You can keep linking that all you want, but it is a third-rate fantasy novelist’s screed full of half-baked arguments and fantasy land bullshit. I don’t care how much “practical experience” he has; his arguments are neither new nor compelling. It’s also on a blog called “Counterjihad” alongside posts like “Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrates Obama Administration…ya THINK?” so you’ll forgive me if I don’t take it very seriously.
I liked the earlier blog link better, the one that illustrated how arbitrary the Assault Weapons definition is.
This new one is making significantly broader claims, many of which have already been discussed in detail in this thread, and some of which have been discredited.
Lynch
1589
The fuck? I don’t get the impression the silly remains of this discussion are going to lead to any eye-opening new arguments. Instead we get creepy links like counterwhatever (be careful with using the j-word online) and a blogging gun nut (not you Houngan) seriously proposing to arm teachers.
The laws in the US are going to be changed eventually. It’s not a question of the if but rather of the when.
It’s the US, and the US alone, who has to clear the cloudy waters. There’s no agenda, ther’s just sanity and reason.
This is great! He has a post called “Ethnic, religious, and racial “sensitivity” for everyone but SERBS”! And he has the look down:
ahahahahahahha
Houngan
1591
I’ll offer this:
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/01/foghorn/ttag-simulated-school-shooting-experiment-results-and-analysis/#more-185089
with the usual caveats. It’s a partisan source, it comes to a conclusion based on a single iteration of tests, etc. However I do think there’s more value in a single test than in twenty yards of speculation. I do not hold the conclusion to be my opinion on the subject, I’m just linking it for those that wouldn’t see this sort of thing in their daily browse.
Without directly addressing their results or their methodology, I would mention this paragraph:
“[T]here is no difference from the baseline ‘risk’”.
The article makes no attempt to recognize the risk of accidents from having a gun in every classroom in the U.S., every day.
Scenario three is one where I agree there’s probably clear defensive value, but I think the odds of that scenario coming up balanced against the scary scenario 2 (armed teacher twitching to draw on anyone walking through the door) and the risk of accidents, given the number of classrooms involved, is tremendous.
Honestly, is there anyone outside the deep, deep NRA types that are legitimately adopting the guns-on-every-teacher scenario?
That’s somewhat interesting, but mostly for the negative result (that an armed security guard may not be effective). Given that they know this is specifically a shooting simulation, you’d expect everybody who isn’t the shooter to be able to react more quickly than in real life. Even if they don’t know who the shooter will be, they know there’s a shooter at some point within the next 5 minutes or so, and aren’t focusing on teaching a class, etc.
Also, of course, it doesn’t account for the costs associated with possibility of accidental discharge harming the students, or the myriad other problems with having a gun in a school. Even if they answer the very narrow question of whether an armed teacher would reduce casualties in a specific classroom, it’s much too narrow a question to begin with.
But I’d hope that somebody is doing simulations and tests like this, with better controls. Maybe you could do it with high school students in the room to work through an actual lesson plan without worrying about traumatizing them.
Houngan
1594
Sure, that’s an entirely valid question, but I think this was designed specifically to test the idea of whether, -during a shooting-, an armed person in a school would help. It’s a fair question to ask without factoring in other externalities since it’s such a hot topic of discussion at the moment. I also don’t know that they’re suggesting that all teachers be armed, but are rather just seeing if an armed teacher would be any help at all.
I would think that, short of pacifists, most people would acknowledge that for a known gunman scenario, having a defensive gun there certainly has some value (e.g., most people would wish that an armed cop would magically pop up every time a shooting happened). Like I mentioned, I think scenario 3, in the moment, is a very reasonable outcome.
The issue is the cost of having that magic person in the right place, at the right time, with right training, and some forewarning. Reducing the question to just what happens in the moment misses the major costs of such an initiative.
CLWheeljack brings up a very good and very important job: unlike a security guard or cop, a teacher has a day job: teaching. They aren’t (or at least shouldn’t) be devoting mental resources to guarding the door. It frankly makes any other than scenario 3 (alerted) completely unrealistic in terms of defensive value, short of the gunman trying to take hostages and being surprised that the teacher has gun on them.
Houngan
1596
Based on how many times I’ve heard that CCW can’t possibly help (not enough training, they’ll kill civilians, gun will go off accidentally, etc. etc.) I would argue with your assessment about who would consider a defensive gun a help, but that’s neither here nor there.
Otherwise, I agree with you, except to point out it would also help in scenario #4, where an armed person moves to the shooter’s location, though with the caveat that it was heavily weighted in respect to ability of the participants. Your point about primary jobs would make that scenario unlikely to help enough to make it part of the conversation.
Unless we could get some shooting competitions included in the curriculum. ducks
H.
One gun, yes. The more guns, the less valuable they are because target differentiation…is a problem under those circumstances for people not trained as a team.
Moreover, there’s considerable risk to the people with guns being shot by the police as well.
I saw a link to an amusing flip-flop in 1999 by Wayne LaPierre of the NRA, before his recent comments about arming teachers and correctly trashing the irony of gun free school zones:
We think it is reasonable to support the Federal Gun Free School Zones Act. What is unreasonable is 6,000 students caught with illegal guns at school the last 2 years and only 13 prosecutions.
(This is back when their big angle was to prosecute criminals who misuse or try to purchase guns.)
Bonus:
We think it is reasonable to provide mandatory, instant criminal background checks for every sale at every gun show. No loopholes anywhere for anyone. That means closing the Hinckley loophole so the records of those adjudicated mentally ill are in the system.
I was going to look for more amusing examples like this, but he was interrupted in the transcript by Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee debating whether the red light went on to indicate LaPierre’s time was up. Haha, Congress.
The single defining factor in all of these videos that I have seen, including ABC’s test, the 71 year old in the gambling parlor and these tests, a simple common thread emerges for me:
The person reacting loses. The person acting (shooting first) wins.
This means the ‘old security guard standing at the door with a holstered gun’ scenario is totally ineffective. I would also argue that an armed teacher cannot defend a classroom if someone storms in on her.
However, even though I oppose adding armed and trained guards to school, or arming the teachers - the results of these experiments indicate that there is some value in a response that is not immediate.
In other words, if a teacher or security guard has a minute, 5 minutes, to get their adrenalin under control, to get their weapon out, to respond to a threat or to defend a classroom, then they can be effective.
So, if you want to use guns as defense, you need to give the responder time and training to defend.
Houngan
1600
Yep, there’s a lot of truth in the old adage that “the quickest draw is already having a gun in your hand.” As ugly a piece of math as it is, the value would lie in the second target, not the first, where I concur you would probably have a complete domination by the shooter. However when we’re talking about school shootings, we’re usually talking about a shooter that has quite a bit of time and goes to multiple areas.
Right - so there are a couple of scenarios to counteract that.
-
A school guard in a bunker monitoring video cameras. Someone who can never be the first target, but who can notify authorities and then come out shooting as a responder.
-
Some sort of locked down weapon system for teachers in classrooms. Something that can be unlocked in the event of a shooter. Something that can’t be abused. I can’t even begin to game this out in a scenario that makes sense.
I mean, it would be easier and safer to install deadbolts on every classroom door to provide those huddled inside time for police response.
Houngan
1602
Yeah, on a case-by-case basis your last point is the important one. Give them a meaningful ability to lock down the room and you’ll do more than any random arming program. The only problem is that you have to have a way to lock down the room, be able to leave the room, and still be able to access the room in the case of a fire or tornado or chemical spill or whatever. You can’t just lock kids in a room without someone on the inside who can get them out, either through the door or window, and if every teacher has a key to every room then your advantage vs. a shooter is greatly diminished after he kills the first teacher.
Houngan, while we are in violent agreement here, I’m going to go ahead and exit the thread for the night.
Hey guys, I mostly lurk in this thread because I’m not too educated on the issue, but a libertarian, gun-loving policeman friend just posted this on his Facebook:
This is slightly disturbing… a couple of days ago, John Noveski, owner of one of the largest AR manufacturers in the country, died in an automobile accident that has been described as “suspicious”, though I don’t have any more details than that.
Just now, I learned that the manager of the FPSRussia YouTube channel, the third most popular channel on YouTube and one known for portraying firearms in a positive light, was murdered… many are saying that he was tied to a chair and shot in the head.
Many liberals have called for the murder of people involved in the firearms trade recently.
This is most likely coincidence… but it does make one wonder…
Before my liberal readers complain about my choice of words, well, it certainly hasn’t been right-wing conservatives calling for people to be killed in the name of preventing violence, or whatever the hell it is that those people are trying to achieve… so, whatever…
I don’t even know how to reply to this or if I should reply, but this kinda conspiracy nonsense scares me and I needed to vent it somewhere. Hope y’all don’t mind.
