Report: 2 shot at Calif. high school; shooter detained

[Mad Mike]

I am not concerned about a professional security guard shooting students. I think it is reasonable to have armed security guards in schools (although I question the cost-effectiveness of having a full-time guard in every elementary school in the country).

I am concerned with a teacher's gun being taken by a student or fired accidentally. Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

Go back and read my posts. I've said I'm against arming teachers. What I said was that in situations where it was not feasible to have an armed guard, AN ADMINISTRATOR (someone working in the office) could be trained and licensed for concealed carry as a last line of defense.

Edit: My bad. I can see how you thought I was arguing for arming teachers. I misspoke. I think I was still arguing with 757SeanTaylor21 in my head. :doh:

[MattFancy]

there is no need to chase with lockdown procedures.

I do not propose requiring teachers to carry,but there are many that will and are volunteering to do so.

it beats shielding the kids with your corpse

I just don't see it as a good idea. I think having an armed security guard is fine, but asking the teachers to carry is just too much IMO.

[Son of Gadsden]

Zero people have been killed in this case. The story has basically dropped off of any national news reporting.

Oh damn, I skip reading a post ONE time and look like an idiot. Lesson learned.

[PeterMP]

there are two countries where teachers are armed, one school district here in Texas does as well

there are also other ones in the US that have allowed teachers to be armed on a case by case basis(naturally that is kept quiet)

despite all these armed teachers I know of none shooting a student....do you?

texas

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/29/us/29texas.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Utah

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/27/gun-classes-teachers-utah-ohio-shooting/1793773/

Utah has allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons on K-12 campuses for 12 years now and, said Aposhian, "We have never had any accidental or intentional shootings." He serves on the state board where any violation of concealed weapon laws would be reported.

"Teachers are professionals. They will take appropriate measures to maintain a gun discreetly and safely," said Aposhian, a tactical firearm instructor.

What two countries?

Your talking about low numbers of teachers in each of the cases in this country, and it isn't clear how many you are talking about in either case (in reality, the number might actually be 0) so I don't think you can derive any useful data from this.

And at least the case in TX, there appears to have been no deaths in schools BEFORE the teachers were carrying guns so your looking at the same death rate over time (though the gun carrying teachers are relatively recent).

[DjTj]

Edit: My bad. I can see how you thought I was arguing for arming teachers. I misspoke. I think I was still arguing with 757SeanTaylor21 in my head. :doh:

No problem.

I'll just argue with twa instead.

what if I told you the teachers would be better (or equal to) trained and screened than most armed security guards?

I would ask you how much is that training going to cost? How much time will it take? We aren't spending enough time and money training our teachers to be teachers, so I don't know where we're going to get the resources to to train teachers to be security guards.

why the fear?

Nothing stops a teacher from shooting kids now,but a armed teacher IS in the best position to defend against a shooter.

I don't think teachers will start shooting their students. A crazy teacher could do that now.

I am concerned with a teacher's gun being taken by a student or fired accidentally. Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense.

During the study interval (12 months in Memphis, 18 months in Seattle, and Galveston) 626 shootings occurred in or around a residence. This total included 54 unintentional shootings, 118 attempted or completed suicides, and 438 assaults/homicides. Thirteen shootings were legally justifiable or an act of self-defense, including three that involved law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty. For every time a gun in the home was used in a self-defense or legally justifiable shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

I am okay with administrators who are already licensed to carry to have guns in the case where a security guard can't be hired, but I am wary about guns in the classroom. And I am especially wary about trying to train administrators or teachers who aren't already licensed to start carrying guns in school. It can be an additional responsibility of their jobs if they are already comfortable with it, but it shouldn't be forced on someone if there is a school where nobody on the staff is a gun owner.

[Corcaigh]

And for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume these figures are wrong. Let's cut that figure in half just to be sure there is no exaggeration.

Thats 81 THOUSAND times a year someone justifiably used a gun in self defense, be it by showing the gun, or firing it.

I don't know what to make of those numbers. Maybe I've lived an extraordinarily sheltered life but I have never in my life been in a situation where I needed to rely on a gun to defend myself. None of my acquaintances or friends have had to either. I've defused, and walked away from, plenty of situations that could have been nasty. For us, and it's only a very limited sample I'll admit, the added risk of having a gun in our home, stored in a manner that I could access it quickly to defend myself against an unannounced and uninvited invader, is not worth it. The actual risk of a gun in our home seems like a greater one that the possibility of someone from outside entering our home and requiring us to engage in a shootout.

[Son of Gadsden]

Screw aiming teachers, let's just hire Academi security.

That should be interesting.

[Mad Mike]

I don't know what to make of those numbers. Maybe I've lived an extraordinarily sheltered life but I have never in my life been in a situation where I needed to rely on a gun to defend myself. None of my acquaintances or friends have had to either. I've defused, and walked away from, plenty of situations that could have been nasty. For us, and it's only a very limited sample I'll admit, the added risk of having a gun in our home, stored in a manner that I could access it quickly to defend myself against an unannounced and uninvited invader, is not worth it. The actual risk of a gun in our home seems like a greater one that the possibility of someone from outside entering our home and requiring us to engage in a shootout.

I've been mugged twice. One of those times I consider myself lucky to have escaped alive. On one hand I diffused the situation enough to get away, on the other I still got beat up and it was not uncommon to see in the news that someone was killed in that area. I have also been robbed at gunpoint working at a self serve gas station. The fact that I survived those situations statistically has no bearing on my chances of survival should it happen again, especially now that I'm over 50 and live with a heart condition.

Chances are you do live a sheltered life. Most of us do.

[Son of Gadsden]

I don't know what to make of those numbers. Maybe I've lived an extraordinarily sheltered life but I have never in my life been in a situation where I needed to rely on a gun to defend myself. None of my acquaintances or friends have had to either. I've defused, and walked away from, plenty of situations that could have been nasty. For us, and it's only a very limited sample I'll admit, the added risk of having a gun in our home, stored in a manner that I could access it quickly to defend myself against an unannounced and uninvited invader, is not worth it. The actual risk of a gun in our home seems like a greater one that the possibility of someone from outside entering our home and requiring us to engage in a shootout.

I'm 22 and I've had two experiences already. Didn't fire. Showing it was enough. One was my dad stopping a man from breaking into our hotel room on vacation. Another was me using it in a kind of baiting scam at my front door with a guy who was a terrible liar. I also have a father in law who raped my wife multiple times as a child, threw her mother down a flight of stairs, and has done any number of other abusive acts. He's a childrens doctor, so he's got money and another personality when not behind closed doors so no one believes what goes on. I took a pistol with me on my (at that time) girlfriend's 18th birthday on my trip to her house to attempt to peacefully take her away from his home. How does the quote go? "Pray for peace, prepare for war". Didn't have to show my pistol because it just so happens he was not home, had he been home and made a scene, it may have saved lives. My grandfather was murdered in cold blood by his step-son with a gun. So I've got that aspect too. My other grandfather's house was broken into and he backed the burglar down with a shotgun.

There are most certainly many situations where guns ARE needed and DO save lives. How about the recent story where the mother in Georgia shot down a burglar who was coming after her and her daughters with a crow bar? Was a big dude. Her chances are surviving were just about nothing. With a gun, that changed. Hell, the statistics alone show that guns are used twice as often as defense than used for crimes. Your specific experience is the norm. However, I'm glad you've never needed one.

If you have a gun in your home and you have taken a gun safety course and are a responsible person, the chances of that gun misfiring is so slim. That's a problem of ignorance my wife had originally when I met her. She didn't like being in the room with a gun nearby. After her watching my gunsmithing and everything else enough, I explained to her and showed her...guns don't just go off on their own. There are a series of things that have to occur other than just pulling the trigger, also. Kids are the same way. I grew up in a home knowing exactly where my father's home defense weapon was. I was told multiple times "Don't touch Daddy's rifle. It is not a toy. You can kill yourself, or mom and dad or one of your friends if you do. Leave it alone. For no reason do you touch it." That was emphasized on very often. My parents also didn't shelter me from weapons. I fired my first weapon at probably 7 years old. I was taught gun safety and the consequences of my actions with a firearm. I never touched a firearm as a child, yet they were not locked or in a safe (they were locked in my parents room though, of course...which was also off limits). Why? Because my parents were responsible parents. The thing to fear in this world is ignorance. Without ignorance, guns are completely safe. With ignorance, just about nothing is safe. If you don't know gun safety, and are incapable of treating it as a serious thing, no.....you should not have one in your home. But I'd bet you can.

[twa]

No problem.

I'll just argue with twa instead.

I would ask you how much is that training going to cost? How much time will it take? We aren't spending enough time and money training our teachers to be teachers, so I don't know where we're going to get the resources to to train teachers to be security guards.

I don't think teachers will start shooting their students. A crazy teacher could do that now.

I am concerned with a teacher's gun being taken by a student or fired accidentally. Guns kept in homes are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal accidental shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9715182

I am okay with administrators who are already licensed to carry to have guns in the case where a security guard can't be hired, but I am wary about guns in the classroom. And I am especially wary about trying to train administrators or teachers who aren't already licensed to start carrying guns in school. It can be an additional responsibility of their jobs if they are already comfortable with it, but it shouldn't be forced on someone if there is a school where nobody on the staff is a gun owner.

if individuals or organisations are willing to pay the costs it is immaterial(though making it tax deductible might be appropriate), as far as time....many teachers have time,and are presently taking training

would a gun safe be enough to ease your objection to a guns presence?

You could go even further and have the gun in the safe and the clip/speedloader in the teachers possession

I certainly agree no one should be forced to be armed

is the risk of school shootings so small that even prudent measures are more of a risk?

[Predicto]

And again, *this* is ignored....

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

And for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume these figures are wrong. Let's cut that figure in half just to be sure there is no exaggeration.

Thats 81 THOUSAND times a year someone justifiably used a gun in self defense, be it by showing the gun, or firing it.

Just so you know, that particular study is highly controversial, at best. Here's a long (and admittedly hostile) discussion of that study. Despite its tone, it makes some seriously compelling points that appear to destroy the methodology of that study.

http://propagandaprofessor.net/tag/marc-gertz/

(edit - I should add that this appears to be extremely difficult thing for anyone to study accurately)

[twa]

What two countries?

Your talking about low numbers of teachers in each of the cases in this country, and it isn't clear how many you are talking about in either case (in reality, the number might actually be 0) so I don't think you can derive any useful data from this.

And at least the case in TX, there appears to have been no deaths in schools BEFORE the teachers were carrying guns so your looking at the same death rate over time (though the gun carrying teachers are relatively recent).

Israel and Thailand

you will never have useful numbers as long as those teachers armed remain on the down low

there have been armed teachers for decades w/o incident

Teachers can be both armed responsible citizens and teachers - they aren't mutually exclusive

[Predicto]

I often wonder how it is that I have lived to the age of 50, lived in the heart of a major city for decades, and I have never once needed to "show" a gun. Nor has pretty much anyone else that I know.

Yet almost every anonymous conservative on the internet has to do it mutliple times, and everyone they know seems to have to do it as well. Do they live in a different world than I do?

[twa]

I often wonder how it is that I have lived to the age of 50, lived in the heart of a major city for decades, and I have never once needed to "show" a gun. Nor has pretty much anyone else that I know.

probably never had a mass school shooting there either,hasn't happened here either

nothing to see here

[Corcaigh]

I often wonder how it is that I have lived to the age of 50, lived in the heart of a major city for decades, and I have never once needed to "show" a gun. Nor has pretty much anyone else that I know.

Yet almost every anonymous conservative on the internet has to do it mutliple times, and everyone they know seems to have to do it as well. Do they live in a different world than I do?

The logical conclusion is that manly men don't need to brandish weapons in order to be left alone and respected.

[Predicto]

In case people are too lazy or busy to read the link that I posted, I'm going to set out a few excerpts:

Unless you’re really heavily immersed in a gun propaganda website, I probably don’t have to tell you that there is a wee bit of difference between 2.5 million and 2.5 hundred. The question is, which is closer to the truth? No, strike that. The question is, how could a reputable researcher like Dr. Kleck, even given his apparent propensity for gun worship, have ****** up so royally?

I don’t claim to have a solid answer for that. I don’t believe he deliberately cooked the books, and even if he did, it hardly would cover the bases. There have been at least a dozen other “studies”, one by the Department of Justice, that also generated some preposterous projections. Granted, there was quite a range in the totals, with the lowest being 65,000. That, contrasted with the high of 2.5 million, is a point spread of 4000 percent, for crying out loud; and that, if nothing else, ought to raise a matador-size red flag about the challenges of obtaining accurate data on such a subject. But even 65,000 seems greatly overinflated.

So it appears that Dr. Kleck is not to blame. Instead, the probable explanation is that the respondents to such surveys tend to give consistently and wildly distorted responses. Why? Well, that might take an actual study or two to figure out. Prof. David Hemenway of Harvard has made some illuminating comments, which of course have been attacked ferociously by the gun lobby. He notes by way of comparison that among 1500 adults contacted at random, 10 percent claimed to have witnessed a UFO, and of those, 6 percent claimed to have had personal contact with space aliens. Which would mean that 1,380,000 American adults have encountered Klingons. And hey, 579,600 of those may have been hauling a heater. Hmmm… maybe so many DGUs are missing because they occur on the far side of the chronosynclastic infundibulum.

A 2004 investigation – one actually might call it a study - by J. F. Denton and Dr. W. V. Fabricius that examined shooting incidents over a period of 3.5 months in the Phoenix metropolitan area confirmed that of 81 shootings, only 3 were of a defensive nature; two occurred in a single encounter with two security guards firing at the same offender, and the third involved a family quarrel. The Kleck data would have projected 334 defensive shootings for the time frame and location. Denton and Fabricius illustrate the drawbacks of the Kleck survey by discussing another clash involving a drunken quarrel between two acquaintances, one of whom shot the other to death, which was ruled to be criminal homicide, but which Dr. Kleck would have misclassified as a DGU. Undoubtedly, there have been many cases that were misclassified.

Indeed, a close inspection of the Kleck data reveals some major thorns. As we mentioned, at least 36 percent of respondents stated they didn’t even notify police. Which makes you wonder whether the incidents really were serious enough to justify calling in the infantry. Furthermore, 46.8 percent admitted (the actual percentage could be higher) that the supposed offender neither attacked nor made a threat. So what made the hardware necessary? In more than half of the cases, the supposed defender admitted (the actual percentage may be higher) that the supposed offender had no weapon of any kind. And since 57.6 percent of defenders say they verbally referred to their guns and 75.7 percent brandished or showed their guns, that seems to indicate that about 25 percent only referred to them verbally. And this counts as a defensive gun use? I could do the same thing, but since I don’t even own a gun, the weapon du jour would be bull****, not a Glock.

In 8.3 percent of the cases, the subject claimed to have wounded or killed the offender. There is no breakdown of what percentage was killed, but let’s conservatively guess one percent. Most likely, the true percentage is much higher, especially given that there seem to be a great many gun incidents that are falsely classified as DGUs; and a higher percentage of fatal shootings means a lower number of DGUs. But even one percent of 2.5 million would be 25,000; and we should be able to verify this because gun deaths are a matter of official record. Oops. According to the FBI, there were only 232 justifiable homicides by firearm in all of 2010 – and this was an increase over recent years. No matter how you slice it, something in Kleck has to go.

Perhaps most interestingly, the subjects claimed to have experienced an average of about 1.5 DGUs each for a 5-year period; in other words, many of them said they were involved in multiple incidents. Talk about red flags. This supposedly random sampling that supposedly represents the typical American gun owner nonetheless seems to be comprised largely of people who live in the world’s worst neighborhoods. In contrast, this group of gun owners, in response to a query about how often they’ve drawn their weapons (which doesn’t necessarily mean a DGU) typically say once or twice in 15 years or 25 or 30 years; some even say “never”, although such an individual is probably not as likely to respond to this question at all.

All told, these facts shoot a big gaping hole in one of the gun culture’s prime tenets: that guns are used in self-defense more often they are used to commit crimes – some even claim ten times as often or more! In the Phoenix sample, however, the score was 78 to 3 in favor of the Offense. Granted, these were actual shootings and most defenders don’t open fire – but neither do most offenders. While there are only a few hundred confirmed DGUs per year, there are at least 400,000 gun crimes per year.

I don't expect people to take this commentary as a definitive analysis, but it does make one think.

[Pwyl]

In case people are too lazy or busy to read the link that I posted, I'm going to set out a few excerpts:

I don't expect people to take this commentary as a definitive analysis, but it does make one think.

fyi your quoted text has a profanity filter violation.

[Predicto]

The logical conclusion is that manly men don't need to brandish weapons in order to be left alone and respected.

More like, the logical conclusion is that some people who post on the internet (or answer anonymous surveys) may actually be using their guns for defensive purposes, but a whole heck of a lot more are claiming that they did, either because it makes them feel more badass or because they want the survey results to show that guns are needed.

Sometimes I think that "**** that Never Happened" is the most common currency on the entire Internet (well, except for Japanese tentacle porn...)

---------- Post added January-11th-2013 at 06:22 PM ----------

fyi your quoted text has a profanity filter violation.

thanks, cleaned it up

[RansomthePasserby]

I don't know what to make of those numbers. Maybe I've lived an extraordinarily sheltered life but I have never in my life been in a situation where I needed to rely on a gun to defend myself. None of my acquaintances or friends have had to either...

I've never been in that situation either, but I have friends that have. One of my friends was staying at his mom's house for the night to keep her company while his dad was on a business trip. I guess some crook knew the man of the house was gone, but didn't know my friend was there, because my friend heard someone trying to break in through the window. My friend grabbed his gun, flipped on the laser sight, pointed it at the intruder, and told him to get lost. The guy didn't hesitate to obey.

[Predicto]

I've never been in that situation either, but I have friends that have. One of my friends was staying at his mom's house for the night to keep her company while his dad was on a business trip. I guess some crook knew the man of the house was gone, but didn't know my friend was there, because my friend heard someone trying to break in through the window. My friend grabbed his gun, flipped on the laser sight, pointed it at the intruder, and told him to get lost. The guy didn't hesitate to obey.

I'm going to say this, um, gently.

Any chance the story was embellished a wee bit by your friend to make it more interesting?

I'm prone to doing that myself, almost everyone is, so I know how it can happen.

[RansomthePasserby]

I'm going to say this, um, gently.

Any chance the story was embellished a wee bit by your friend to make it more interesting?

I'm prone to doing that myself, almost everyone is, so I know how it can happen.

Probably a little. He's a cop though, so he's pretty confident when it comes to pointing guns at people.

[Predicto]

Probably a little. He's a cop though, so he's pretty confident when it comes to pointing guns at people.

Fair enough.

I seem to recall some stat that said that even cops don't pull their guns in the line of duty very often, and that is a huge part of their job.

[PeterMP]

Israel and Thailand

you will never have useful numbers as long as those teachers armed remain on the down low

there have been armed teachers for decades w/o incident

Teachers can be both armed responsible citizens and teachers - they aren't mutually exclusive

I don't think you are right. I don't think Israel arms the vast majority of their teachers (teachers on the West Bank are armed) and as I'm sure you know Isreali's also have mandatory military experience, and I'd be somewhat shocked if those that are armed aren't specially selected so I don't know how much that tells us about anything.

Also Isreal has much stricter gun laws than us;

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/12/16/israeli-teachers-are-armed-and-other-stupid-right-wing-myths/

http://jewishpreppers.com/2012/12/are-israeli-teachers-armed/

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/polinaut/archive/2012/12/poligraph_littl.shtml

I can find less on Thailand, but it again it appears that in a small section of Thialand teachers are ALLOWED (not forced) to carry guns.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4651711.stm

This makes it sound like it hasn't even happened:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/326841/bulletproof-vests-proposed-for-teachers

"Mr Sermsak added that each of the three southernmost provinces had been granted the authority to consider issuing gun licences to teachers so that they may legally carry them in public."

That's dated 2012.

Do you have any reliable information on who actually carries guns, how many, and their trainng?

Do you think you or would have heard if a teacher shot a student in Israel or Thailand.

Where have their been armed teachers for decades? The article you posted before made it sound like in the TX case they were keeping the who and numbers on the down low for security issues (so the bad guys didn't have that info).

**EDIT**

It occurs to me if what appears to me to be true about the other countries is that they've decided that their high risk schools, which appear to be have a much higher risk than schools in the US can/will potentailly have teachers with guns. But not the rest of them.

Essentially, even there unless the risk is extremely high the risk of teachers with guns isn't worth it in those countries.

If the risk of school shottings was equal to what is in those parts of Thailand and Israel, I very well might have a different opinion (heck, I've already said we should treat high schools different than elementary schools because what I think are likely different risks).