The Main Reason To Arm Teachers Allow School Staff With Permits To Carry

Donald Trump’s proposal to allow teachers and school staff with carry permits to carry their firearms in school has drawn the predictable firestorm of uninformed knee jerk responses.  It’s a gun issue, that’s just how it goes.

It’s also provoking a slightly, if you will, off-target response from some shooters.

Don’t get me wrong – of course it’s better to have an armed staffer in the room, with the potential to respond, when and if the shooting starts.  Armed citizens have ended three school shootings (Pearl Mississippi, Edinboro Pennsylvania and the Appalachian Law School); there’s nothing superhuman about spree killers, or for that matter inherently less capable about school staff.

But here’s the bigger point.

Trouble:  As we’ve noted based before, spree killers – as studied by the FBI after the Columbine massacre – plan theire attacks for months, sometimes years. One of their key planning criteria– is resistance likely?

For example, James Holmes– the Aurora movie massacre shooter– had a choice of six theaters when he was planning his attack. He didn’t pick the biggest seater; He didn’t pick the closest theater; he picked the one feeder in the area that was a “gun free zone”.

Likewise, as we’ve noted, spree killers (as well as terrorists, for that matter) tend to avoid targets where resistance is possible   .Example – after Israel started allowing teachers to bring guns to school after a series of kibbutz school massacres in the 1970s, the number of school massacres drops to zero without any further ceremony.

In other words–The deterrent effect of knowing that people might have guns,Is enough to deter the attack.

It isn’t that what we’re looking for?

Or is that all just too logical for the American left?

 

 

44 thoughts on “The Main Reason To Arm Teachers Allow School Staff With Permits To Carry

  1. I think allowing teachers or staff to carry is a better solution than armed guards at the front door. A fixed guard position allows a shooter to plan a way around- but the uncertainty of any teacher or janitor being armed would move a school out of the soft target category.

  2. MSNBC has a report circulating online now showing that an AR15 fires rounds at 2800-300 fps, while a handgun manages only 700-1100 fps, so teachers are too outclassed in weaponry to respond.

    The report doesn’t compare the rate of fire for an empty hand. (And don’t you just hate it when bad guys jump out of the way of your slow bullets?)

  3. Or is that all just too logical for the American left?

    Oh, it’s logical to them: No school shootings, no chanting points. They don’t care for kids, never have! Dead kids are just fodder to be exploited for political gain and the ultimate goal of turning us all into sheep.

  4. JPA, you’re a sick fool. Further, you’re a disgusting one. Do you TRULY think people want school shootings? Should I say the same about you since it, in your mind, justifies requiring teachers to buy guns, and you love everything that makes the gun manufacturers more wealthy, so you love school shootings. What a disgusting, perverted mind.

    Night Writer, someone being outclassed has to do with the accuracy and penetrating ability of the weapon. By pointing out a rifle is far more dangerous in both categories they are pointing out that a pistol is no real remedy and so the focus should be on keeping the rifle out of the school rather than on fantasies like asking teachers to face down a shooter with poor and inadequate options. Rather than thinking guns are a panacea to society’s ills, NW, maybe you should consider that more guns hasn’t yet solved this issue and it is unlikely to ever do so since each time a teacher “upgrades” the shooters have also. The solution is more guns in teachers hands, it’s fewer and less dangerous ones in the hands of the deranged. Maybe you folks on the right should consider allowing people who are found to be likely to be violent (have a restraining order) or mentally deficient or mentally-ill to be prevented from owning assault rifles, maybe you should be willing to fund the FBI or local police to the level they have the resources to investigate trouble signs rather than seeking to squelch any desire to limit firearms sales in any possible way..

    http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/26/news/companies/delta-nra-georgia-republican/index.html

    I’d like you all to read that link and consider what it represents. A company (Delta) is choosing to exercise it’s free speech right to no longer sponsor the NRA. That’s a basic constitutional right. The NRA and the right-wing have responded not by protesting Delta in some way, but rather by using the tool of government to punish Delta for political activity it (the right) doesn’t like. Frankly, it looks very much to me like a direct constitutional violation, but we’ll see on that front I guess. Either way, shouldn’t tax policy be based on it’s merits? Shouldn’t the correctness of a tax break be obvious and so passed or not obvious and so not passed? This “punishment” isn’t even being done under some sort of cover – it’s bare naked governmental intimidation about FREE SPEECH. If that doesn’t trouble you at least as much as people saying we can constitutionally limit access to assault rifles then you don’t understand the constitution nor stand to protect it, in the way you say you do.

  5. Yes, from their POV, it is logical for them to oppose the normalization of private firearm ownership. They want to install an irrational fear of firearms into voters.

  6. One good example of how the possible presence of a gun might deter an attack is the fact that no mass killings have ever occurred in troubled inner city schools. Yes, you have plenty of killings there, but those who would try to kill a bunch of people are well aware that the rival gang members just might be prepared to respond.

    Also of note is the basic question of tactics. The government-based solutions all require those intervening to more or less go on the offensive–to go into an area, eschewing cover, to find and neutralize the shooter. It takes some raw courage, to put it mildly, and a certain portion of people (Grossman et al) just freeze up.

    Allowing permit holders to return fire, on the other hand, makes it a mostly defensive action where the psychology is completely different–and may also increase the “sample” of those able to return fire.

    Really, the big question involved is whether the risk of teachers carrying–perhaps going off the handle, or kids stealing their weapon–exceeds the risk of them not carrying. Given the record of permit holders, I dare say the answer to that one is easy. Let them carry.

  7. A CC permit requires 3 hours of training, a group test, and shooting 25 rounds at a paper target. You can get a groupon for it. Do you really feel that is adequate training to take down a person armed with an assault weapon in a chaotic situation like a school shooting?

  8. Emery-Collective™ shows up with their usual specious argument.
    But YES Emery I’d rather take my chances with rather than without a CC permittee.

  9. Yup. I’d rather have a teacher who has thought about the scenario standing in the lockdown classroom, muzzle trained on the door when the also untrained mass shooter highlights himself in the door frame.

  10. This is ridiculous. Post-Columbine, police tactics were changed nationally to confront a mass shooter with an armed response IMMEDIATELY. That is what saves lives, and has saved lives in the past.
    Facts are facts.

  11. Penigma, the ugly fact of the matter is that gun control advocates were in fact planning a response to the next school shooting for the purpose of getting entire classes of weapons banned. Yes, as JPA noted, they are sick puppies. You would do well to wake up to this.

    Regarding your comment to NW, if a pistol bullet was a totally inadequate way to deal with a man with a rifle, why on earth has the military been issuing pistols to officers since the 19th Century? The fact of the matter is that the slowest major pistol bullet, the .45 ACP, goes at 850 feet per second (580mph) when it leaves the gun. I think that’s fast enough that even the quickest perp has little chance of evading a well-aimed round.

    And regarding “more guns not being the solution” in schools, ahem; in most states, it’s not been tried. Maybe instead of trusting the police, FBI, and mental health professionals to do their job and disarm lunatics that they historically have missed chances to disarm, it’s time to let teachers shoot back.

  12. Peev shows up to supplant reasoned discussion with his usual chain of gossamer threaded what-if fantasies and ad hominem attacks.
    Using your “upgrades” argument peev, the only way to assure people’s safety would be with state of the art fully armed military personnel on every street corner and routine house to house sweeps to purge communities of all dangerous weapons and even then people who wanted to harm others still would.

  13. If you managed to ban all semi-automatic rifles with detatchable magazines, you would be banning the firearm least used to commit murder & the most useful firearm for sport (aka hunting) and self sefense purposes.
    The gun rights people don’t oppose banning guns like this because they are crazy, they oppose banning guns like this because they are sane.

  14. Penigma made one partly sensible comment!! Quick – run for the windows, check for flying swine.

    Penigma says we have a problem with guns in the hands of the mentally ill. He’s absolutely correct. But his solution is to take away guns from everybody, rather than take them from the mentally ill. Why is that? Because we can’t take them from the mentally ill.

    Starting in 1975, Liberals ran to the courts to overturn the common sense rules that were already in place. Crazy people could no longer be locked up on a doctor’s note or a sheriff’s arrest, but only on a court order. The evidence required to support the order is not the normal civil standard (he’s-more-likely-than-not-dangerous) but instead was raised to a higher standard (there’s-clear-and-convincing-evidence-he’s-dangerous-at-this-moment).

    If a defendant is picked up for bizarre behavior on Friday, he’s brought to the hospital and medicated over the weekend. He appears in court on Monday with his Public Defender to recite the words he’s been coached to say, expressing remorse, promising to be good. His mother vouches for him. It’s all very touching and what’s the judge going to say? Insufficient evidence. Cut him loose.

    The effect is to make involuntary commitment very difficult to prove. And that means there is no official finding of mental illness, no adjudication by the court. In the eyes of the Liberal justices on the Supreme Court, that person is not mentally ill so we can’t keep him locked up.

    And we can’t deny him the right to buy a gun.

    It’s not a matter of funding the police and FBI to search for crazies. We know who they are and where they are. But we can’t do anything about them because Liberal activism on the bench painted us into this corner.

    So Liberals got us into this mess by insisting on liberty for lunatics, and now the only solution to their own mess is to strip sane people of their best defense against the insane. That’s insanity itself!

    No, the correct solution is to ADMIT IT WAS A MISTAKE, overturn those prior decisions, go back to a mental health treatment model like other civilized nations, and get the crazies off the streets.

  15. To try and keep things simple for Penigma du jour, there are several things that will be proposed to keep kids safe from school shooters. Most of these are already in place, but not enforced (and of course, that’s because the police and FBI don’t have enough money to do their jobs). Even the holy grail – banning all guns, “scary” or otherwise – won’t completely eliminate the problem. As long as you’ve got sick puppies that want to make a name for themselves by taking out unprotected targets.

    When/if these fail, the absolute last line of defense against the failure of our legislators, judges, police, mental health professionals and “gun-free” signage is guns in the hands of defenders at the scene of the attack. No, it’s not ideal, and no, it isn’t a guarantee. All that it guarantees is that, when the worst-case scenario materializes, there’s a chance to mitigate the “worst”. If I’m a teacher and I hear rifle fire in the halls, even a single-shot .22 in my hand (or that of another teacher) is going to give me a better chance to save some lives than having nothing at all.

  16. On the other end of the spectrum, obtaining a restraining order for domestic abuse to take away someone’s guns is a snap. There is a cadre of volunteer advocates and lawyers waiting to coach a woman what to say to the judge. The media is waiting to pounce on any suggestion a judge is coddling abusers. The standard of evidence required is far, far lower – no evidence of any actual bad acts, only evidence that it’s more likely than not the accused poses an imminent risk of causing another person substantial bodily harm. It’s fortune-telling, seeing into the future, predicting crime that hasn’t happened yet and possibly never will. Even the cleanest record, the meekest demeanor, the best behavior won’t save you in the politically charged atmosphere of a family court. No other place in America can you be stripped of your civil rights such a flimsy basis.

    Penigma is all for that, of course.

  17. I’m always amused when leftists (suddenly) appreciate the Constitution. Or rather, portions of it. On a case by case basis. And subject to change.

    The left has always been about picking and choosing the recipients of their largess, administratively and/or fiscally. In order to maintain or acquire more power. The right has always argued against – heck, the best example is the saying “a government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have”. But no, no.

    As Schlichter wrote: Make no mistake – this is not how we want it to be. But they started it by using their political power against us and they can’t expect we won’t retaliate using our own political power. If you want to go back to businesses focusing on business and not politics, I am in.

  18. Regarding the Delta/NRA fiasco, the problem is really that companies have gotten used to bribes to stay in one place. End that problem, and reduce taxes for all, and you’re talking business.

  19. Pen,

    someone being outclassed has to do with the accuracy and penetrating ability of the weapon. By pointing out a rifle is far more dangerous in both categories they are pointing out that a pistol is no real remedy

    Sort of like a fire extinguisher is “no real remedy” for not having a fire at all. But if you DO have a fire, it remains pretty essential.

    And Pen, you should know (but perhaps don’t() that at ranges where self-defense laws and techniques apply – from direct contact up to about seven yards – most of the rifle’s advantages are irrelevant.

    and so the focus should be on keeping the rifle out of the school

    You mean, other than the fact that schools are gun-free zones?

    rather than on fantasies like asking teachers to face down a shooter with poor and inadequate options.

    Pen, yoiu share with Dog Gone a peculiar tendency to ignore vast swathes of reality to make what passes for your case.

    Is a pistol – competently handled, and (let’s be clear, here) with the element of surprise, any worse an option than “waiting to GET YOUR BRAINS BLOWN OUT LIKE A COW IN THE ABBATOIR SLUICE”, just on toe off chancne that we couldn’t keep the bad guy out of the school?

    By the way – three school massacres have been ended by civilians with guns. We’re not the ones living in fantasy.

    Rather than thinking guns are a panacea to society’s ills,

    Which nobody, anywhere, does.

  20. BTW, Pen – you skipped right past the point of this post – or, as you sometimes put it, “Conveniently Omitted” it.

    The point of the post is that if the fact that staff might be armed deters attacks, then the weapons will be unneeded.

    Discuss THAT.

  21. BTW, Pen – Delta lives because of government initervention. In for a penny, in for a pound. Screw ’em.

  22. When disparaging the NRA as the bogeyman for ALL gun violence, leftists completely and deliberately ignore the fact that an NRA member and instructor, took out the church shooter in Texas, with…wait for it…an AR-15.

  23. Since Sandy Hook, I’ver been aware of at least half a dozen legitimate self-defense uses of AR15s or similar large-magazine llong arms in cases of self defense.

  24. I’m sure that Penny and Emery would both be happy to post pictures of the “This Family Bans Guns on The Premises” signs that are proudly displayed in their front yards. Or, maybe the night shots of the red lights shing from their porch lights.

  25. Used to be a red light on your porch meant something else besides someone close to you being killed. Just sayin’.

  26. This stuck out at me:

    The NRA and the right-wing have responded not by protesting Delta in some way, but rather by using the tool of government to punish Delta for political activity it (the right) doesn’t like.

    Please give me proof that the NRA encouraged or colluded with the Republican legislators to strip Delta’s tax advantages from the bill under consideration. Just because they support the NRA specifically and 2nd amendment issues generally, does not mean the NRA is controlling them. Or are you willing to acknowledge the control that Bloomberg/Everytown (and Planned Infanticide, for that matter) exert over Dem politicians. Those groups sure as hell spend a lot more money on Dem politicians than the NRA spends on Republican.

    And we need not mention it has been proven that Obama weaponized the DoJ and the IRS to demonstrably discriminate against conservative groups.

  27. Yes, penny, I do believe that demoncRats do not give two flying coots about safety of children. Yes, I do believe that they clamor for school shootings so they can politicize them. Because it is never, ever about anything but progress towards soci@list nirvana for demoncRats. And that road is paved with blood. Blood of innocents. DemoncRats are immoral, depraved animals. Since you are all about demoncRat soci@list agenda, show one, just ONE, example where it has worked. And while you are at it, the mental giant that you is, please tell us why demoncRats did not pass anti-gun legislation and immigration legislation and gun confiscation legislation and income redistribution legislation when they had supermajority? Because according to you, if they really cared about children so much they surely would have been chomping at the bit to DOOOOOOOOtm everything in their power, no? You are a tool, penny. A very dull tool.

    Disclaimer, this was obviously a rhetorical answer since we all know penny never, ever responds or follows up. Strictly poop and run, like a good doggie’s doggie.

  28. By pointing out a rifle is far more dangerous in both categories they are pointing out that a pistol is no real remedy and so the focus should be on keeping the rifle out of the school rather than on fantasies like asking teachers to face down a shooter with poor and inadequate options.

    Sigh… Virginia Tech was perpetrated with a P22. Look it up, penny. You are so stoooooopid it is mind-boggling. Just stooooopid, not nefariously deceitful and conniving like Shvonder-eTASS, just stooooopid.

  29. Just saying. Quote from Thomas in third paragraph from the bottom is golden and destroys every meme trotted out by the orcs. Each and every one.

    Bad Guy with Knife Stopped by Good Guy with AR-15

    A man armed with an AR-15 saved a neighbor who was being attacked with a knife Monday in Oswego Township, Illinois. WGN 9 reports that the incident unfolded at an apartment complex on Harbor Drive, “when someone with a knife attacked another person during an argument.”

    Dave Thomas (pictured) witnessed the attack on his neighbor, retrieved his AR-15, and ordered the attacker to stop.

    Thomas said, “I poked my head out the door. There was a pool of blood, blood was everywhere in the hall. There was still a confrontation going on, there were about three or four people involved at this point. So I ran back into my house and grabbed my AR-15. I grabbed the AR-15 over my handgun — bigger gun, I think a little more of an intimidation factor. Definitely played a part in him actually stopping.”

    Police arrived and arrested the suspect, while the victim was taken to the hospital in an unknown condition.

    Thomas gave a statement afterward, saying, “The AR-15 is my weapon of choice for home protection. It’s light, it’s maneuverable. If you train and know how to use it properly, it’s not dangerous. And this is just a perfect example of good guy with an AR-15 stopped a bad guy with a knife. And there were no lives taken, so all in all it was a good day.”

  30. And Pen, you should know (but perhaps don’t() that at ranges where self-defense laws and techniques apply – from direct contact up to about seven yards – most of the rifle’s advantages are irrelevant.

    Actually becomes a disadvantage. Heck, within 21ft, in reasonably skilled hands knife is a heck more dangerous. But then schools are knife-free zones too. The logic is impeccable, children are rendered completely defenseless by the big Ed. Fish in a barrel. And penny wants to say demoncRats are not intentionally using kids for fodder? And, not one word from any of the libturds (how’s that plan coming along Shvonder-eTASS?) about disarming perps or going after perps (Chicago). You know, the automatons that pull the trigger. Noooo, to them trigger pulls itself. Iron logic.

  31. I do believe that demoncRats do not give two flying coots about safety of children.

    As this debate shows, they do – provided they’re white and live in the suburbs. The dozens of black and brown kids killed by mundane street crime in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore, NOLA, NoMi – not so much.

    Yes, I do believe that they clamor for school shootings so they can politicize them.

    Let’s not go crazy here. We still need to run a Republic together. They don’t clamor for school shootings.

    But they don’t waste a crisis, either.

  32. Let’s not go crazy here. We still need to run a Republic together. They don’t clamor for school shootings.

    OK, how about they do nothing when they could and oppose anything to prevent school shootings while DOOOOOOing everything possible to render public school children defenseless and then politicize school shootings when they (inevitably) happen to advance their agenda. Is that better?

  33. The anti-gun types certainly do not seem to looking for a solution to school shootings. If you were doing that, you would wait for the facts to come in,evaluate why this problem happened where it did (school shootings a pretty rare event, unlike illegal drug related shootings). Then you would propose some common sense solutions.
    I’m pretty much a 2nd amendment purist, but I wouldn’t mind making people who were convicted of any juvenile offense wait until they are 21 to by a gun of any type (providing that they meet all other background check requirements).
    Putting enough armed people with guns in schools would deter school shootings, but insane people are insane. If Cruz was afraid to go into his school with a gun, he probably would have shot up a school bus.
    Parkland did have a guy with a gun, authorized to use it. If he had done as he was supposed to do how many more kids would be alive today? We know how many died when he failed to do his job. Making a guy close to retirement an armed school guard is stupid. It’s what you would do if you didn’t take the risk of a mass shooting at the school seriously. Scott Israel’s Sheriff’s department should have known that Parkland was at a high risk of a school shooting.
    The high body count at Parkland is the fault of Nikolas Cruz, if he was responsible for his actions. There is no doubt that the epic leadership failure of Sheriff Scott Israel played a large role. The NRA has done exactly what its members want it to do. The NRA alone has acted in a competent manner.

  34. Putting enough armed people with guns in schools would deter school shootings, but insane people are insane.

    Agreed. One of the Twitter feeds I follow insists that unless, as Joe D so aptly pointed out before, the common sense rules that were already in place to deal with crazy people are restored, we as a society are not serious about this mass shooting problem.

  35. Even better — why not give guns to the kids. I’d like to see a gunman try getting past 200 seven year olds with Glocks.

  36. “I’d like to see a gunman try getting past 200 seven year olds with Glocks.”
    once again the Emery-Collective™ is operating unencumbered by the thought process

  37. Just read the shit Emery writes.

    He’s not unique in any way. 1/2 the country thinks the dick sticking out of his forehead is cool, and probably accounts for the deep thoughts he has.

    Why do we want to live with these assholes?

    Leftist reprobates like Emery are all hot to rewrite the Constitution to better suit their twisted worldview. Fuck that. Why not just cut your shithole states out of the union and write a new one from scratch Emery? We’re good with the old, busted original.

  38. Why not just cut your shithole states out of the union and write a new one from scratch Emery?
    Probably because you staters would do insane things, like respond to a school shooting by giving responsible adults the right to carry arms in the classroom.
    Y’know, instead of wishing all guns into non-existence, like the intellectuals do.

  39. Reading Brit news sources is interesting. They hate guns and think Americans are crazy for allowing so many in private hands, but they haven’t gotten as hysterical as the US media over the FL shootings. They see that problem is the 11,000 or so gun murders, not the tiny percentage that results from long-gun murders in schools.
    Poor ignorant bastards. I guess they don’t understand that taking guns away from the people likely to use them to kill other people would be racist.

  40. There is no doubt that the epic leadership failure of Sheriff Scott Israel played a large role.

    MP, you are forgetting Broward County Big Ed driven by the unassailable progressive logic that to reduce crime and arrests in school you have to stop the arrests.

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