Should teachers in the US be armed?

[Deade]

May I repeat my question?
Do you have evidence that allowing weapons improves things?

Is there a statistically significant decrease in the number of deaths by firearms in Texas and Georgia with
respect to states with different rules?

You want statistics Anne:

The 42 states, that allow and respect the Right to Carry, represent 74 percent of the U.S. population. There are 16.5 million people registered to carry arms. The violent crime rate is down 51 percent. From 2007 to 2015 concealed carry permits increased by 215 percent. During that same time frame, the murder rate dropped 14 percent. In Florida and Texas only one in about 42,000 permit holders are convicted of firearm violations. It seems the wild-west scenario the liberals projected didn't happen. Two-thirds of published, peer reviewed studies have found that Right to Carry laws reduce U.S. violent crime rates.

The gangs are all armed and on the streets of our cities. Before Right-to-Carry laws were passed, violent crime was on the increase. Now the criminals are more careful in places where carry is allowed. Besides Florida and Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado have some schools with armed teachers. They don't let anyone know who is armed. One small town in Oklahoma has posted signs that some staff are armed and will address violence with lethality. It seems to be working.

 

[davida]

The students are armed so why not the teachers?

Do we outlaw cars? Plenty of deaths at the hands of drunk and/or distracted drivers...

 

[tourist]

The students are armed so why not the teachers?

Do we outlaw cars? Plenty of deaths at the hands of drunk and/or distracted drivers...

No, we don't outlaw cars, we outlaw tires.

 

[Tommy379]

No, we don't outlaw cars, we outlaw tires.

I think we should outlaw drivers, and stupid people.

 

[davida]

The unfortunate truth is the bad guys don't obey the laws so taking the guns away or making them difficult to obtain won't change anything for them.

We cannot legislate behavior.

 

[Billyd]

This is what I'm very opposed to.

A school is supposed to be safe, yes. But it also must be a learning environment. That's a darn hard thing to do if your students are constantly reminded of the potential for attack.

Until the threat of attack success has been eliminated, a positive learning environment does not exist.

 

[Deade]

I grew up a white kid in Watts district of Los Angeles. I started the 8th grade in 1959. The school was 85 percent black 15 percent Hispanic and two white males. The other White kid lasted about a month. I did learn there, but the atmosphere was more about survival than learning. It sure made a fighter out of me.

 

[Desdichado]

And just how do you totally eliminate the threat of attack? Turn the school into Omaha Beach with cameras?

I'm sure the kids will be far less likely to think of violence with concrete barriers and dog runs.

Until the threat of attack success has been eliminated, a positive learning environment does not exist.

 

[Desdichado]

Discretely allow the school's faculty and staff to arm themselves and you will have every bit as effective a deterrent at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Billyd]

Discretely allow the school's faculty and staff to arm themselves and you will have every bit as effective a deterrent at a fraction of the cost.

How long will it take for students to find out which teachers are armed? All it takes is entry into one classroom and you have a disaster. All you can do with armed teachers, is possibly take out a mentally ill person after he has killed and/or injured a whole classroom of people. Let's face it. All these attackers are really on a suicide mission anyway.

Our best solution, one that results in the minimum number of casualties, it prevention of an attacker from entering school grounds.

As far as quality of education is concerned, that is another story.

 

[Desdichado]

Are they on a suicide mission? James Holmes gave himself up after Aurora. Cruz gave himself up after this one. Crazy pants gave himself up after the Charleston church shooting. Anders Breivik is still with us. When the Southernland Springs shooter wreaked havoc, he chose to run away rather than stay and get gun downed by Stephen Willeford.

I won't deny a good many of them go for suicide. Even then how many kill themselves by suicide by cop? Precious few. Quite often, their wounds are self-inflicted.

The one major factor mass killers have in common is that they have a fantasy about killing as many people as possible in a short span of time. Call it a grim reaper or God-of-Death mentality. As such, they tend to choose target-rich environments with the assumption nobody will be armed to stop that fantasy.

If the chance of being presented with an opposing muzzle enters into the equation, they'll choose another target. When they are presented with an opposing muzzle (and these situations are hard to quantify), their demonic fantasy is gone. They're nonplussed as they get two in the chest. That's part of the reason why attempted mass killings average about 3 deaths with an armed civilian to the average of 17 when law enforcement has to intervene.

As such, having the mere chance of an armed faculty or staff member ending a mass shooting is a sufficient deterrent. In emergency situations when the deterrent breaks there are few better remedies than the concealed carrier.

Now to tie up loose ends.

How long will it take for students to find out which teachers are armed? All it takes is entry into one classroom and you have a disaster.

Do students have to know who precisely is armed? A lot of concealed carriers don't tell a soul they're packing.

All you can do with armed teachers, is possibly take out a mentally ill person after he has killed and/or injured a whole classroom of people.

A shooting can be stopped without a whole room of people getting ventilated.

Our best solution, one that results in the minimum number of casualties, it prevention of an attacker from entering school grounds.

I agree, but what are the tradeoffs involved?

As far as quality of education is concerned, that is another story.

Absolutely not.

That's like sterilizing milk with bleach and saying "It's free of possibly deadly pathogens!"

 

[seed_time_harvest]

Do you agree with President Trump that teachers to be armed with pistols or rifles to protect themselves against any crazy trigger happy individuals?

I would agree with you If you would have said to protect others.

 

[Huckleberry]

In my state we're pretty much armed to the teeth.
In fact our public colleges and universities allow
anyone with an enhanced CWL to carry on campus.
We never have mass shootings or school shootings here.
How's that for statistics?

 

[HeraldtheNews]

I think we should outlaw drivers, and stupid people.

how about just stupid drivers? of course there are none in America--

 

[HeraldtheNews]

The goal is to prevent school shootings, not to have to react to one in progress. Let's enact policies that have this goal.

I don't believe that armed teachers will prevent a mentally ill student from going on a shooting rampage in a school, nor do I believe that any type of gun control will work either.

Mentally ill people are not stereotypically the kind of people who kill others. In Taiwan for instance, where those identified with probable Chronic Mental Disorders, doubled from 11.5% in 1990 to 23.8% in 2010, and roughly 1 in 3 children also, or about 30%, (thelancet.com; Jan. 19th, 2013), yet that country has a very low crime rate of 1.3% (osac.gov; Jun, 23, 2017).

Taiwan was ranked the world's 2nd safest city in 2014 (icst.com.tw), and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security stated last year that, "There is minimal street crime in Taiwan, and violent crime is rare." (osac.gov; Jun 23, 2017).

The problem is criminally-minded people who may have mental health issues, not necessarily mentally ill people, according to these statistics. America should look at why there is so little crime in Taiwan, although it is tragic that so many people suffer there from emotional or behavioral issues.

 

[hornetguy]

The problem is criminally-minded people who may have mental health issues, not necessarily mentally ill people, according to these statistics. America should look at why there is so little crime in Taiwan, although it is tragic that so many people suffer there from emotional or behavioral issues.

Seriously? You want the US to emulate CHINA?

Are you ready for that?

Because everyone knows, Taiwan is THE place that ALL refugees and "seekers of better fortune" are dying to get into...

 

[mailmandan]

This comedian makes some very good points!

[video=youtube;aeuyAVLPRvQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeuyAVLPRvQ[/video]

 

[kaylagrl]

Until the threat of attack success has been eliminated, a positive learning environment does not exist.

This comedian makes some very good points!

[video=youtube;aeuyAVLPRvQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeuyAVLPRvQ[/video]

​Funny,but I pretty much agree with him.

 

[Billyd]

I hear it all the time.

"The kids today have no moral values at all, followed by a bunch of excuses."

Strange thing though. We are the parents and grandparents that gave the kids their moral values.

 

[Desdichado]

There is a lot of truth to this. Millennials are very similar to the Boomers that raised them.

I think that's part of the reason why Gen Z is said to be of a strangely conservative hew. The Xers had them. X was raised by older Greatest Generation types who were not as likely to go easy on their kids.

Just a theory, I guess. But it just seems erroneous to see generations as isolated cultural groups.

I hear it all the time.

"The kids today have no moral values at all, followed by a bunch of excuses."

Strange thing though. We are the parents and grandparents that gave the kids their moral values.