[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Mr.Jingles wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Gun nuts in this country think that everyone against them is an ignorant for "ignoring the Second Amendment". The truth is that nobody is ignoring the Second Amendment. Turns out to be that they are the ignorant ones for ignoring the "WELL REGULATED MILITIA" portion of the Second Amendment.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, there has been much debate as to whether the Second Amendment pertains to individual or collective rights (of a militia). However, most experts agreed that the "well-regulated militia" clause did not limit the scope of the amendment, and their opinion was later confirmed in a Supreme Court ruling.
I am not saying that anyone is ignorant, as I believe both parties hold relevant and well thought out opinions. However, this point is simply wrong.
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I am not a teacher, I am a social worker. We do not have a school resource officer in my school at all times but one is a phone call away at the middle school right next door.
I am trained to restrain a child without hurting the child or myself. We do not have metal detectors at my school or at any school in my county but one county over there are metal detectors in the middle schools and high schools with armed resource officers. I live in a pretty peaceful county however the same county I work in is home to Clay Shrout's killing spree in 1994. He killed his parents and his two little sisters one morning and then went to school like normal after he did it and took his class hostage.
This situation can happen anywhere true but I don't think arming teachers is the answer at all. I can only speak for the teachers in my school carrying guns, not other teachers and I'm telling you, any of these teachers with a gun would be a dangerous situation in itself. Not a good idea at all for anyone to have guns around children unless they are trained and I mean trained as their lifelong career. I will never bring my gun to school. This is not the place for guns. If a child chooses to bring a gun to school to hurt someone then there will be no shoot out here between teachers and the child. The police would be called to deal with it, as is their duty. We have procedures in place for hostage situations and the like and all staff are well versed in what to do in a hostage situation just as a tornado or fire drill, we practice these twice a month.
We have had a couple instances where children have brought knives to school, one has even brought a bullet to school. They usually just want to show their friends and mean no harm but we just got a student in from another city who stabbed his sister with a knife, he is 9 years old and his sister is 15.
Call me crazy, call me nieve, I just don't think that educators should be carrying guns for protection. If their school is that dangerous and they do not feel safe then the school board should be providing metal detectors and trained police personnel to protect them so they can do what they are hired to do, teach. Sure not every police officer is 100% accurate or 100% responsible. Nothing is 100% certain except that we are all going to die some day, just hopefully not at the hands of another human being.
I am trained to restrain a child without hurting the child or myself. We do not have metal detectors at my school or at any school in my county but one county over there are metal detectors in the middle schools and high schools with armed resource officers. I live in a pretty peaceful county however the same county I work in is home to Clay Shrout's killing spree in 1994. He killed his parents and his two little sisters one morning and then went to school like normal after he did it and took his class hostage.
This situation can happen anywhere true but I don't think arming teachers is the answer at all. I can only speak for the teachers in my school carrying guns, not other teachers and I'm telling you, any of these teachers with a gun would be a dangerous situation in itself. Not a good idea at all for anyone to have guns around children unless they are trained and I mean trained as their lifelong career. I will never bring my gun to school. This is not the place for guns. If a child chooses to bring a gun to school to hurt someone then there will be no shoot out here between teachers and the child. The police would be called to deal with it, as is their duty. We have procedures in place for hostage situations and the like and all staff are well versed in what to do in a hostage situation just as a tornado or fire drill, we practice these twice a month.
We have had a couple instances where children have brought knives to school, one has even brought a bullet to school. They usually just want to show their friends and mean no harm but we just got a student in from another city who stabbed his sister with a knife, he is 9 years old and his sister is 15.
Call me crazy, call me nieve, I just don't think that educators should be carrying guns for protection. If their school is that dangerous and they do not feel safe then the school board should be providing metal detectors and trained police personnel to protect them so they can do what they are hired to do, teach. Sure not every police officer is 100% accurate or 100% responsible. Nothing is 100% certain except that we are all going to die some day, just hopefully not at the hands of another human being.
*starts to comment*
Nah...I'm walking away from this one.
*leaves thread*
Nah...I'm walking away from this one.
*leaves thread*
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Lisser wrote: [/QUOTENAME]If their school is that dangerous and they do not feel safe then the school board should be providing metal detectors and trained police personnel to protect them so they can do what they are hired to do, teach. Sure not every police officer is 100% accurate or 100% responsible. Nothing is 100% certain except that we are all going to die some day, just hopefully not at the hands of another human being.[/QUOTE]
Whoa, hold on a second. You're talking about hundreds of public schools. Hundreds. That's gonna be one heck of a price tag. And we're not "arming our teachers". It's their choice. I doubt that there is 100% participation nor do I believe that these teachers are wearing them as side arms looking for a gunfight.
There WAS a shootout at Virginia Tech. There WAS a shootout at Columbine. Teachers were not armed there, so how can we assume that arming teachers would result in shootouts between teachers and students?
Whoa, hold on a second. You're talking about hundreds of public schools. Hundreds. That's gonna be one heck of a price tag. And we're not "arming our teachers". It's their choice. I doubt that there is 100% participation nor do I believe that these teachers are wearing them as side arms looking for a gunfight.
There WAS a shootout at Virginia Tech. There WAS a shootout at Columbine. Teachers were not armed there, so how can we assume that arming teachers would result in shootouts between teachers and students?
OK, I feel I have to respectfully point out a few things to you Microwave:
1) You argue "How do we know that arming teachers will lead to a shoot out between teachers and students". Faulty logic. You can just as well argue "How do we know that arming teachers WON'T lead to a shoot out between teachers and students".
Personally, I'd tend to error on the side of caution. If you have a gun, and someone starts shooting at you, what is your natural reaction after you duck for cover? Shoot back. Bingo. And then the shooter, getting shot at now, begins to shoot at the person who is shooting at them. Ergo, shoot out between teachers and students. You can't gaurantee everyone's aim would be perfect enough to hit the shooter on the first shot.
2) Just because some of the teachers chose not to arm themselves is not the issue here. It is similar to smoking. I chose not to smoke because I don't want to fill my lungs with such crap and slowly poison myself. But the person sitting next to me in the restaurant can smoke. In this case, it doesn't matter that I don't smoke, my lungs are still being filled with smoke from the guy next to me. A teacher in this school who doesn't arm themselves still has to be in an environment where co-workers are armed. I wouldn't feel safe in that environment. Most fatalities at work occur because of co-workers who snap, not students shooting up the schools. I'd rather not take the issue of the fellow teacher who is going through a divorce and money issues and what not snap and, because he has the gun for other reasons, decide to use it.
3) "Extensive" training? As Dan pointed out, even the POLICE who get MORE training than these people would get don't go into hostage situations; that's left to the SWAT team. And I guarantee you that these teachers aren't going to get SWAT team level training.
4) Virginia Tech isn't a valid comparison for this argument, because that was a University campus. It's open to the public, with multiple buildings and open areas on a campus. Not a typical K-12 school where everything is in one building and people going in and out are monitored. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
5) Columbine is the only apples to apples argument here, so that's the only one we can use. That was also ten years ago. Since then, there has been a MAJOR uptick in the security at schools; armed and unarmed police officers, metal detectors, all doors locked and guests can only get in one entrance where they have to sign in, etc etc. And since that time, I don't remember another major school shooting incident on that level (like I said before, Virginia Tech doesn't count because it's a university and therefore different). That being the case, why is it suddenly not enough to do what we have done to this point? Why do you suddenly need to allow the teachers to be armed?
1) You argue "How do we know that arming teachers will lead to a shoot out between teachers and students". Faulty logic. You can just as well argue "How do we know that arming teachers WON'T lead to a shoot out between teachers and students".
Personally, I'd tend to error on the side of caution. If you have a gun, and someone starts shooting at you, what is your natural reaction after you duck for cover? Shoot back. Bingo. And then the shooter, getting shot at now, begins to shoot at the person who is shooting at them. Ergo, shoot out between teachers and students. You can't gaurantee everyone's aim would be perfect enough to hit the shooter on the first shot.
2) Just because some of the teachers chose not to arm themselves is not the issue here. It is similar to smoking. I chose not to smoke because I don't want to fill my lungs with such crap and slowly poison myself. But the person sitting next to me in the restaurant can smoke. In this case, it doesn't matter that I don't smoke, my lungs are still being filled with smoke from the guy next to me. A teacher in this school who doesn't arm themselves still has to be in an environment where co-workers are armed. I wouldn't feel safe in that environment. Most fatalities at work occur because of co-workers who snap, not students shooting up the schools. I'd rather not take the issue of the fellow teacher who is going through a divorce and money issues and what not snap and, because he has the gun for other reasons, decide to use it.
3) "Extensive" training? As Dan pointed out, even the POLICE who get MORE training than these people would get don't go into hostage situations; that's left to the SWAT team. And I guarantee you that these teachers aren't going to get SWAT team level training.
4) Virginia Tech isn't a valid comparison for this argument, because that was a University campus. It's open to the public, with multiple buildings and open areas on a campus. Not a typical K-12 school where everything is in one building and people going in and out are monitored. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
5) Columbine is the only apples to apples argument here, so that's the only one we can use. That was also ten years ago. Since then, there has been a MAJOR uptick in the security at schools; armed and unarmed police officers, metal detectors, all doors locked and guests can only get in one entrance where they have to sign in, etc etc. And since that time, I don't remember another major school shooting incident on that level (like I said before, Virginia Tech doesn't count because it's a university and therefore different). That being the case, why is it suddenly not enough to do what we have done to this point? Why do you suddenly need to allow the teachers to be armed?
Just last year several people died in a shooting in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb Illinois.
http://www.wgal.com/news/17232222/detail.html
This was in our local paper a few days ago ... about a crime fighting granny.
This was in our local paper a few days ago ... about a crime fighting granny.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Gym Bitch wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Just last year several people died in a shooting in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb Illinois.[/QUOTE]
Yes...again, at a UNIVERSITY campus. Where access to who is on the campus is lax because it is impossible to lock down who can come onto the campus and who can't. K-12 schools they lock down so that no one can come in the buildings unless they sign in as guests.
This is contributes nothing to the debate. Another apples to oranges
Yes...again, at a UNIVERSITY campus. Where access to who is on the campus is lax because it is impossible to lock down who can come onto the campus and who can't. K-12 schools they lock down so that no one can come in the buildings unless they sign in as guests.
This is contributes nothing to the debate. Another apples to oranges
I read about this a few days ago in my local paper about a high school shooting in Knoxville Tennessee.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/NEWS03/80821005
I suppose this is an apple to oranges comparison because only one student died?
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/NEWS03/80821005
I suppose this is an apple to oranges comparison because only one student died?
Even if you say it's not a direct comparison, it's not like off-campus strangers are the ones shooting up universities.
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Gym Bitch wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I read about this a few days ago in my local paper about a high school shooting in Knoxville Tennessee.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/NEWS03/80821005
I suppose this is an apple to oranges comparison because only one student died?[/QUOTE]
No...the number of deaths has nothing to do with it. The fact that I should need to explain this is kinda sad. But here we go:
When you compare two things, logically they have to both be the same thing or same type of thing. Otherwise you have no basis for comparison. For example, you cannot compare graduation rates an an inner city ghetto school with a private advanced academy; they are not the same thing. The only way you can have a meaningful comparison is to have inner city ghetto schools compared with other inner city ghetto schools, and private advanced academies compared with other private advanced academies. They have to be the same thing. OK, now that we have that established, moving on....
I say again, you CANNOT compare a university setting with a typical K-12 school when it comes to school shootings. The reason is simple: A typical K-12 school building is ONE BUILDING. If someone goes nuts and starts shooting people, everyone in the building is as risk. That is why after Columbine many of the schools started limiting access to the buildings. All doors of the school are locked, only able to be opened from either the inside or the outside in the case of fire. There is typically ONE door to the building that is unlocked and you can get into from the outside; that is a door where you have to sign into the building as a guest and verify that you know or are related to someone attending the school. ERGO, you can control access to the building; who goes in and who comes out is under your control to the best extent possible. So, in typical K-12 buildings, ACCESS IS CONTROLLABLE AND ABLE TO BE LIMITED. This doesn't even include the addition of uniformed and non-uniformed, armed or un-armed police officers for monitoring, metal detectors, etc that many schools have added.
Contrast this with a University setting; where there are multiple buildings. There are not walls around the outside of the campus, and there are nice open areas of campus. People can come and go on the campus as they please; there isn't a place where you can check student ID's to determine that EVERYONE on the campus is a student, employee or faculty member. I went to university for seven years, and ANYONE can come onto the campus for any reason at all! Even just to sit and enjoy the surroundings. All of the dormitory buildings have 24 hour access doors (though they may try to limit access at night), and many of the buildings (such as a library or gym) are public buildings as well. Because of the very way universities are constructed, it is IMPOSSIBLE to control or limit access. You can put certain practices into place, such as checking ID's for admittance into dorms and what not, but you will NEVER have complete control over access to the campus. Unless you walled all of them up, put in gates and made everyone going in and out swipe ID cards, the level of control you can get in a K-12 building is unachievable on a university campus.
Therefore, you cannot compare a place you can lock down instantly and have complete control over who comes in and out with a place where such control is impossible. Ergo, there is no logical basis for comparison. The number of dead does not enter into it; it is irrelevant.
MusicMan, you do have a point that strangers are not coming onto the campus and shooting them up. They are typically students. But what does that mean? People who shoot up their work places work there too; it's not often you have someone walk into their local post office and start shooting it up. Humans, by nature, tend to congregate in places they are familiar with. That's all that means.
My point is this; why should teachers arm themselves when they are in an environment that they can be completely controlled (and in most cases is)? If it were a completely uncontrolled environment the idea of "we have to protect ourselves" might make more sense (though I still don't buy it). But in K-12 schools, this is over kill. Since Columbine and all of the new safety and security initiatives at K-12 schools, there have been FEWER school shootings, FEWER deaths at buildings like Columbine BECAUSE of controlled access, metal detectors, police presence, etc. That seems to indicate the current policy is working. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I simply point out that you can't take the deaths from Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech and throw them into a "students who died at school" pot and use that as evidence that policies aren't working so the schools need to let teachers arm themselves. The deaths at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, while tragedies, are not comparable to the argument. They hold no relevance, because you cannot apply the protection policies to a university that you can to a K-12 school. Therefore, it is a different circumstance that needs a different solution. Therefore, even on the surface there are similarities (shootings at educational institutions), you cannot use the same solution to fix them both. That means, you have two very different problems, and data from one set cannot be logically used to justify a completely different problem.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080821/NEWS03/80821005
I suppose this is an apple to oranges comparison because only one student died?[/QUOTE]
No...the number of deaths has nothing to do with it. The fact that I should need to explain this is kinda sad. But here we go:
When you compare two things, logically they have to both be the same thing or same type of thing. Otherwise you have no basis for comparison. For example, you cannot compare graduation rates an an inner city ghetto school with a private advanced academy; they are not the same thing. The only way you can have a meaningful comparison is to have inner city ghetto schools compared with other inner city ghetto schools, and private advanced academies compared with other private advanced academies. They have to be the same thing. OK, now that we have that established, moving on....
I say again, you CANNOT compare a university setting with a typical K-12 school when it comes to school shootings. The reason is simple: A typical K-12 school building is ONE BUILDING. If someone goes nuts and starts shooting people, everyone in the building is as risk. That is why after Columbine many of the schools started limiting access to the buildings. All doors of the school are locked, only able to be opened from either the inside or the outside in the case of fire. There is typically ONE door to the building that is unlocked and you can get into from the outside; that is a door where you have to sign into the building as a guest and verify that you know or are related to someone attending the school. ERGO, you can control access to the building; who goes in and who comes out is under your control to the best extent possible. So, in typical K-12 buildings, ACCESS IS CONTROLLABLE AND ABLE TO BE LIMITED. This doesn't even include the addition of uniformed and non-uniformed, armed or un-armed police officers for monitoring, metal detectors, etc that many schools have added.
Contrast this with a University setting; where there are multiple buildings. There are not walls around the outside of the campus, and there are nice open areas of campus. People can come and go on the campus as they please; there isn't a place where you can check student ID's to determine that EVERYONE on the campus is a student, employee or faculty member. I went to university for seven years, and ANYONE can come onto the campus for any reason at all! Even just to sit and enjoy the surroundings. All of the dormitory buildings have 24 hour access doors (though they may try to limit access at night), and many of the buildings (such as a library or gym) are public buildings as well. Because of the very way universities are constructed, it is IMPOSSIBLE to control or limit access. You can put certain practices into place, such as checking ID's for admittance into dorms and what not, but you will NEVER have complete control over access to the campus. Unless you walled all of them up, put in gates and made everyone going in and out swipe ID cards, the level of control you can get in a K-12 building is unachievable on a university campus.
Therefore, you cannot compare a place you can lock down instantly and have complete control over who comes in and out with a place where such control is impossible. Ergo, there is no logical basis for comparison. The number of dead does not enter into it; it is irrelevant.
MusicMan, you do have a point that strangers are not coming onto the campus and shooting them up. They are typically students. But what does that mean? People who shoot up their work places work there too; it's not often you have someone walk into their local post office and start shooting it up. Humans, by nature, tend to congregate in places they are familiar with. That's all that means.
My point is this; why should teachers arm themselves when they are in an environment that they can be completely controlled (and in most cases is)? If it were a completely uncontrolled environment the idea of "we have to protect ourselves" might make more sense (though I still don't buy it). But in K-12 schools, this is over kill. Since Columbine and all of the new safety and security initiatives at K-12 schools, there have been FEWER school shootings, FEWER deaths at buildings like Columbine BECAUSE of controlled access, metal detectors, police presence, etc. That seems to indicate the current policy is working. If it ain't broke, why fix it? I simply point out that you can't take the deaths from Northern Illinois and Virginia Tech and throw them into a "students who died at school" pot and use that as evidence that policies aren't working so the schools need to let teachers arm themselves. The deaths at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, while tragedies, are not comparable to the argument. They hold no relevance, because you cannot apply the protection policies to a university that you can to a K-12 school. Therefore, it is a different circumstance that needs a different solution. Therefore, even on the surface there are similarities (shootings at educational institutions), you cannot use the same solution to fix them both. That means, you have two very different problems, and data from one set cannot be logically used to justify a completely different problem.
^^ I need to start incorporating "ergo" into my vocabulary. Makes me think of this guy:
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/matrixreloaded63.jpg
Sorry...carry on QZ debate club...;-D
http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/matrixreloaded63.jpg
Sorry...carry on QZ debate club...;-D
but the shooting in Knoxville TN was K-12. It was a high school ... not a university ... so it is an apples to apples comparison.
"My point is this; why should teachers arm themselves when they are in an environment that they can be completely controlled"
Was the Knoxville high school a "completely controlled environment"?
"My point is this; why should teachers arm themselves when they are in an environment that they can be completely controlled"
Was the Knoxville high school a "completely controlled environment"?
No school is completely safe or "controlled", but it's bound to get all the more dangerous (if it really is to begin with) if you increase the number of guns coming through the school doors.
This was the argument ...
"The deaths at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, while tragedies, are not comparable to the argument. They hold no relevance, because you cannot apply the protection policies to a university that you can to a K-12 school. Therefore, it is a different circumstance that needs a different solution. Therefore, even on the surface there are similarities (shootings at educational institutions), you cannot use the same solution to fix them both. That means, you have two very different problems, and data from one set cannot be logically used to justify a completely different problem."
Ergo ... I simply gave an example that did not fit her "apples to oranges model".
Anybody got any comment on my link about the crime-fighting granny who nabbed the burglar and made him dial 911?
Of course not ... it is easier to ignore if it does not fit the "anti-gun" model.
"The deaths at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois, while tragedies, are not comparable to the argument. They hold no relevance, because you cannot apply the protection policies to a university that you can to a K-12 school. Therefore, it is a different circumstance that needs a different solution. Therefore, even on the surface there are similarities (shootings at educational institutions), you cannot use the same solution to fix them both. That means, you have two very different problems, and data from one set cannot be logically used to justify a completely different problem."
Ergo ... I simply gave an example that did not fit her "apples to oranges model".
Anybody got any comment on my link about the crime-fighting granny who nabbed the burglar and made him dial 911?
Of course not ... it is easier to ignore if it does not fit the "anti-gun" model.