Well, this is going to be interesting.Follow

Perhaps, but it's still an argument worth considering. Even if we dismiss the notion that it will act as a deterrent, the fact remains that with a gun on-hand, the possibility for stopping a shooting spree much sooner and with much less bloodshed still exists. The only argument there is whether the risk of allowing concealed guns by trained personnel is worth that level of protection. The answer to that argument lies in the people who entrusted with the guns and the environment in which they are entrusted to possess them. In this case, it sounds like the particular school in question has considered many alternatives and decided this was the most reasonable one. Until/unless someone gets shot by a handgun brought on campus by a licensed teacher, it's hard to argue against it without citing mountains of unrelated statistics about personal firearm ownership in the home. The thing to bear in mind is that the situations (@home with very little regulation vs @school with extreme regulation) are very different.

So you are telling me that I can't argue against giving someone guns before someone gets shot by their gun? Seriously?

Are you telling me there is no chance that one of the teachers weapons will be used against this kids?

What happens if a teacher goes nuts instead of a kid? They don't even need to premeditate it, the weapon is right there.

Do you have any idea of the number of would-be shooters who chicken out at the last minute because they either can't bring themselves to kill someone or are afraid of getting killed themselves? No, you don't, and neither do I, because it's an immeasurable statistic for which there is no valid data, but I'd wager that if it were measurable, the number would be exponentially higher than the number of people who actually go through with it, and given the assumption that most are turned away by their own cowardly instinct, adding the threat of return fire to the equation is yet another probable deterrence, even if it does come with it's own issues.

I spent over a decade studying the pathology of suicide killers as a full time job, so I'm going to go ahead and determine that, no we're not equals here not both working with the same lack of information. There are things that can deter action, an armed target has been consistently shown to do the opposite, however.


Sure, it's not going to stop those who are dead set on killing everyone and then themselves, but anyone who entertains the notion that they might just get away with murder might now have to consider the possibility of return fire, at least in this particular school and those that follow suit.

No one attacks a school with gunfire with the thought that "they might just get away with murder". If it makes you happy, however, I'm sure it would deter non deadly assaults against teachers which are more common by an order of 100 than school shootings.

You mean little Jimmy won't rape his hot 25 year old, fresh out of college teacher in the stair well? Where will Lifetime get the ideas for it's movies now?

Way to ruin the mental image of a young, naive, attractive teacher.

If you take Columbine as an example it took the police 3 hours before they even entered the school. The choices for the kids and teachers inside that school were pretty limited. Run, hide or die. Even the ones that did hide were hunted down and shot as those 2 kids roamed the school.

Had some of those teachers had a gun I have no doubt lives would have been saved. Instead of the defenceless kids and teachers being hunted those 2 boys would have been shot.

It's nice that you and several others fall back on this notion as a base for dismissing the concept and all, but...



These individuals would likely be as well trained for the specific scenarios they might face as any local peace officer might be.

Unless the teacher's will be require to attend a police academy, this won't be even close to true.

You might want to do so as well. Especially when you consider that even trained cops very often handle dangerous situations very poorly. The school districts is opening itself up to huge liability with this policy. Not to mention potentially endangering the lives of the students. School shootings are very, very rare... well, for now they are. Once the schools start allowing staff to carry guns who knows how often they'll occur.

it seems reasonable to withhold judgment until you know exactly what training they will receive.

No, it seems reasonable to assume that the training will be very limited given the time demands of teaching in America. The idea that they'll spend hundreds of hours training for a situation that's literally less likely to occur than a student being hit by lightning if fucking absurd.

This is just abject reactionary ********* It makes the students less safe, period given the relative risks of a school shooting and an accidental gunshot wound. Mining roads that lead to the school wold protect against car bombings, too, but I think you'd agree that on balance it wouldn't make them safer.

As the first detailed account of the shootings, the report offers a timeline on what happened at the school on April 20, 1999, when two students carried out a carefully planned attack that they hoped would kill hundreds of students and staff members with guns and homemade bombs. Most of the bombs did not go off, but the two gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, shot to death 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 other students before killing themselves.

The 13 people who were killed by two students at Columbine High School last year were shot within the first 16 minutes of the siege as the authorities were still assessing the situation, according to a report issued today by the Jefferson County Sheriff. But it was more than 40 minutes after the shooting began that the police entered the building, and hours before some victims were found or rescued.


source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B06E7D8113BF935A25756C0A9669C8B63

I should note that I inverted the two paragraph's because it made more sence to my point and to the story.






Edited, Aug 17th 2008 6:29pm by Boomsticker

That'd be true... if the teachers were storing their guns improperly inside the young students homes. Since, of course, accidental gunshot wounds on children are commonly caused by them finding guns hidden in the house. Which heavily outweigh the random gunshot wounds caused on children by licensed, gun carrying adults in public.

Wrong. It's still true. Do you see why?