves. Might need to figure out ammunition sales too.
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The NRA proposal does seem a bit difficult to accomplish in a practical manner.
Yet, allowing teachers and principals to arm themselves as the district in Texas and Israel have done may be a lower cost alternative that could accomplish the same goal.
Even to give an educator a tax credit of $500 to purchase a gun would likely cost much less and probably be just as effective.
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If your daughter was a teacher would you like her to work in a environment where she had to arm herself?
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She didn’t create the atmosphere, but she can be proactive in keeping herself and her students safe.
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Sad world then
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James Quote
Mexico and Norway have both chosen to take guns away from the civilian population. We all know how that story ends.
Mexico is a tad ahead of the US in total deaths at 11.14 though has a mush higher homicide rate at 10.0. However Norway has a very low total death rate at 1.78 compared to the U.S. at 10.2 Norways homicide rate is 0.25 compared to the U.S. 3.7
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Wait, I’m confused. How do they have all that gun violence in Mexico. Aren’t guns illegal there?
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Eric Holder is an American citizen, so Mexican laws don’t apply to him when he sells guns to Mexican drug cartels.
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This is the most entertaining place online.
Just to make sure I understand – the NRA consists of, and is supported by, conservatives. The conservatives believe our government is too big, that we need less regulation in our lives because big government infringes on our freedom.
Yet the NRA suggests posting armed guards at every school in the nation. As these are public schools, the guards would be government employees. So, the NRA conservatives are proposing we enlarge our government? Making our country, in effect, a police state? So much for smaller government! Laughable…
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Ever hear of contract workers?
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Yea, contract workers, that makes it all ok. We just need to go to our friends at Haliburton, Blackwater, KBR, ……. contract workers still being paid for by tax dollars. Do some critical thinking once and awhile before typing………oh yea, critical thinking, not part of the game plan eh?
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So if a government entity contracts with a private firm, that firm’s employees become government employees? Are you really that stupid?
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Your argument is inane semantics. Even if it is not a government employee the spending enlarges government.
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I’m having a really hard time believing that suddenly, the conservatives actually want to arm all those incompetent Union Thugs they’ve been complaining about for so long.
First they want to lower their pay and actually fire a lot of them and now…they want to give them guns?
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If liberals refuse to lock up the mentally unbalanced psychopaths who don’t belong on the street, then yes we need to protect ourselves from them.
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(Responding to JohnR, as the reply button for his post disappeared)
But John, what were the shooters actually carrying? As I already said, hybrid higher round magazines do exist, but you reached for the maximal to defend your position, which was flawed logic at best, and indeed sensationalism.
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Yes…the gun accessories I mention are at the maximum end of the scale. But they are out there. It’s a ticking time bomb. Sensationalism? Its not.
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I believe strongly in the 2nd amendment. I believe every law abiding citizen is entitled to own a gun for self defense and protection of their family. However, assault weapons with high capacity magazines don’t serve this purpose. They are designed for offense, to kill as many people as possible in a short time, which is why they are for the military. I would have no problem banning them but to think that would have any affect on the problem is really kidding ourselves. All it does is create a black market with more violence and killing. See Prohibition or War on Drugs for reference. Plus, there will still be millions of them out there that were already purchased. And it wouldn’t stop a crazy person from arming themselves with a 9-10 shot 9mm handgun with multiple magazines. It literally takes 2-3 seconds to reload. Think of how many times you can reload if the police are 10-15 minutes away.
Say what you want about the NRA, but this is by far the only proposal I’ve heard that actually makes any sense. There is no question that gunmen go where they have no chance of being stopped. When’s the last time someone burst into a police station and opened fire? Just knowing there are guns there and people who can fight back would be a deterrent to most. For those that aren’t deterred, at least we would have a chance to stop them after 10-20 shots as opposed to 100-150. The argument that it would send a bad message to the kids is ridiculous. Children see police officers all the time, they are taught that they are there to protect and serve them. Do you really think its going to negatively affect them to know that one is in their school? Nonsense, I think it would have the opposite effect.
Obviously, the cost is the downside here. But personally, I would be more than willing to pay my share of additional tax to prevent what happened in Conn. from ever happening again. We have become accustomed to violent acts. They happen, it’s part of life. But kids shot and killed in an elementary school????? That is something that we should never, ever have to come to grips with.
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Ted, if you do the research you will find an antithesis for every scenario you would imagine. Please consider these stories:
A heavily armed teenager was targeting police when he opened fire outside a suburban Washington, D.C., station-house, killing a detective and seriously wounding two officers, officials said.
The 18-year-old had been crouched between two vehicles in the Sully District Station’s parking lot Monday afternoon when he began firing, police said. He died in the exchange of gunfire, Officer Bud Walker said.
“All information points to the act of a lone, troubled individual — not a conspiracy, not the act of terrorism,” Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald Connolly said. “It would appear that the gunman specifically targeted our police.”
The slain detective, a nine-year veteran of the department, was the first officer killed by an assailant in the 66-year history of the Fairfax County Police Department, officials said.
The gunman, who was not immediately identified, was armed with a rifle and two handguns, said police spokeswoman Mary Ann Jennings. She the teenager had tried unsuccessfully to carjack a pickup truck before stealing a van and driving it to the station.
A 53-year-old officer who was shot was in critical condition Tuesday after undergoing surgery. It was not clear whether the other wounded officer, a 28-year-old man, was shot or sustained his injuries from flying glass or a ricocheting bullet.
“This is a difficult day for us,” police Chief David Rohrer said learning the detective had died. “She was an exemplary detective for us. We love her greatly.”
The shooting touched off hours of gridlock and confusion in the area as roads were blocked and nearby buildings, including a high school, were locked down as police sought other possible suspects before determining there was only one gunman.
OR:
The gunman who walked into a Michigan police station and opened fire on Veterans Day was a 64-year-old military veteran in poor physical health and struggling with “internal issues,” police said Monday.
Harold Joseph Collins, of Southfield, Mich., was killed in a shootout with officers at police headquarters in Southfield on Sunday afternoon, authorities said. An officer was wounded in the exchange…“We can only speculate and right now I won’t, but yes, obviously yesterday was Veterans Day and we have information this person was a veteran. We have information this person was in poor health and had other internal issues.”
Hawkins wouldn’t go into details about Collins’ health issues but a former stepdaughter, told the Detroit News on Monday that Collins had been suffering from throat cancer for many years.
Most of these shooters just don’t care about the consequences they have an agenda and nothing will stop them. This issue is far more complicated than the NRA is willing to admit and selling more guns is what the NRA and the gunmakers are interested in so these sophist arguments are what they continually peddle. They are hollow, but too many people believe more guns will solve the problem, so we are in this endless cycle of violence. While we argue about right and wrong families suffer for the rest of their lives with the sorrow of loss. Too bad…common sense just has no place in the debate!
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The main entrances to most schools are totally unsecured. Why is this? The entrance to the sheriff office here is totally secured. You don’t get in till someone presses a button to let you in and you are met at the door by sheriff dept. personel. It would not be so difficult to secure school entrances in much the same way. It might only then be necessary to have additional security personel available for a shot time when children are arriving at or leaving school. That is in the police job description.
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Gunman is suicidal—death doesn’t matter to him.
Armed guard in school is no deterrent at all.
Gunman goes in thru window and takes out every kid in the classroom. 30 kids before the armed guard down the hall can make it into the classroom.
Solution? Why an armed guard in every classroom and lunch room and gym and art room and bus stop with more than 5 kids! Guns everywhere!!! Yeeeaaa!!!
Seriously—it’s ridiculous.
How about making mental health care more available and accessible so people don’t want to go into classrooms and shoot children?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“Gunman goes in thru window and takes out every kid in the classroom. 30 kids before the armed guard down the hall can make it into the classroom.”
So you’d rather he made it to 6-7 classrooms and took out 200 while the police were on their way?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Or maybe he gets a bazooka and shoots the school from across the street! Wait, no, a guided missile from 10 miles away!!
We take steps to protect the most people from the most likely threats at a cost that is reasonable given the risks. Ask yourself honestly, all things being equal, if you could choose, would you send your child(ren) to a school with an armed guard and/or teachers or one without?
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Tell you what Geffory, How bout we ask the parents who are burying their 6-7 year old kids in Connecticut?
Do you wish there was an armed guard in your children’s school that day? What do you think their answer would be?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Once again, this is a very teachable moment for the Independent voters in this country to see the true stripes of the conservatives. Thanks to all the gun gurus for helping with the 2014 election.
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Watch the interviews being conducted at Newtown and you will see the overwhelming reaction from the parents is NO! No guns in schools.
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Randall Flagg said:
“Tell you what Geffory, How bout we ask the parents who are burying their 6-7 year old kids in Connecticut?
Do you wish there was an armed guard in your children’s school that day? What do you think their answer would be?”
I think their answer would be that they wished Mrs. Lanza hadn’t had an arsenal of unsecured guns in her home to ‘protect herself’ with.
Actually, Mrs. Lanza is prolly wishing that same thing.
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This entire situation is sad, very sad.
I agree we need to protect our children in school. But one armed officer or security guard is not enough. And unarmed security guards making 7-9 dollars an hour is nothing more than a target who will be first on the list and NO help if and when something else happens. What is an unarmed guard going to do against someone with a weapon. Trained staff armed do cost more, but are worth it for everyones protection.
First, why are schools not having students, teachers and other employees in school, wearing an ID with a picture, which can be seen by everyone and even scanned entering and leaving schools to track for suspicious activities. Then put several armed guards to monitor kids teachers and visitors. Give the security more freedom to do random searches of backpacks and lockers for safety. Kids should not have anything to worry about if they have nothing illegal. We worry more of individual embarrassment then safety. The problem is, kids around here believe their above the average person and rely on thier parents job or community outlook. But again, it’s all for safety. If you look in a backpack, some will complain that I’m a doctor, lawyer, business person in the community and you have no right. But if something happens, the same people will complain that people or schools failed to protect thier child. You can’t have both. SAFETY, SAFETY, or HUMAN LIFE is more important. Think about it.
Have picture ID of everyone authorized to enter a SPECIFIC school, provide properly trained and armed guards (several at each school), do more random checks for weapons, and let kids go to school in a more safe and less streeful situation.
Bottom line, yes it does cost money, but you can’t put a price on childrens life and safety. It’s sad this is what it’s coming too. Part of the real problem is the economy and both parents have to work. Things started to go downhill when kids were home alone or sent to the play video games in the mall and had no parent guidance around. But it is what it is. Now we need to adjust again for todays conditions.
Everyone needs to stop trying to lay blame on something and help resolve the issue on hand…………
But this is just my opinion.
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From now until the end of time, anyone that has the desire to put together an arsenal of weapons and kill people will be able to get the guns. That boat has sailed, there are millions and millions of guns out there, not to mention, I don’t think any of the monsters involved in any of the recent shootings ran out to the local gun store to get their weapons. Anyone hell bent on doing something this disgusting is going to find a way, bomb, whatever. Banning guns won’t solve a thing, stricter laws won’t solve a thing. The truth is, society as a whole is failing and there is no easy answer folks, knee-jerk over reactions won’t do it.
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The truth is we need more security. And people who attend schools, shop at malls, use public transit, and the like … need to be willing to pay for it. The fair way to pay for it is to adopt user fees.
Our kids are no longer safe on their own. We can’t change that.
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The only reason that this guy didn’t shoot up the school with a machine gun or a grenade launcher is because those weapons are illegal.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Right. Because we all know that homicidal maniacs respect the law.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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It has nothing to do with respecting the law. He had no access to machine guns because machine guns are illegal.
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Wait, I’m confused. I thought simply bringing a gun to school was illegal. How’d he do that then?
And, isn’t murder still illegal in Connecticut?
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I don’t think you’re confused at all. I think you know exactly how much easier it is to acquire legal firearms than illegal firearms.
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Guns are only a part of the problem. Making schools safe is the other.
Has anybody read the following:
China stabbing spree hurts 22 schoolchildren.
Knife-wielding man also attacked elderly woman in central Henan province.
The Associated Press , Posted: Dec 14, 2012 4:38 AM ET
A knife-wielding man injured 22 children and one adult outside a primary school in central China as students were arriving for classes Friday, police said, the latest in a series of periodic rampage attacks at Chinese schools and kindergartens
Now what do you think…………. No guns, resort to knives. Again, make it safe and add patrols. Police have enough to do on the streets. Schools will have to invest some money. Things have just gotten out of control with people trying to hurt others, our kids. Yes we need some new laws on guns and who can own what. Some types of weapons should be regulated. But it’s only a part of the problem.
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He used a knife because he had no access to a gun. I don’t know if we can stop people from going crazy. But we can certainly stop people from arming themselves with assault rifles.
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Let ‘s see if I can sum up what you’re saying. No machine guns, so he uses other guns. No guns, so he uses knives…
So, the underlying thesis you seem to be reminding us of here is that a person who is going to attack defenseless people will use whatever weapon(s) are available to them.
So, your solution is to take away peoples’ means of protecting themselves.
I think Senty said it best. “A farmer doesn’t put up a “Wolf Free Zone” sign. He gets a Sheepdog.”
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Nobody uses assault rifles for self defense.
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Many of these arguments are great points for ushering in a new police state: Mandatory scanable IDs, armed police at every corner, metal detectors at every entrance. These are all reactionary ideas. Saying schools that don’t allow guns are sitting ducks is like saying that a girl wearing a skirt is “just asking for it.” It’s the blame-the-victim mentality.
The problem with ideas like teachers having guns in class is that their reaction time and accuracy would be terrible in an actual crisis. They would most likely get shot reaching for their gun before they could even aim or more importantly take cover. And hiring armed guards still begs the question, who pays for this? Is this really the best way to spend even more government money? We need to treat this for what it is… and unfortunate, but relatively isolated event that gets an incredible amount of media attention. People see headlines like this, then watch shows like CSI and 24, and think to themselves “omg, violence is everywhere!” But there’s a point where objectivity needs to set in. Just imagine, okay, we fill our schools with guards. Great. But if you’re a deranged killer, why not just go on a shooting spree anywhere else? A grocery store? A department store? A nursing home? The mall? The transit center? This is a slippery slope. Should the government mandate and fund guards and checkpoints everywhere? In effect, they could track your every move then. And then what if there’s still another shooting somewhere? Or what if a guard goes crazy? What do you blame then? The only thing the deterrence crowd would be deterring is the existence of a place people can go where they’re not under the eye of armed security 24/7.
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A great argument for concealed carry laws.
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Hollywood’s role in pushing violence as a means to every end has a lot more to do with the shootings in Connecticut than our gun laws do. The left will never criticize their little cash cow though so we’ll keep seeing the glamorization of gun violence in movies, TV, and video games.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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You forgot rap music and the glamorization of the gangsta thug lifestyle. But I bet we can’t talk about it.
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No, Dan, talk about it all you want. Where do you see the influence of gangsta rap in this particular case? Tell us all about it, I’m sure you’ve really thought this through.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Dan~ “You forgot rap music and the glamorization of the gangsta thug lifestyle. But I bet we can’t talk about it.”
Oh yes, Let’s talk about that and the NRA’s lame position of trying to blame media and you trying to place blame always on the same group…mmm.
Fact is according to FBI national crime stats that violent crime has been on steady decline since 1997. Fact is that between 2004 to 2009 violent crime is about ONE THIRD of what it was on average for 25 years prior to 1997 and it has not been fluke, it’s been a steady and consistent reduction since 1997.
Must be that gangsta’ lifestyle???…~shakes head~
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored”
– Aldous Huxley
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Hey fast, we all know that you’re a black dude that’s going to go to bat for black people regardless of the statistics. We live in Duluth, obviously every one of us white males is racist. Naturally we can’t speak on behalf of reality, statistics, truth, and FACTS, we can’t say minorities commit the majority of crime! Even though minorities make up less than10% of the population they commit 90% of the crime, you should be proud of you and yours. Hey fast, gangstas commit a huge amount of crime, quit denying it, quit avoiding it, start acknowledging it, admit it, own it, take responsibility, quit the BS! Improve yourselves, quit towing the race line and become contributing, productive members of society! That’s all us racists want.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Brian~ There’s isn’t one thing that is true in your post but nice you were able to rant you clear bias.
I’m white first off…and I’m the one that posted statistics that support what I said. You’re claiming I support things regardless of statistics, clearly that would be you with your contrived racial little off topic rant. You’re just spewing your clear prejudice, while it’s an undisputable fact that violent crime has been on steady 15 year decline and lowest been in over 50 years. I can also prove because statistics back it up that actually Black violent crime has been on faster decline then whites for over 10 years…but it won’t matter to you clearly, you want to embrace racist stereotypes instead of reality.
Nothing was really true at all in your post except when said…..” Naturally we can’t speak on behalf of reality, statistics, truth, and FACTS,”…obviously not…you’d rather push racist stereotypes. Interesting concept though that since I can…I must be black….sheesh..
Stereotypes btw like this…”quit the BS! Improve yourselves, quit towing the race line and become contributing, productive members of society!”…that and you claiming 90% of all crime is committed by minorities. But I’m the one that has racial problem with my views…hardly.
Here is a hint bright one…Dan was one that tried to spin this trajedy into a racist slant by bringing up gansta’ thug..I didn’t play a race card He DID. I didn’t go into some long rant defending blacks, wasn’t necessary, but you jumped on it anyway with a long racist rant…awesome. I posted that clearly there’s undisputably a decrease in crime..and your emotional little racist tirade is pushing a whole host of racist stereotypes …BUT…this is about the Newton shooting….and every single school shooting since 1970 has been white male, between ages of 17-25, HELLO!! Yet you and Dan are trying to spin this into painting crime in Blackface. Not sure one could show a more adled racist bias then that.
The problem with white racism that is the problem for whites…that they just don’t seem to get…is that forever whites have tried to deflect their own problems by putting them in Blackface as Dan and you trying to do. Even in situation like this where horrific violence has always been committed by white males. Some haters just can’t stop themselves from spewing their racial bias even when is completly uncalled for and irrelevant as you’ve done.
Hopefully with your lttle racist tirade you got that out of your system and we can go back to the Topic of Newton trajedy and NRA spin on it.
‘People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
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I listened to the full speech of the NRA response to the killings. It made perfect sense as did the suggestions that our schools need to be protected in the most rigorous way possible without compromising the educational process. It might take a little more courage that the general public possesses to have an armed security person trained to respond with a gun to something of this nature. It is almost a a statistical certainty that it will never happen but as we can see in hindsight, it could happen. The underpaid staff at that school showed great courage in the face of a brutal madman. At the very least we need security personnel . In school districts where the parents cannot wrap their minds around the thought of security personnel armed with a gun, there are highly effective devices that are less that lethal that that could be brought to bear in that situation. The adults who were killed showed more that enough courage to at least to have been able to use less than lethal weapons to fight back. They had no weapon to fight back with and fought regardless of their own lives. The monster who did this did not look like a fit or physically robust individual. What if that principal had had less than lethal pepper stray or some other robust system to confront the situation that took her life. It doesn’t have to be an in your face military style solution but its a problem that need a serious, grown up, thought out solution.
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I’m not sure what the best answer is to curb situation like that in CONN, but for those that think it would be too expensive, a full time police officer probably costs $40-$60k/ year. I would think outfitting a building to be safe would be millions for each one, plus a full time person to control who enters and leaves. It seems the police officer idea would be by far the most inexpensive.
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And to think, I actually thought the NRA might come up with something that was about safety, and not all about gun owners. This is the dumbest of dumb ideas, it’s so far beyond dumb the dumb can’t even see it. Solution to gun violence? More guns, of course!
This kind of insane nonsense makes me want to melt my guns so the NRA doesn’t get them.
My high school covered a city block, had 4 floors, several wings, and had 3700 students. How many armed men do you think you’d need to secure just that one school, NRA?
And uh…what about all the shootings on the street, in the malls, in movie theaters, NRA? An armed guard in every public room and every street corner?
This is truly the dumbest, most impractical, inneffective and ultimately self-serving idea I’ve ever heard.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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and your solution is…???
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Ban assault weapons.
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and when a lunatic kills with a pistol, explosives or other ‘weapon’ then what? ban everything?
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Monitor/restrict access to the explosives as was done after OKC bombing. Your average pistol shooting rarely falls into the category of mass murder we are discussing. Only a few nutjobs, left and right, are thinking/worrying about a pistol ban.
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It doesn’t take more than a second for an experienced shooter to change a ten-round clip. So what now … do we ban all clips?
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If you believe that lets try an experiment. You and five buddies with pistols against me and five buddies with assault rifles at 50 yards. Let me know how quickly you change your magazine then.
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Kayak Man, as previously mentioned…a good argument for concealed carry. At least until the 2nd Coming when Christ returns and puts an end to the madness that is our world…
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Frightening
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Um….uh, yeah…whatever. Who would Jesus bomb?
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Wheres the outrage for the mass extermination of 30 million children who had their brains sucked out thru abortion, ban vacuums or doctors.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“They offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe,” NY Mayor, Michael Bloomberg on NRA press conference.
Let’s stop with emotional reactions to this trajedy and the twisted need in this society to feel can regulate and prevent against madness and chaos. It’s a delusion. Consider this society is already so easily manipulated by paranoia and fear mongering…we wouldn’t have gotten roped into Iraq as one example if not for the color coded alert system used to manipulate our fears. Fear is used in this society already to herd us like sheep. Despite crime on steady decline for decade we still are told to be afraid of outside world, everyone out there is trying to get us. Fear the blacks that look like thugs, fear the Russians, now fear Saddam, now fear the Iranians and on and on it goes and we lock our doors and don’t even know our neighbors anymore, and all strangers are suspect. It’s a huge problem in our society nobody really accepts…but it is deeply engrained in this society.
Keeping that in mind do we then want to instill in all our children that they must live in constant fear for their very lives and have that engrained in their impressionable minds by having armed police patroling the hallways. Is that really going to make things safer, or is it just going to make us all even nuttier? Isn’t that causing ALL children harm for our false allusion we can protect them all? But nobody is really thinking about all the children, they’re just thinking about something to offer them the veil of allusion of evasive security that doesn’t exist, to think that they can prevent madness, reality and chaos from happening.
Read there were 90,000 school buildings in country. What is everyone thinking? We all have raw emotions over this, it was senseless, horrific and heart wrenching…but what are talking about really here. The NRA and others are not offering a solution it’s just another kind of madness. Where does that end? We can have barbed wire fence around schools like a prison or compound, a dozen police officers on campus, armed military transports instead of buses…pat downs and cavity checks between classes…and still we can’t prevent chaos from happening.
I don’t think escalting the fear, paranoia and guns is a solution and neither is as Bernie Hughes suggested in his opinion piece taking away all guns except for military and police. I think we need to step back….and think…not react on raw emotions with solutions that in heat of moment only make things worse..
Lastly….I mean seriously…if need proof that we’re over reacting and emotionally irrational over this…who the hell on this trajedy in their right mind would give 2 cents for what the NRA thinks we should do?
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Two questions. When was the last time someone was killed at a school in the U.S. by fire? Why do fire deaths in schools not happen anymore?
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Kindergarten mentality, punish all for the few. Anal dots the lot.
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Fact check. The Ft Hood shooting occurred on a military installation. For those of you who have served in the military, you know possession of private firearms on installation is prohibited. They must be stored in a secure facility where you have to go to sign your firearm out. The only armed individuals are those working law enforcement duty. Funny no one has labeled that incident a terrorist attack.
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Rosie~ Excellent counter point. Despite a secured facility and despite patrolled by armed and trained military police…there was still a shooting wasn’t there!
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You are partially right. Physical security measures and armed personnel will deter some from attacking. Those who aren’t will be engaged by armed personnel and if necessary the threat will be eliminated by the appropriate use of force. Time to stop leaving the flocks unguarded and put some sheepdogs on it. Maybe the community oriented police officers should be based out if schools.
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Well if they want to die, let’s make sure we help them accomplish their wishes as soon as possible so they take as few innocents as possible. Force their hand, so to speak.
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That is the NRA’s idea of a meaningful contribution? More guns! We are awash in then as it is. How’s that been working for us?
If they really want to make a meaningful contribution they should take all the money they get from the firearms manufactures and stick it where the sun does not shine.
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Time to face the facts. The U.S. has an unhealthy love affair with guns. We have 5% of the worlds population but we own 50% of the worlds guns. U.S. gun related crimes and deaths are 3 to 5 times higher per capita than any other industrialized country. I enjoy hunting and own a variety of guns myself including a .22 revolver for plinking, a couple of shot guns, and a deer rifle, but I think semi-auto assault rifles with high capacity clips must go the way of the tommy gun, bazooka, and hand grenade: available, but only under tight restrictions . In the hands of a lunatic an AR15 is a weapon of mass destruction as proven at Columbine, D.C. Beltway, Aurora, and most recently Connecticut. I don’t think tighter regulation of assault rifles and high capacity clips is much of a sacrifice if it will help prevent a future blood bath. It’s simply time to face the facts and do the right thing.
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Speaking of facing facts, this was an isolated incident despite the media falling all over themselves to give it non-stop coverage and make this kid famous. He got just what he wanted. But it’s not like these mass shootings happen every day. More regulations will only impact legal, responsible gun owners and won’t do a thing to deter criminals. Just because you don’t own one, don’t want one and don’t like them doesn’t mean they’re bad.
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What did we do after September 11? Increase security before boarding, create the federal Air Marshal program (more guns), arm pilots who underwent proper training (more guns) and harden cockpit doors. The result, no like successful attacks in over 11 years. Let us develop a similar program for schools. The proposed AWB will do nothing to stop these mass murders. The same arguments against arming pilots was used as well. So far it has been going pretty good.
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Yes there was. Military bases are exactly like our cities and towns. Personnel are not allowed to be armed unless they are performing a law enforcement function. If the average soldier would have been allowed to carry, Maj Nidal would have been shot as soon as he opened fire instead of waiting 4-6 minutes for somebody to show up. How will a new AWB stop this from mass shootings from happening?
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