3147

The point in the article is that the number of people who are determined to end their own life and will find a way regardless of available methods is relatively small. The number of people who have a spur-of-the-moment desire to kill themselves, on the other hand, is relatively large, so decreasing their success rate is effective at saving lives.

3148

Unbeleivably sad and kinda related:

3149

That’s really a heart-wrenching story. Poor kid.

3150

Ridiculous of course, but I’m starting to come around on having trained, armed protection at schools.

http://themattwalshblog.com/2013/12/15/put-guns-in-the-schools-because-thats-the-only-sane-thing-to-do/

Are you unconvinced? OK, imagine the worst case scenario. Imagine you turn on the news one afternoon and you see it: there’s an active shooter at your child’s school. Now, imagine the anchor comes on and informs the audience that this school has a resource officer, or armed security, or armed teachers. How would you feel? Would you actually be MORE concerned knowing that your kid isn’t utterly defenseless? Would you think, “Gee, I wish the shooter was the only one with a gun in that building”?

3151

That’s a terrible argument. Sure, I might feel safer if in an incredibly statistically improbable turn of events a gunman takes over my child’s school, but every other day of every other year I’d feel way less safe knowing that there are guns in the school. I’d wager that the likelihood of an armed teacher shooting a gunman is less than the likelihood of the teacher’s gun being misused.

3152

Yeah, it’s very much a false positive / false negative kind of breakdown.

Also, you’d have to account for how much armed, trained protection in the schools actually increases survivability. If each armed teacher has a 90% chance of deterring a shooter, my calculus is pretty different than if they only have a 30% chance.

The other aspect though is: would the knowledge that there are armed teachers in schools reduce the likelihood of shooters picking schools to begin with, and by how much? Does it deter the shooter entirely, or just re-direct them to a different, unarmed populace?

3153

Setting aside the author’s persecution complex (blah blah liberal media bias blah blah), if NYC apparently won’t or can’t afford to adequately train their police officers to use their weapons properly, what’re the odds of every school district in Middleofnowhere, America being able to afford it? It’s easy to say, “Oh, just get volunteers who know what they’re doing with guns!” but just because someone knows how to hit a bullseye at 50 yards doesn’t mean they know squat about how to react to a dangerous situation. Who’s going to test, certify, etc. all those people to ensure they’re up to snuff? Plus you’ve gotta worry about issues such as secure storage vs. easy access in an emergency.

In short: who’s gonna pay for all this?

3154

The best solution would be to publicly and loudly declare that all the principals and assistant principals in America are being issued semi-automatic M4s. Then - without telling anyone but the principals themselves - not actually distribute any weapons to anyone.

Then you’re done. Cowardly nut-cases would have to pick a new target to noisily kill themselves at (probably old-folks homes); the kids aren’t in any new danger; and with the exception of some odd NDAs that you have to get the school officials to sign, we’re not out any money either.

3155

OR, you buy like 1 gun per state and that weapon is rotated through the state’s schools on an undeclared and randomized schedule. The principal of the school would walk the halls with the weapon slung on its LAST day at the school. Unbeknownst to anyone, the ammunition for the gun would be mis-delivered long ago.

3156

Armed guards didn’t dissuade the Naval Yard attacker - and he was able to kill 12 people before armed security took him down.

Of course that shooter was able to buy a shotgun despite a history of gun violence and mental illness - and even the proposed expanded background checks probably wouldn’t have stopped him

3157

There are also already armed “resource officers” in many bigger city high schools anyway. Remember, there was one at Columbine that exchanged shots with the two attackers there and then left the building.

At this point you also have to keep in mind that how police departments respond to mass shootings is totally different then it was even 10 years ago. They used to tell patrol officers to simply establish a perimeter and wait for the SWAT/tactical team, but no more. Now patrol officers go in as soon as two or three of them arrive on scene, which is normally within minutes. And as horrible as something like Newtown and Columbine are, most school schootings are nowhere near like that - the shooters have limited goals and committ suicide or they are taken down quickly.

3158

Seriously? What was the point of him then??

3159

Depending on your pov and what reports you read, he supposedly helped rescue several survivors (including a pair that were already shot) who were fleeing through the parking lot by engaging the shooters as they fired out the window at the students and teachers that were running away. He also radioed for back up.

3160

With everyone armed you’d have a metric fuck ton of vigilante justice to deal with, I think lawyers would benefit.

3161

Oh good, haven’t heard the “blood in the streets” argument in a while. Tell us it’ll be like the Wild West!!

3162

Hold on, Janster may be on to something here.

3163

Except that the Naval Yard was a Gun Free Zone and they had to wait for the police to arrive.

Hell, most military bases are Gun Free Zones. Cause we can’t trust those soldiers.

3164

So which is it, armed resource officers at schools are a complete evil, and thus you’re going to do something about removing the ones that are already there (like the one that just saved the day) or they might do some good?

Armed guards didn’t dissuade the Naval Yard attacker - and he was able to kill 12 people before armed security took him down.

We’re not talking about dissuading, we’re talking about reacting.

3165
  1. Police are offensive against a possibly innocent subject. School shootings are a much clearer situation.
  2. And yet they afford to hire teachers that went through years of training and continue to train them, year after year.
  3. The government.
  4. Holsters.
  5. The government.

I’m not really for picking out a teacher and training them, FWIW. I can definitely see an advantage to hiring off-duty law enforcement for the role. It’s a ready-made package that just costs money.

3166

Er … 3 & 5 means more taxes or cuts somewhere else, of course. Guess which is more likely.

I don’t mind having armed guards at a school. I sincerely doubt they’ll have a major impact, but saving a life here or there without losing any liberties is a good enough payoff for me. Still, the financial cost is pretty large to apply it to every school (there are about 100,000 in the U.S. * whatever the annual salary of an armed guard or two would be), and I have no interest on being the actuary who figures out what a life is worth.

edit - there’s probably an issue with professional liability that comes into play and has a financial impact, as well, but that’s just gravy