The Gun Control Debate Thread

[PeterMP]

5 hours ago, Kilmer17 said:

The issue that arming teachers is a terrible idea.  No different than saying something like “let’s just make all bullets out of grape jelly!”  

 

Its absurd at its core.  And entertaining it as some sort of starting point or possible solution allows for people and politicians to not actually do anything that is required to deal with it. 

 

 

Okay, if somebody is getting regular training and regular screening is taking extra care to keep their weapon secure (e.g. a biometric trigger lock and it is concealed), being taught to continue their normal training in terms of lock down drills and limit their activities with a gun to a case where there is an active shooter that is a direct threat to them, why is that a bad idea?

 

Is that a bad idea and SROs not a bad idea?

[AsburySkinsFan]

1 minute ago, PeterMP said:

 

Okay, if somebody is getting regular training and regular screening is taking extra care to keep their weapon secure (e.g. a biometric trigger lock and it is concealed), being taught to continue their normal training in terms of lock down drills and limit their activities with a gun to a case where there is an active shooter that is a direct threat to them, why is that a bad idea?

 

Is that a bad idea and SROs not a bad idea?

More perfect scenarios....

[Mooka]

1 minute ago, tshile said:

is it that many?

 

Its possible in 18 states, doesn't mean schools/districts in those states actually allow it or don't have heavy restrictions. 

 

For example, in Texas its allowed in < 10% of the total districts and probably less if you go school by school.

 

WY will become the closest to what PeterMP is proposing. 

[DogofWar1]

25 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

It actually completely validates what I've already said.  There is nothing preventing  a deranged/not qualified teacher from bringing a gun into a class room now.

 

Putting in screening and training for teachers that are thinking about, might, or tempted to bring a gun into the classroom actually decreases the risk of this sort of thing happening.

The core problem is who is paying for the screening and training?  At the bare minimum we're talking about mental health screens, and that probably isn't cheap and everything more complex or layered than that costs even more.  If we get into training people in the use of firearms, the cost is gonna skyrocket.

 

Until someone shows me the money for this stuff it just cannot be considered realistic.

 

What will almost certainly happen instead is that teachers will be allowed to bring guns and the training costs will be passed on to teachers.  It will be a permissive system that leaves open the possibility for things like the above case.

Edited February 28, 2018 by DogofWar1

[PeterMP]

11 minutes ago, Mooka said:

 

Its possible in 18 states, doesn't mean schools/districts in those states actually allow it or don't have heavy restrictions. 

 

For example, in Texas its allowed in < 10% of the total districts and probably less if you go school by school.

 

WY will become the closest to what PeterMP is proposing. 

 

Utah allows anybody with a concealed carry permit to carry on a school.  I'm pretty sure it isn't the only one.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/24/us/armed-teachers-states-trnd/index.html

 

https://www.inverse.com/article/41606-which-states-allow-teachers-to-carry-guns

5 minutes ago, DogofWar1 said:

The core problem is who is paying for the screening and training?  At the bare minimum we're talking about mental health screens, and that probably isn't cheap and everything more complex or layered than that costs even more.  If we get into training people in the use of firearms, the cost is gonna skyrocket.

 

Until someone shows me the money for this stuff it just cannot be considered realistic.

 

What will almost certainly happen instead is that teachers will be allowed to bring guns and the training costs will be passed on to teachers.  It will be a permissive system that leaves open the possibility for things like the above case.

 

I've already said I'd pass it onto the teachers.

 

Again, 18 states already allow it with some sort of regulations (e.g. approval by local officials).  I'm just laying out what those seem like they should be to me.

 

I don't see how that allows the above to happen, but just assuming teachers are going to follow the law when others don't is more permissive.

Edited February 28, 2018 by PeterMP

[@DCGoldPants]

Trump to Republican senator: 'You're afraid of the NRA'

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/28/politics/trump-senators-afraid-nra/index.html

 

If there is anything GOP fights him on, it'll be this. 

 

Then again, he probably will say the opposite tomorrow. 

 

 

[tshile]

44 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

Utah allows anybody with a concealed carry permit to carry on a school.  I'm pretty sure it isn't the only one.

Virginia does to.

But only in your vehicle, you are not allowed to leave your vehicle.

If you do leave your vehicle you must secure it in your trunk. But you are not allowed to get out with it to secure it in your trunk, so you must do so before entering school property.

 

 

The reason for this is two fold

- parents picking up/dropping off at school

- school bus stops are considered school property during bus hours, so this allows someone carrying to be at the bus stop.

 

 

[visionary]

 

[tshile]

47 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

I've already said I'd pass it onto the teachers.

I have a problem putting the cost on the teachers. I think tax payers should pay for it, if the teacher qualifies and is willing.

 

Maybe make the teachers reimburse the state if they fail to qualify due to something obviously against the rules (like some legal issue from their past)

 

I realize the cost is a barrier. But if the goal is to have teachers willfully do this, and teachers are already cash strapped, and the goal is to protect my child, then I will happily pay for it (so long as the requirements and training seem good enough to me...)

1 minute ago, visionary said:

 

Trump will get a call from nra tonight

Tomorrow he'll say none of that is happening.

 

I'm half joking but the truth is he's flip flopped like that before on other issues.

 

He seems to be for whatever the last person to get him in a room for 5 minutes is for.

[MartinC]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

 

And I agree with your point, but right now in the US we have the one thing (lots of guns) and no clear path forward to practically change it, then it makes sense to keep the other (cops with guns (though I am one that would argue that we could use less of them)).

 

I WANT the teachers to focus on staying alive, and if they are in a situation when firing their weapon (an active shooter is invading their classroom) is their best way to stay alive, I want them to do so.

 

As has been stated multiple time in this thread, nobody (here) is asking or wants to behave like SWAT or soldiers in WWII (or even normal cops).

 

The point is there is a very small chance they WILL fire that weapon.

 

That study I referenced was in the context of understanding battle stress. As well as the finding about the small percentage of soldiers who fired their weapon it also found the biggest cause of stress was not worrying about being killed - it was worrying about having to kill.

 

The vast majority of time people have a really hard time killing someone else. And it’s deeply psychologically damaging when they have to. So they avoid doing so.

 

Armed teachers is just a flat bad idea. They will not take any action and it’s not even a deterrent. Someone intent on mass murder in a school is not calmly balancing the risk of them being shot by a teacher or security guard. They probably know it’s going to end badly for them - they are in a state of mind where they are not thinking rationally.

 

The only way to solve this is to make it harder for bad/crazy people to get guns. 

 

 

[visionary]

Did anyone post the Walmart news by the way? 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

48 minutes ago, tshile said:

If what?

 

What we were discussing would be bring to school if ____ too. Where If was about background check, some sort of training, and some sort of procedures/policies implemented for identifying teacher vs attacker vs police, securing the weapon, etc etc.

PeterMP answered already but just to elaborate... I'm in TX which is a pretty gun friendly state. There is a law here that allows teachers to bring a gun to school if they have 80 hours of training. It also has to be approved by the school district, the vast majority of which (something like 1,100 out of 1,200) forbid firearms on school property. The ones that do allow it each have their own set of rules. It could be that the gun has to be there for an educational purpose, unloaded, and only for a certain amount of days.

 

The largest association of Texas educators opposes having armed teachers though. As does the NEA, the largest national association. As do the National Association of School Psychologists, the American Federation of Teachers, National Association of School Resource Officers, and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. In fact, educational association are pretty much unanimous on this position. School safety experts and police experts say that it's a bad idea as well. I think we should listen to them and not to Donald Trump or the NRA.

[AsburySkinsFan]

10 minutes ago, visionary said:

 

Here we go again!

 

[Llevron]

Haven't seen any wall Mart news @visionary

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Larry]

4 hours ago, tshile said:

 

It's like talking to a wall.

 

Neither peter nor I are against any of those prevention ideas.

 

We are highly skeptical that there is any political capability of instituting such prevention.

 

 

However, I have to point out:  What's happening here is that the NRA is winning, yet again.  

 

There's a shooting at a school.  

The NRA makes noise about how gun laws don't work, and will not permit any action that might in any way even slightly reduce the killer's (or anybody else's) access to video game level weaponry.  And insists that the only option they will permit to even be discussed are that maybe it would be nice if society had somehow disarmed that one person (but not anybody else, ever), and more guns in more places.  

The public correctly replies that the problem here is not one of lack of guns, it's their presence.  

Nothing happens.  

 

Repeat, every few weeks, for five years.  

 

Eventually, some of the public is willing to admit that maybe occasionally, a miracle might happen, and a gun in the school might be useful, maybe, once a year, somewhere, and there's a chance that it might be worth the inevitable collateral damage that would accompany that "solution".  And they're desperate enough for something that they're willing to consider it.  

 

In short, we have now reached the point where several of the supposedly ultra-left population of Tailgate are willing to discuss the fact that well, putting guns in the school absolutely has down sides, but there is a slim chance that it might have an up side, too.  And the way we got to that point was via five years of the NRA completely stonewalling every single proposal other than the one they demand.  

 

---

 

Now, my opinions on arming teachers, to summarize:  

 

1)  Putting large numbers of guns into a school, in the hands (or some other place within reach) of millions of civilians who are in daily contact with millions of children is guaranteed to result in a large number of "aw, ****"s, all over the nation.  Will a kid die from it once a week?  No way.  One accident a week, and maybe (maybe) one dead kid a year?  I could see that.  

 

2)  Will it prevent so much as a single mass shooting?  I seriously doubt it.  Just my gut, but I assume that most mass shooters assume that they're going to die, anyway.  And they overwhelmingly target schools where they were students.  Where they know the buildings, the drills, the procedures, and the people.  (And I don't really see the armed teachers successfully concealing which ones of them are armed.  At least, not all of them concealing it.  The kids will know who's armed, or at least think that they do.)  

 

3)  When I imagine an armed shooting at a gun-equipped school, I don;t imaging the French teacher whipping out a gun, running towards the sound of the gunfire, and "blowing the kid away".  I imagine a teacher huddled in his classroom, protecting his students (which is, after all, his primary responsibility).  The only difference a gun makes, if that said teacher now has a pistol aimed at the door.  

 

(At the very least, if I'm in charge of training armed teachers, that's what I teach them to do.  There's a much lower chance of mistaken identity, of teacher getting shot by responding cops, of teachers shooting each other, or the wrong kid, or lots of other problems.)  

 

4)  So no, they don't need Delta Force training.  

 

5)  However, the odds of a teacher doing that actually helping with a mass shooting?  Pretty slim.  

 

Consider the latest incident.  How many rooms did the shooter actually enter, during his spree?  I certainly haven't heard, but I assume it's a small number.  He killed 17 people.  I think he could do that in just one classroom, with him with an AR and a room full of cowering, unarmed, people.  So my assumption is that he probably only entered 4 rooms or so.  

 

Now, take your magic wand and time machine, and redo that shooting.  Only this time, there are four teachers, selected at random, who have a gun in their classroom.  

 

The odds are overwhelming that the shooter never walks into one of those four rooms.  You just had four armed teachers in the building when a mass shooting took place, and none of the four ever fired a shot.  

 

Conclusion:  If you want reasonable odds of an armed teacher stopping a mass shooting, arming four teachers per school probably won;t pay off.  You have to arm more like 1/3 or 1/2 of the teachers, to have a good chance of stopping the mass shooting.  (Which will result in a corresponding increase in the number of "awe, ****"s.)  

 

6)  But some times, occasionally, the "good guys with a gun" will win one.  There will be a mass shooting, somewhere, where, say, the third room the shooter walks into will have an armed teacher in it.  Maybe the shooter gets shot.  Heck, maybe the armed teacher simply forces the shooter to stop killing kids, and engage in a gun fight with the teacher, instead.  Even if the teacher loses the gun fight, he still slowed the shooter down some.  

 

It will happen, some time, some where.  

 

7)  Will the number of times #6 happens, justify the number of times #1 happens?  

 

To start with, it's a value judgement.  How many non-lethal "aw ****"s does it take, to equal one "armed teacher might have saved 4-5 lives in a mass shooting"?  

 

(And bear in mind, we will not know for sure exactly how many of either events actually occurs.  So we'd be comparing hypothetical lives saved.)  

 

Me, I figure it's a safe bet that for every hypothetical, there will be over 100 "aw ****"s.  Simply because that appears to be the ratio at which those events happen, in America in general, right now.  But even if we assume a 100:1 ratio (and I'll freely admit that I just pulled that ratio out of my behind), I can see the argument that it's a trade off that people are willing to make.  

 

At the very least, I think that it's possible for someone to make that argument, and not be a complete idiot.  (Heck, they might be right.)  

Edited March 1, 2018 by Larry

[PleaseBlitz]

2 hours ago, PeterMP said:

 

 

 

Most cases local approval, school board, superintendent, principal, etc.  Depends on the state.  They don't set requirements, but you need some sort of approval in most states.

 

When I talked to Kilmer that's why I emphasized minimum requirements at the state level.  It leaves room for locals to add on.

 

Then the local governments get sued by the NRA for violating their FEDERAL rights, and it's expensive as ****, and the NRA has corporate backing and the small local governments can't fight because they need the money for schools.  

[PeterMP]

1 minute ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Then the local governments get sued by the NRA for violating their FEDERAL rights, and it's expensive as ****, and the NRA has corporate backing and the small local governments can't fight because they need the money for schools.  

 

That could happen NOW in many states, and it certainly isn't a federal law.

[tshile]

@Larry

 

I agree with your overall sentiment. Especially the opening part about how we got here.

 

I think that's an accurate description.

 

It doesnt change the fact we're here. Unless something significant changes (according to the polls we've been discussing), I don't think we're leaving "here" anytime soon.

 

I'd much rather be discussing the merits of denying a purchase on background check because of medications, or whether family mental health should matter, or the right firing rate to draw the line at, or the merits of banning semi automatic weapons...

 

... or pretty much any other idea.

 

And I will, when it becomes reasonable to believe it can be passed.

 

That time is not now.

 

(I don't think)

 

[PleaseBlitz]

2 minutes ago, PeterMP said:

 

That could happen NOW in many states, and it certainly isn't a federal law.

 

States have the money to fight.  

 

Anyways, this is all beside the point, which is this: arming teachers is a stupid proposition, and the NRA knows it's a stupid proposition, but they also know that gun nuts are stupid enough to run with it so now everyone is talking about this stupid proposition rather than rationale ones that might actually stop people from getting murdered, because those rational propositions uniformly would reduce the number of guns being sold, which harms the bottom line of gun manufacturers, and improving the profits of gun manufacturers is the only reason the NRA exists.    

Edited March 1, 2018 by PleaseBlitz

[Cooked Crack]

 

[tshile]

It would be bizarrely nice if trump was the reason something finally got done.

 

 

I've not thought through whether it would make 4 or 8 years of trump "worth it" . Need to think more on it. I'm tempted to say yes.

[PleaseBlitz]

Just now, tshile said:

It would be bizarrely nice if trump was the reason something finally got done.

 

 

I've not thought through whether it would make 4 or 8 years of trump "worth it" . Need to think more on it. I'm tempted to say yes.

 

I wouldn't waste your thinkin' time and, even if he got the minor measures that people now consider to be moonshots (you can't buy an assault rifle without, you know, someone checking to make sure you aren't a violent felon), an extra 4 years of Trump is not nearly worth it.

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

[Sacks 'n' Stuff]

36 minutes ago, tshile said:And I will, when it becomes reasonable to believe it can be passed.

 

That time is not now.

 

(I don't think)