100% upvote for being the real @benswann....Keep using Dtube my friend!
I went to Stoneman Douglas a few years back so this sits hard with me, BUT it is not the GUNS fault...I think the sick people target safe zones (aka gun free zones). What do movie theaters, schools, churches ,night clubs, concerts and military compounds all have in common?! They are all SOFT targets, meaning law abiding citizens CANNOT carry a gun in these free "safe" zones. They are not "safe" at all, BUT instead EVERYONE above are locations of mass shootings.
I think we need to arm ALL our teachers and staff. It doesn't need to a be gun, but pepper spray and tasers can work if teachers do not feel comfortable carrying a gun. They even have firearms that discharge pepper spray bullets.
I was going to walk past this but I can’t. The last thing you want in a live shooter situation is a teacher with a gun. There’s so many reasons but here’s the two big ones for me:
It’s really hard to shoot accurately with a short barrelled weapon. Unless you know what you’re doing, at any range beyond about 20 feet most people can’t hit the side of a bus with a pistol let alone a shooter armed with an AR 15. Soldiers and police train constantly to develop and maintain these skills. Unless the teacher is a gun enthusiast themselves, then they have no chance of mastering this. It’s made worse by the fact that the type of weapon needed in that situation would have to be large caliber. You need to drop the shooter with one shot. Anything below 9mm is pointless. If you hit the shooter with a 22 (or pepper spray or a taser) and your just gunna piss him off you’re not going to stop him. You might slow him down but it’s 5-10 minutes before a small caliber round will bring the guy down. So best case the teacher hits him, draws attention to himself and his students who now become the shooters primary target. So you give em a bigger caliber weapon that’s even harder to control and they are less likely to actually hit the guy anyway. It’s pointless.
Even teachers who can shoot straight aren’t trained to react in a live shooter situation. They’re teachers, not warriors. They’ll be scared shitless and are more likely to shoot themselve or their students than they are the other guy with the gun. They’d be a liability not an asset in that situation.
My daughters teacher is miss Wallace. She’s a lovely, middle aged woman and a fantastic teacher. Even still the last thing I want in a school shooting situation is Miss Wallace drawing a 9mm. I’d rather she just hid in a cupboard. It’s safer for her and my daughter.
This was a pretty good argument. And poor miss Wallace. Hopefully she'll never have to hide in a cupboard!
I don't believe anybody is suggesting that you just give teachers guns and say "here go protect the students." I don't believe anybody in their right mind would suggest such a thing. The only way that the above points could be valid is if that's exactly what you did.
What people are suggesting is that you train, and the key word being just that "train" teachers who desire to be armed for the purpose of protecting their students.
Teachers as you describe them sound like wilting flowers weak and defenseless. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with that insinuation. Teachers are tough. Just think what a teacher has to go through on a daily basis.
Again I am sorry for saying this, but it needs to be said, in an active shooter situation your daughter would be much safer if she, or another trained staff member, had the ability to fight back.
There's also the psychological aspect of it. The fact that her school would no longer be a gun-free zone would in and of itself be a deterrent. Murderers target gun free zones. So because the fact that staff is armed would mean but they would probably never have to use their weapons. Murderers are cowards chances are great that they are not going to go shooting people in a place where they themselves can get shot.
Remember the key to arming staff is training. And I'm sure there's a lot of teachers out there that would willingly go into training for it.
It’s got little to do with teachers being wilting violets and more to do with the difficulty of what you are asking them to do.
Nothing I posted suggested the teachers would be roaming the the school. I think the problems I describe are the same in the situation of a class locked down with a teachers standing between them and the shooter.
But we can agree to disagree.
Have you even been in combat or in a situation where someone is trying to kill you? The above points are totally valid. Regardless of the scenario you come up with you are asking someone to effectively operate a weapon against a hostile asssialant. It’s not a shooting range with a paper target at the other end.
I agree with you to an extent about psychological deterrence but this seems a band aid solution that doesn’t address the deeeper issue. The issue I have with this whole issue is that this shouldn’t be a problem for teachers to solve. When the system is so broken that you have to give your kids teacher a gun to keep them safe, you got a big problem.
The idea NOT for the teachers to walk around looking for the hostile shooter. The goal would be to first secure the classroom, lock the door, take a defensive position with your students behind you, and guard it until police arrive. I can't think of why this isn't a better solution than waiting helplessly for the shooter to break in and spray bullets at people.
The thing is this subject will always be open to Monday morning quarterbacking. Suppose a teacher did end up killing an innocent while trying to defend his classroom. Are we going to scream about how arming teachers was a horrible mistake? How can you know if despite the 1 child, 17 others were saved?
Also not every teacher should be armed. Only those who feel confident enough to take up that role.
I get where you are coming from. However, this isn't like Miss Wallace is going to throw on her plate carrier and start clearing hallways while engaging hostile targets. Miss Wallace isn't going to be trained in close quarters combat tactics.
What Miss Wallace having a gun means is the final line of protection. That shooter actually enters Miss Wallace's classroom and is going to kill everyone in there. Miss Wallace, even though nervous and with some inaccuracy, has a chance to eliminate the threat. At the very least she has caused the shooter to change their current focus to the immediate threat that is Miss Wallace crouching in the corner with her 38. Even potentially causing the shooter to run from the classroom. A mass shooter is looking for easy targets.
But Miss Wallace doesn’t want this job. She wants to teach our children, not defend them from violence. That’s why she’s a teacher not a cop. The focus should be on putting her in situation where she doesn’t need a gun and can focus on teaching rather than expecting her to solve other problems created by societal failings.
Well of course its not the guns fault, however criminals will tend to use the easiest tools to get the job done. This tends to be true even if they are not thinking clearly. Having easy access to these weapons, AR-type weapons and the like, allows for criminals to do more damage and kill more people then if they didn't have access to them to begin with.
Bombs are quite easy to build now that we have the internet. People who want to kill people will find a way to make maximal casualty...by buying weapons legally or illegally.
The real issue is cultural, Switzerland is armed to the teeth and every citizen has a gun, yet no mass-shooting issue. There is a big discussion to be had about mental illness, the education system, fatherless homes, etc. But all we talk about is the weapon these sickos use kill people.
Bombs aren't that easy to build and aren't as easy to control the outcome of the attack. But if it were so easy to build bombs, why aren't there more bombings as opposed to shootings. Simply because to the availability of these types of weapons.
In my opinion, you've brought up two different and distinct issues. The availability of guns and the crimes those guns allow for in the hands of a criminal, as well as issues of education and mental health. Not all gun crimes are committed by the mentally ill and not all mentally ill commit gun crimes.
So to help lower mass shootings, limit the sales of these firearms. Its true that criminals will always find a way to do what they intend to, but that doesn't mean we should make it easier for them.
You are missing one little nugget of information in your mental reasoning...the availability of guns for self protection actually, on-the-whole, reduces the number of shootings and other severe violence. In most cases, without anyone getting shot.
Not having any guns also has in all cases nobody getting shot.
But in the US, you need a gun for self-defence because of the potential that you're assailant will also have a gun.
I'm not suggesting banning all guns, even if in my opinion that would be the better option, but to add limits on the sale of guns through licencing, background checks and the like.
We have universal background checks now for any new gun purchase. Other limiting factors are in place on a state-by-state basis. Bad people still get them.
If you are advocating for a more-stringent system where a person must in some way prove their worthiness in order to purchase a gun...be careful and ask yourself: Who watches the watchmen? Whoever enforces limits on guns will have the power to abuse those without guns.
That is the reason the US Constitution (AKA: our protocol for playing nicely with each other) uses the specific language to say that you are born with the right to have a gun and others must prove you to be unworthy in order to take it away.
If you produce an immutable blockchain for gun registry and licensing that no government or entity can abuse, co-opt, or manipulate...I might then be convinced of some of the viability of what you are arguing.
As someone who isn't from the US it seems to me that you simply don't have faith in your government and that even the chance of a scenario where there could be an abuse of power is unacceptable even if such systems work outside the US. It comes down to the type of political system that only has two parties that creates such polarising opposition to one another. But that's another issue entirely.
Just because Americans are born with the right to own a gun doesn't mean they can own any weapon they like. There are already limits of what types of guns you can buy, so extending or retracting those limits shouldn't be out of the question if it has the potential to limit damage and death to members of society as a whole.
Essentially nothing has been done to address gun violence in the US other than encouraging the purchase of more guns as protection and that doesn't seem to be working.
How many gas bombings have been used in mass killings?
How is limiting you from buying a gun trivialise your property rights? Your property rights are defined by law.
Its true that taking away guns doesn't take away the criminal intent but not doing anything doesn't either.
If limiting the sale of firearms lowers the occurrence of mass killings then you have to ask yourself whether your right to buy guns is more important than stopping mass shootings and gun crime in general.
For the greater good yes. Now I personally think that all guns should be banned but I understand that its different in the US as there are millions of guns in circulation. There are already limits on the types of guns that you can purchase. Making changes to these limits that take into account the changing reality that AR type firearms are used by criminals in mass shootings would help mitigate these sorts of events.