Paul Revere by Cyrus Dallin, North End, Boston

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Friday, February 23, 2018

A Stupid Idea










#45 proposes to arm teachers as a deterrent to school massacres.


Let’s ask someone who’s in the trenches every day what he thinks of arming teachers. 

“It’s hard to begin to count the number of ways this is a bad idea,” said Chris Magnus, police chief of Tucson. For starters, the number of gunslinging educators would be huge. In the United States, there are about 3.5 million elementary and secondary school teachers in public and private institutions. Arming 20 percent of them, as Mr. Trump suggested, would mean 700,000 or so teachers with Glocks and the like on their hips — an armed force half as large as America’s real armed forces on active duty. One can envision parents with the means to do so swiftly yanking their children out of that sort of environment. More to the point, many deranged mass murderers expect to die themselves during their killing sprees. It’s almost laughable to believe that the president’s proposal would deter them."




And this:


Poll: Most of the country doesn't like Trump as a person

23 comments:

YOU KNOW WHO said...


Shaw, I know a place in the bowels of the blog world where they love tRump. Fortunately they're a minority talking to themselves thinking the rest of the country agrees with them. Going to those blogs is like visiting an insane asylum and reading the inmates scribblings.We can take heart knowing the rest of the country is leaving them in the tRumpian mud.

Ducky's here said...

It's now coming out that the armed sheriff's deputy assigned to security at the school stayed outside even though he knew there was an active shooting in the school.

It's also apparent there were ample warnings that Cruz was planning a shooting.

But let's ignore all that and ignore why Cruz had a weapon in the first place while we talk about arming teachers, a favorite gun loon talking point.

Anonymous said...

This is what the armed school officer did, gee, having an armed officer really helped.


FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Feb 22 (Reuters) - The armed deputy assigned to the campus of a Florida high school during a deadly shooting last week stayed outside the building during the attack and failed to engage the shooter, the county sheriff said on Thursday.

As a consequence, Scott Peterson, on duty as the school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, resigned from the department, said Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, who earlier has suspended the officer from the force. He did not say if Peterson would face criminal charges.

Israel said he decided to suspend Peterson after viewing a video that showed the deputy did “nothing” during the rampage that killed 17 people. A former student Nikolas Cruz, 19, is accused of carrying out the attack with an AR-15-style assault weapon.

“What I saw was a deputy arrive at the west side of Building 12, take up a position and he never went in,” said Israel. The building is popularly known as “the freshman building.”

Israel said he would not release the video that shows Peterson’s actions at this time and may never do so, “depending on the prosecution and criminal case.”

(Reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale

Les Carpenter said...

A) With input from the governors develop and implement a uniform national regulatory standard for firearm control.

B) improve federal and state background checks, including mental illness.

C) Require psychological testing to determine if applicant is stable enough to own and use a firearm.

D) Require both intensive classroom and field training in safety and proper use of firearms.

E) Require booth written and practical exams to be passed with a 90% or better score to receive license.

F) Following completion of requirements and approval for licensing require a 30 day waiting period before purchase of a firearm.

G) Require relicensing every three years.

H) Make illegal to purchase or own the following... bump stocks, high capacity drums and magazines, semi automatic assault style weapons, and consider capping the amount of ammo a person can purchase yearly for each firearm.

Just a few ideas.


Not that anyone is really interested. It's loads more fun to simply bash the "other side" on ideological grounds.

Does anyone really believe much, if anything, will change? If so WHY, and if not, WHY NOT.


A read for liberals to digest and consider.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Shaw Kenawe said...

YNW Thankfully those people ARE a minority and soon will lose their political strangle hold on the presidency and Congress. Very soon.

Ducky and Anon @10:08 AM

"In 2013, after 20 first-graders and six teachers were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School, NRA leader Wayne LaPierre suggested that every school in America have an armed guard to protect its children."

Did anyone remind that NRA ghoul LaPierre that M.S.D. high school had an armed guard that was as useless as brains in a Trumpista's skull? Of course not.

The NRA and Trump are in bed together but Americans reject their rhetoric and useless ideas: arming teachers and turning our schools into fortresses.

Ray Cranston said...

"As the mass killings continue, we are urged to be patient and to spend our time listening earnestly to the views of those who see even a smidgen of action to limit access to guns as the first step toward confiscation. Our task is not to fight for laws to protect innocents, but to demonstrate that we really, honestly, truly, cross-our-hearts, positively love gun owners and wouldn’t for an instant think anything ill of them.

What is odd is that those with extreme pro-gun views — those pushing for new laws to allow people to carry just about anytime, anywhere — are never called upon to model similar empathy toward children killed, the mourning parents left behind, people in urban neighborhoods suffering from violence, or the majority of Americans who don’t own guns."

Shaw Kenawe said...


RN, those are all good ideas. Switzerland is a country that has a large armed population but at the same time has very strict regulations on owning guns. Those ideas you posted are in line with that country's sensible handling of private ownership of weapons.

I am not against rifles for hunting or handguns for protection. I am against military-type weapons that can mow down dozens of people in minutes being sold to anyone, especially children.

Shaw Kenawe said...



RN, the author of that article you linked to correctly writes that school shootings are a very, very small percentage of firearm deaths in the US. We know that. Most firearm deaths are from suicides. But the slaughter of children in a place where they should be safe is shocking, even if it happens only once. American acted immediately after the poisoning scare with Tylenol -- when was that? In the '80s? Immediately safety seals were put on all non-prescription pain medication, and only what? 3 or 4 people died? Someone tried to blow up a plane with explosives in his shoe, and now we all have to take off our shoes to fly. We responded immediately to that threat.

Why is it a controversy to respond to school, church, night club, movie theater, mall, military bases massacres? Even if they are a small percentage of the overall death stats concerning firearms?

Why do we accept that? But immediately did something about pain-killer poisoning and shoe bombs?

Can someone answer that?

Les Carpenter said...

It is not controversial to respond to those tradegies you stated. It is proper and correct. But IMO, and that of millions, only in a rational way. There is too much ideological BS flowing from both sides in this debate IMO. That IS the biggest problem. As I see it.

Jerry Critter said...

The people who are suggesting the extremely stupid idea of arming 700,000 teachers in our schools need to answer these questions raised by Jim Wright in his writing here.

Here’s a summary of the questions he brings up:
1. Who designs the training. On what criteria? To what standards?
2. Who pays for it?
3. Who do these "specially trained people" answer to?
4. How do you insure the school in this situation?
5. What weapons? Do you mandate acceptable weapons? Ammunition? Fields of Fire? Zones of responsibility?
6. How do the cops know who the licensed and qualified "specially trained people" are?

Basically, we are asking a teacher to shoot and kill someone. Since most school shootings are carried out by children, we are asking a teacher to kill a child. We are saying it is a good idea to give Mrs. Johnson who teaches English a gun and we are telling her that she needs to put 2 rounds in the chest and 1 in the head of a kid, a kid she probably knows and may teach!

That is the definition of a stupid idea!

Anonymous said...

Have you all considered , if you were terminally ill with no chance of life saving treatment, that you might not want to die a slow, painful death?

Does a person have a right to decide their own time and method of death?

There are approximately 33,000 deaths by gun shot every year in the USA. That includes about 1,000 children who are killed every year by gun shot usually in their homes by accident because of unsafe storage of firearms in the home. About half of that 33,000 dead are by suicide, the rest the continuous bloody violence that happens in our streets every year.

Our gun laws do not fit our time and even conservatives like Reagan and Scalia understood that.

RN's list does not seem unreasonable to me, but we would have to rescind the second amendment to make some of those regulations even legal. The words of the 2nd amendment would have to be changed in order for courts to find some gun regulations Constitutional.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Anon: "Have you all considered , if you were terminally ill with no chance of life saving treatment, that you might not want to die a slow, painful death?

Does a person have a right to decide their own time and method of death?"

I believe a person has the right to decide her own time and method of death. But this is not something all states agree on. May I ask what prompted that question?

Your comment on the breakdown of firearm deaths is correct. BTW, accidental death by firearm is the 3rd leading cause of childhood deaths. And that is totally preventable.

I don't think the 2nd Amendment has to be rescinded, but it does have to be amended. All of our bill of right privileges have restrictions. It's absurd that the one concerning deadly weapons has been interpreted to not have any restrictions -- to the insane point that the NRA used its political power to get certain states to disallow pediatricians to ask parents if they own guns and if they keep them locked up and safely away from their childre. Also the NRA has successfully fought any attempt to do research on firearm deaths.

The NRA, IMO, is a merchant of death.

Anonymous said...

It was your comment at 12:06 when you said, "Most firearm deaths are from suicides."

I do believe people should be allowed to choose the method of their own death, if possible.

You went on to talk about child safety, which I totally agree with and that element should be added to RN's list.

You can amend the 2nd amendment, but my point was a legal one, in that, courts could not find some regulations legal unless the wording of the 2nd amendment are changed, because the current 2nd amendment wording would make some of those regulations unconstitutional.

skudrunner said...

Wow arming teachers what a novel idea. Maybe next every student will receive a Ipad and a 9mm. I have had very few teachers who are responsible enough to carry a firearm and they shouldn't. Where is the NEA when you need them Oh that's right they are trying to protect lazy teachers and to hell with students and they have always said.

JC, a way to pay for it would be to deny support to illegal immigrants like health coverage, housing and food stamps.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Anonymous @7:02, some of those suicides may very well be from people wanting to end their lives because of terminal illnesses. Others may be from depression, shame, or other causes that are temporary problems that probably could be solved instead of ending one's life. Guns ake it easy to effect a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Shaw Kenawe said...

skud: Where's your evidence for your claims about illegal immigrants? You never, never, never back up your talking points with evidence. Therefore I call B.S. on them!

Here’s a listing of benefits undocumented immigrants expressly do not receive:

Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP)

Disability, aka Supplemental Security Income (SSI)

Food stamps, aka The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

Health insurance, aka insurance via the Affordable Care Act (ACA)

Medicaid

Medicare

Social Security

Welfare

Where's your evidence skud?

Les Carpenter said...

As you pointed out skud never backs up his claim with evidence. He never cites credible credible sources or provides links to them. Like so many conservatives he believes facts are fake and their opinions are facts.

I'm thinking he may be a closet trumper.

Jerry Critter said...

skud — “JC, a way to pay for it would be to deny support to illegal immigrants like health coverage, housing and food stamps.”

skud, you seem to have a real fixation on illegal immigrants, to the point where you try to insert them into practically every conversation whether they fit or not. Let me remind you, illegal immegration is neither the cause nor the solution to all our problems.

Shaw Kenawe said...

Jerry,

Our friend, skud, always manages to take a swipe at either President Obama, undocumented immigrants, or Hillary Clinton. They are his raison d'etre.

skudrunner said...

Ms Shaw, I am stunned by your lack of knowledge as to the cost of illegal immigration to the US or perhaps it is intentional. It is estimated that illegal immigrants cost the US from 135 billion to 300 billion a year. I am not surprised with RN and JC not knowing but you seem to be smart and up on most things political. I don't recall making a swipe at bho or hillary the great in this post, until now. Look at politifact.com, Washington Post and that bastion of liberal ideas, Newsweek.

"At the federal, state, and local levels, taxpayers shell out approximately $134.9 billion to cover the costs incurred by the presence of more than 12.5 million illegal aliens, and about 4.2 million citizen children of illegal aliens. That amounts to a tax burden of approximately $8,075 per illegal alien family member and a total of $115,894,597,664. The total cost of illegal immigration to U.S. taxpayers is both staggering and crippling. In 2013, FAIR estimated the total cost to be approximately $113 billion. So, in under four years, the cost has risen nearly $3 billion. This is a disturbing and unsustainable trend. The sections below will break down and further explain these numbers at the federal, state, and local levels."

Infidel753 said...

Shaw: Others may be from depression, shame, or other causes that are temporary problems that probably could be solved instead of ending one's life. Guns [m]ake it easy to effect a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

With all due respect, there is another side to this. There are very few methods of suicide which are both effective and guaranteed painless. A gun, properly used, probably meets that criterion better than any other method available to the average person. If someone has made the decision to commit suicide (and it's not really anyone else's place to pass judgment on such a decision), then they are entitled to have a means of doing so which minimizes the suffering involved.

Shaw Kenawe said...


Infidel753, someone very close to me committed suicide for a problem I positively know could have been solved without her killing herself.

I agree that it is a person's right to end his or her life, but not all reasons are equal and not all conditions are hopeless.

The founder of the very successful company EMC2 killed himself with a gun when he was confronted with the fact that he had terminal cancer. It was his right, and I don't dispute that at all. It is, however, a heartbreaking tragedy for the family to deal with.

Jerry Critter said...

skud, How about a link to your quote?