Obama puts guns in schoolsFollow

People with children are just biased so what they say don't matter.

So, basically let any adult who works at a school and wants to carry a gun, can carry a gun, with no oversight. Brilliant!

Over what period of time? I'll see if I can find the site I looked at last time, but it was a list of every single "school shooting" in the US since the beginning of the 20th century (at least I think that was the time frame). There were a lot of shootings, but I don't recall more than maybe 2 or 3 cases of a teacher accidentally shooting a student. That's over a century or so of time, and includes cases like "Teacher was hitting an unruly student with his pistol when it accidentally discharged". I'm reasonably certain that most schools today wont allow their teachers to strike their students, let alone with a pistol, even in the absence of federal regulations.

So your entire argument rests on something that is so ridiculously rare that it's hard to give it any weight at all, and can be massively mitigated by some relatively simple rules that can be handled at the district level (like say "teachers can't wear their pistols strapped to their hips while teaching class"). I'll grant there's a tiny possibility that the teachers gun, whilst being transported from his car to his locked desk in his locked office (or teachers lounge), might accidentally go off and hurt someone. But that's going to be incredibly rare. Far far more rare than school shootings committed intentionally and against which there's no much anyone can do. If even one child can be saved by a teacher running and getting their firearm and using it to end a school shooting, isn't it worth it?

Which rate do you think is higher? How many kids have died from school shootings in just the last decade Smash? You can't possible argue that the odds of a child dying accidentally because a staff member had a gun on campus is greater than the odds of a child dying intentionally by some deranged shooter. I mean, you could argue it, but it'd be a pretty weak argument.

So your entire argument rests on something that is so ridiculously rare that it's hard to give it any weight at all, and can be massively mitigated by some relatively simple rules that can be handled at the district level

My, my, that DOES seem like a weak way to present an argument. How rare would you say it was for an armed school staff member to use a firearm to repel an intruder?

Thanks for playing.

I'm sure Mavis the lunch lady would be down with this plan.

Both can't be true. Either you're mandating it or you're allowing staff/teachers to posses a gun with no weapon management from the school.



So your answer isn't "I'm not",but "I am" in reference to allowing teachers/staff to posses weapons without school training or weapon management.

Edited, Oct 2nd 2013 5:40am by Almalieque

Implying they were able to 21+ years ago where there was rarely a shooting at all! The 1970s were especially peaceful.

Now you're just babbling.

The fact is that since we passed the gun free zone legislation, part of which was specifically aimed at reducing school shootings, the rate and fatalities from school shootings has skyrocketed. So at the least we can say that it hasn't worked, and at most we could argue (as I am) that the law actually had the opposite effect and is making our schools less safe from gun violence, not more.

You're free to babble mindlessly around this issue, but it's kinda hard to ignore that fact.

How about you go and compare the number of shootings in the decade or so prior to the passage of that bill? The assault weapons ban was passed in 1994. Gun free zone was in the same year. For reference, Columbine happened in 1999, and is considered the first of the wave of modern indiscriminate school shootings. What we've seen is a steady ramp up of violent shootings at schools (and other "gun free" locations) since the passage of that law. There is zero evidence that the assault weapons ban had any effect on this at all, if for no other reason than it was so poorly written that it didn't actually restrict the purchase of semi-automatic rifles at all. Manufacturers simply changed the names of the guns, or slightly modified their cosmetic appearance. There's no logical reason to think that law had anything to do with it either.

On the other hand, it's relatively straightforward to see how gun free zones can create target rich environments for a would be shooter. He knows that no one there will be able to shoot back, so everything else being equal, he'll pick those locations to engage in a mass shooting event. Point being that prior to the passage of that act, indiscriminate style school shootings were exceptionally rare. Shootings on schools were almost always targeted affairs. Someone had a grudge with someone else, brings a gun to school and shoots him. Guys girlfriend cheats on him, so he shows up at the school and shoots her and/or her new boyfriend. These are the types of shootings we had at schools prior to the passage of that law. Guy showing up and walking through the halls shooting anyone he sees was like a once a decade kind of thing nationally prior to this period.


We can assume that's a coincidence and that our society is just getting more violent, or people are just more insane than they used to be. Or we can speculate that by creating gun free zones, we've made it possible for a shooter to calmly and slowly walk through an area shooting indiscriminately. He knows he's got time before the cops show up. So he doesn't have to barricade himself in a tower, or shoot a target and then run. I think it's hard to argue that this doesn't have an effect on the nature of the shootings that occur. We've made it easier to do this, so why be surprised when people start doing it more often. There have always been deranged people. And they've always had access to weapons they can use to hurt other people. But with this law, we gave those people a set of perfect locations in which to exact whatever nutty death fantasy they have. Why be surprised that the number of instances of this keep increasing?

It isn't. It is very possible to implement guns in the school, free of the government, but at the cost of safety. If you want to, at a minimum, maintain safety, it will cost you. You're simply not acknowledging the trade off. Given the goal is to increase safety, there is no way to have both without spending money.


So, you're allowing staff/teachers to posses a gun with no weapon management from the school. That's what I said.


That would cost money, unless you're referring to any old training unrelated to school environments, specifically the one you work in.


Which would require money. Not requiring it allows staff/teachers to posses a gun with no weapon management from the school.

Obviously then we should be disallowing guns everywhere except in 'gun allowed' zones. DUh

Where ever there are people are target rich zones for someone wanting to kill people.

1000 bonus pts for an Ugly Sasquatch!