What you do or do not appreciate is not of the slightest interest to me. This is a board where issues are debated and discussed. I am not putting words in your mouth. I don't have any reason to want to get anywhere near your mouth. I don't know where it's been.

What I have done and will continue to do is interpret your words. Now if you don't like the interpretation, that's not really my problem, is it?





Wow. Paranoid, much? If you read slowly and carefully and don't move your lips while doing so, maybe you will pick up that at no time did I say or suggest, "Scubatim says kids should wear Kevlar vests in school." Geez, dude. Relax. It really is not all about you.






I can live with that.





O.K. I read into that guns don't kill people. Teachers with guns kill people. How's that?





Oh, so now it's MY fault if there's another school shooting. Well, that's just great, scubatim. Blame the Black guy. Go ahead and louse up my day.

On the serious tip though, I don't like guns. I don't own a gun and I don't think I need a gun. If you do, that's fine. That's YOUR choice. Don't try to infer I care any less for my family's safety because we choose not to own a gun. For the record, I have children in public school so their safety is of paramount importance to me, but I don't think adding handling guns to the duties of a educator makes any sense.




Just like you do, right?



What I think is a good solution is to not allow guns on any school besides those that are wielded by trained security. All this crap about shotguns in the back of a truck sounds very macho and all that, but it's typical, reactionary, right-wing overkill.




I know you miss your old sparring partner, Blackstone, but really, seriously---about your pots. They aren't tame. Boring perhaps, but not tame. And when you typed that line about "factual rebuttals" were you laughing when you did it because I was when I read it.



Are these examples of your "factural rebuttals?" Because from here they sure look like shrill, hysterical, overly emotional appeals to fear and nightmare worst-case scenarios.

Then debate and discuss instead of assuming I meant only teachers. It's your words, not mine.



No, but it does show the lack of intellectual discussion on your part.







Since you are quoting me, everyone would presume you are suggesting that that is your position, so it isn't about me, but about you!








Remember that in future discussions. Set the bar, but don't ask others to be more specific if you can't do it yourself!







That would be fine with me if they are shooting at some wackjob that is shooting innocent kids, that would be fine!







I have a feeling no one here can louse up your day. I don't think allowing school staff to carry weapons to protect themselves and others will prevent another school shooting, but it can prevent many from being killed, so I don't think I would blame you for that. Laughable debate is something that I would blame you for!



I don't know if I would classify it as a duty, but if they chose to do so, I don't think we should stop them. I would never stand in a position to force someone to carry a weapon if they didn't want to. That definately wouldn't solve any problems.

No one is inferring that you care any less for your family, my point was that it would be beneficial, IMO, to have the ability to stop some crazy from shooting my family if I can. Unfortunately, yelling and throwing household objects would probably only make things worse. If I had the opportunity to kill before being killed, I would take it. Not going to happen if you bring a knife to a gun fight.


NT, You have proven to me that you have no interest in actually debating the issue, just being sarcastic in your response. Lesson learned.

What has this got to do with intellectual discussion? Since you seem to be setting yourself up as an authority on the subject, define "intellectual discussion." You have yet to bowl anyone over with your intellectually superior arguments.



More empty threats. Are you proposing raising or lowering the bar? I can't tell from your post.



Thre are those of us who would beg to differ. NT is well thought of on this board as evidence by voting in several categories in best of over a period of several years. Are you a bit jealous?

I just have one question then for you that I bring up in many debates like this. How far is America willing to go in order to have guns free for the public? I am not anti gun, but I can realize how much of a practical problem such represents not to mention the regular death toll such lands in America every year, which is numbers equal to many war zones in human history.

The question is rather simple. Will schools still be schools, or armed zones similar to military bases. Do we need to do this with every aspect of infrastructure and function in American society to protect ourselves from guns? Will every citizen become required to be a fully trained individual with a firearm? I don’t find it as a slippery slope to ask the question, I just see the crusade to protect guns in society as somewhat of a slippery slope in real life to what its slowly requiring in regards of society.

I mean guns and related manufactures of such have basically saturated human populations for the most part with such items. Then you have the idea of liberty to deal with, and equality. In which you find a spread of reactions to who and when and how a person can use a gun regardless of the person being of the right, left or center. Even with a fully armed a trained society, the reality of human life is a trained person with a rifle can kill many armed FBI agents attempting to spring an ambush for arrest. So for what it can reduce, it could also greatly increase is all. For real security each classroom would require more then one armed person, for simple they would be the first target of a killer in such a situation while the teacher is operating the blackboard. Which then leads to human resource requirements I would say of staggering proportions to actually provide security at any infrastructure you would want to bring up, be it a school or a mall.

Future requirements for school buildings could probably offer more protection overall then armed teachers and custodians. Dealing with the reality of guns+humans probably needs to be really understood in order to help end the problem in my opinion also, I would support such before turning America into a military base on lockdown any day. Just to add I have a weapon for home defense, I don’t however feel any real security from such, I just own it because of the environment. I don’t know how such fits with any modern or local moral majority.

Maybe the opposition can explain how and why two trained teachers each armed with a .22 and a pistol couldn't have saved some here:

http://tarpbg.com/SPECIALS/2000/columbine....DIAGRAM_TOC.htm

Two rather disturbed teens were allowed to take over a school for a while there because no one on school grounds was prepared to offer any resistance. Some of those kids died because the police were too far away and then had to waste even more time on arrival while trying to discern what, exactly, had been occuring in their absence [one can't have a plan of attack without knowing the field in front and the enemy disposition]. I will otherwise let Cruising Ram and some others explain, using the various diagrams, the available occasions on which a teacher or two might have taken out one or both souls from a relatively safe firing position with their trusty .22 or Browning Pro 9.

And then there's:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfurt_massacre

And so again re the waste of time that comes with the cops who need to first figure things out, please note how the one cop got killed. Of course, maybe if one had been there with her or his trusty Thompson .22, one could have assumed position at a hallway end, waited until the soul bent on homicide was looking in the one classroom, and then pressed off one's shot [one could then retreat to a safer position, remember, we're not playing Rambo and this is Germany, and not Hollywood, here]. But speaking of Rambo, note what the one teacher did do. All that I am suggesting is that before our teacher friend undertakes that mission, that we arm him with a cellphone .22 [and by the way, here it's not Rambo but Bond, James Bond].

And now on the premise that nothing could be done and so nothing was done, and so no surprise the result:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/30/...ain527553.shtml

Oh, and a new name for it, death by "isolated incident". The new name can be the "consolation" for the grieving family and friends, though I can't help but think that the "nothing could be done" is more for salving the consciences of those who literally did nothing than it is for salving the hurt of the grieving family and friends.

Now on to Kip Kinkel and his trusty .22:

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/US/01/21/kinkel.revisited/

And so for more Rambo, please note that Kip Kinkel was wrestled to the ground by his classmates. Rambos all. Which leaves me to ask, where was the brave BoF that day? Why was it left to our children? And so BoF and the nighttimer are simply wrong, as my profession has allowed me to come into contact with a goodly number of police officers and security guards, and absent the elite of the former, with some training you'd be just as good [in every sense and respect] as most of both groups [sub in some training classes for some of those useless admin meetings and there you go].

Now returning to Germany, provided one has the courage to "manage" one's fear, and the requisite common sense and training with the .22, I'd indeed take trained you, having been near enough to all the activity, over the cop who is trying to figure out what, exactly, is going on when he takes a round through the head [he's not much use to me now, what with that hole in his head]. I otherwise trust that none want me to have more faith in you than you. And you and I don't want to have to kill anyone, but we have undertaken to assume protective custody of another human, here someone else's child, and so our duty is clear. And with that undeniable principle in mind, "here to teach" isn't an excuse or justification for one's doing nothing, but merely the recitation that serves to explain why the child is in one's protective custody in the first instance. Try to remember that, the child is in your protective custody.

I am otherwise not as sanguine as some others, I mean, "isolated incidents" aren't what they used to be, and so the rate of child homicide tripled during the period 1950 to 1993. And not to upset anyone's vision of Rambo and Hollywood, and so sorry nighttimer, but our swimming pools kill more of our children each year than do our guns [so your new vision of Rambo and Hollywood is your bandana-headed child jumping into your pool; it should be the vision of your two year old getting into that five gallon water bucket but that just won't sell].

Lastly, re the "gun free zone", my distinct recollection is that the rate of multiple, and not single, homicides has decreased whenever and wherever humans were given the right to carry. As one, me, can imagine, such is likely because, well, as related, some children in Oregon were left by their teachers to fend for themselves and so they went all Rambo while in unarmed state, as did our teacher friend in Germany, and I can't help but think that they'd each have used a weapon if they'd had one at the time.

The related notion here is simply that most predatory animals don't prey on animals that pose some serious danger to them. So why look like the deer, as opposed to the grizzly? And the premise that your more law abiding citizen suddenly becomes a gun-toting murderer once armed is simply false. It's the human with the prior record for drugs and/or violence who commits the vast majority of our homicides. As the one soul wrote in the one law review [ http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Elliott1.htm ]: "[T]he use of life-threatening violence in this country is, in fact, largely restricted to a criminal class and embedded in a general pattern of criminal behavior." Or as reported by another:

"An FBI data run of murder arrestees nationally over a four year period in the 1960s found 74.7% to have had prior arrests for violent felony or burglary. In one study, the Bureau of Criminal Statistics found that 76.7% of murder arrestees had criminal histories as did 78% of defendants in murder prosecutions nationally. In another FBI data run of murder arrestees over a one year period, 77.9% had prior criminal records [Guncite note: 50.1% had prior convictions (Kleck and Bordua at p. 293)]. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Rep. 38 (1971).
***
Volokh summarizes prior arrest data for homicide offenders from the report, Felony Defendants in Large Urban Counties, 1998:

81% of all homicide defendants have at least one arrest on their record.
66% have two or more arrests.
67% have at least one felony arrest.
56% have two or more felony arrests.
70% have at least one conviction.
54% have at least one felony conviction."

So why think that the predator among us gives a rip about the gun free zone, and if he doesn't, then we might as well call it the grazing zone, since our predator friend will be in position to take one or more of the herd whenever he likes.
Lastly, here's the appropriate warning re the gun free zone:

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/04/d...zone-again.html

And so you don't miss it, the link within the link:

http://freestudents.blogspot.com/2007/04/w...resistance.html

Oh, and BoF, if Joel can do it, so can you.

No, thank you. I am retired and have no desire to be a clone of Joel Myrick.

Ya sure there are “efficient ways to reduce violence in the classroom without Miss Jones walking in strapped to the max” and they all involve some form of equipment and/or personnel which costs money and is often conspicuous by its absence. Yes armed guards and metal detectors would make schools safer from violence and help protect teachers and students but they cost MONEY and as you know the schools with the worst problems often don’t have the money.


Some teachers, who have gun permits, and have taken the courses could be allowed to be armed in school if there was no other armed security – if only to protect themselves. If you think violence against teachers is a joke – think again. It is unacceptable and I would favor arming teachers to stop it. Obviously schools with the worst problems in this area are not protecting teachers. They not only don’t protect the teacher but often allow students who attack or threaten teachers to stay in the schools. And Universities are not where the main problems are - its middle and high schools - esp. in the inner city.


Violence Against Teachers

"Between 1996 and 2000, 599,000 violent crimes against teachers at school were reported. On average, in each year from 1996 to 2000, about 28 out of every 1,000 teachers were the victims of violent crime at school, and 3 out of every 1,000 were victims of serious violent crime (i.e., rape, sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated assault). Some teachers are at greater risk for victimization. Male teachers are more than twice as likely to be victims of violent crime, and teachers at middle/junior high schools are at greater risk than those in elementary or senior high schools. Violence against teachers is also higher at urban schools. [1]

Additionally, teachers face threats of violence and intimidation. In the 1999-2000 school year, 9 percent of all teachers were threatened with injury by a student from their school, and 4 percent were physically attacked by a student.[2]This violence can take a personal toll on teachers and other staff. For some, concerns about their safety can lead to difficulties in their work and may ultimately lead them to leave their professions altogether."

http://www.safeyouth.org/scripts/faq/violteacher.asp

I would be most interested to hear what this evidence is. Also I'm curious to know how the data, if any, is collected. Does "in the right hands" imply that the gun was used effectively and not ineffectively or, still worse, destructively? This would prejudge the conclusion, of course.

Also I respectully suggest you put away your liberal whipping boy and just address the issues at hand. You don't enhance your persuasiveness by trying to typefy your rhetorical opponents. It's really a form of argumentum ad hominem.

As posted previously John Lott does a good job demonstrating that “More Guns (in the hands of the public and on the street by licensed private individuals) = Less Crime.

If you dispute this you have work to do.

In all cases the “lack of armed resistance” IS a contributing factor to school shootings just as it is in all shootings and other violent attacks.

It matters little who does the “armed resistance” IMO. Professional armed guards couls be best depending on the situation.

The boogy man argument that allowing citizens to own and carry guns for protection has been used by the anti-gun crowd in every single state that gun carry laws have been liberalized starting with Florida and on to TX and other states. The “shootouts” and other predicted events simply never happened. What idi happen is violent crime dropped – esp. for women.

Still trying to milk that tu quoque cow for all it's worth, eh? Not that I can blame you, seeing as how you have so little else to go on. Maybe someday you'll get around to addressing the fact that guns have saved lives in instances where you would have prohibited them for no obvious cause, but I doubt it.

(you're right about one thing, though: my posts probably are a bit "boring" to those who are accustomed to engaging in wild histrionics)


No, they're just sarcastic responses to your ridiculous strawmen. It's not like they deserved more serious replies than those.



"Right hands" in this context means legally owning their weapons and not sneaking them onto the premises or otherwise invading with guns blaring. As to your main point, let's put it this way: Elder's column shows instances where school employees and students who legally owned their weapons (i.e., "right hands") used them to save lives. No one so far has demonstrated instances where persons of such description have used their weapons to take innocent lives, or even to improperly intimidate.


Nope, it's an observation. I'll deal with serious counterarguments when they get raised. But merely claiming that allowing certified school employees to carry weapons will somehow result in more violence, when no evidence at all has been provided to indicate such, is not a serious counterargument. Sneering that these proposals are nothing but "right-wing macho good-ol'-boy reactionary overkill" is not a serious counterargument; it's just a colorful (and rather consdescending) way of expressing mere disagreement without having to back it up. I'm all for a serious discussion of the issue, but as long as debaters engage in that kind of behavior, I'm perfectly justified in calling them out on it, because it's simply not possible to have a serious discussion with people who insist on acting that way. It's just clearly not what they're after.

Just so everyone can see a reference to the above incident, Click here!

I view this source as both evidence that using equal force against someone that is on a killing spree is affective, but also the disinformation given by the media to the general public. What other explination is there to the lack of coverage relating to the two individuals using their personal weapons (not in a John Rambo way) to difuse the situation and put an end to the shootings?

Well, I'm certainly not going to let YOU louse up my day, scubatim.

I have given this debate as much seriousness as it deserves--which ain't much. The idea that schoolteachers should carry guns is---well, frankly, it's NUTS. I cannot for the life of me fathom how supposedly intelligent and rational human beings could consider a kindergarten teacher sitting in front of a group of children reading "The Cat In the Hat" to them and wondering when she last cleaned the pistol on her hip to be a good thing.




John Lott and Larry Elder have something in common: both of them bend the knee before the altar of the almighty gun. I'd say those of us who favor sanity over hysteria don't have work to do. Those of you who want to arm teachers so they might better return fire on a rampaging student do.

Locally, there was an incident where some thug tried to rob the parish of a Catholic church during the service. His accomplice tried to steal the purses of the women attending. They were subdued and held for the police by the mostly elderly parishioners. This particular moron went on to physically attack and bite his court-appointed attorney, spit at him and toward the judge and finished his trial, bound, restrained, gagged and guarded by four sheriff deputies. Charming.

However, all of this nonsense could have been avoided had the parishioners been carrying concealed weapons. Then, they could have dragged out their hand cannons and blown the fiend to hell and gone.

So why stop at schools? Criminals will just move on to churches, hospitals, shopping malls and other juicy soft targets. Let's arm them ALL!

Hyperbole? Hubris? No less so than the abysmally stupid suggestion that the safety of children from guns can only come from surrounding them with MORE guns.



The wild histrionics comes from those who advocate draconian solutions for a tragic, but extremely rare event. I would prohibit guns from being in the hands of unqualified and untrained personnel because they are not the best qualified individuals to make split-second life or death decisions. Sadly, that concept seems beyond your ability to grasp.







No, actually it is just shrill, hysterical, overly-emotional appeals to fear and nightmare worst-case scenarios on your part. But then again, you do excel at that type of thing, so I understand you playing to your strengths. I've seen it time and again in your Iraq posts, so it's kind of part of your debating style.



The proposals by you and others to arm school teachers and staff is a radical, extremist, and out-of-the-mainstream proposal and you cannot seriously argue that it is not. It is not a common sense solution. It is an overreaction that cannot and would not work. All it would do is create shootouts between gun-toting kids and students. This ain't Dodge City or Tombstone and your cowboy remedies are banal beyond belief, Blackstone.

"Right-wing, macho, good-ol' boy, reactionary overkill" isn't just a serious counterargument to a witless proposal. It's an accurate characterization of a gun fanatic mindset that would bid "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and say "Hello, Mr. Ted Nugent."

Serious discussion of the issue isn't possible when those who want a more efficient way to kill, wound and maim students don't offer a more imaginative, plausible and workable solution to the problem of school violence beyond escalating the violence and upping the body count.

If you think I am trying to louse up your day, you are dead wrong. I have much more important things to do, like clean my gun.

I again will tell you that I haven't said that schoolteachers should carry, but they should be able to if they choose to. You again take the bits and peices of what someone says and eliminate the rest.

What rational event are you afraid is going to happen by letting law abiding citizens enable themselves to protect themselves if they choose?

Because like you, I have a life and I don't chose to waste it wading through the considerable amount of chaff in order to find the few grains of wheat. I fully understand the gist of your argument. I just don't give it any credence that it is a viable solution.



No rational event. I'm not opposed to law-abiding citizens protecting themselves. I merely disagree with you that turning schools into downtown Baghdad is "rational." The only event I can foresee from that is wholesale slaughter on a massive scale.

Your overzealous characterizations of turning schools into downtown Baghdad and the such are really starting to bore me. By the way, according to a Scout Sniper that I worked with that did two tours in Northern Iraq and had occasions to go to Baghdad to testify in trials compared going to Baghdad to going to Chicago, with the occasional mortar aimlessly landing somewhere. Thus your comparison of a school to Baghdad makes no sense to me.

Gee, what a fascinating anecdote.

As far as my "overzealous characterizations" boring you, there's a really simple solution. Don't read them. Nobody's forcing you to and I assure you my feelings won't be hurt even slightly.

Enjoy cleaning your gun.

Just a question to no one in particular. I brought it up earlier but it needs repeating. The area outside of schools is not gun-free in most cases. The area inside of schools (Federal buildings, airports, ect) is gunfree. There are virtually NO shootings in schools by comparison to the outside world. No shootings in federal buildings. No shootings in airports. Really, it's astounding how rarely this happens, in spite of the media's portrayal of mass bloodletting....especially when considering the awful areas in which thousands of these schools are located. These students are much safer in the confines of their schoolhouses, for instance, than their own homes.

What would indicate that guns in such places would make them "safer"? Not empirical observations based on comparisons of 'gun-free' and 'non-gun free' zone shootings. We're speaking of specific places here, not vast cities/states where it isn't always practical to place a policeman within every few hundred feet. It seems to me the measures they are taking work rather well...the president is never shot within the White House. Does anyone really think we should start letting people take guns into airports and federal buildings to keep the (nonexistent) "high" rates of shootings down too?

BTW...of the four examples Elders uses in his column (over the course of more than a decade) one took place at a restaurant as opposed to a school. Thought I should add that in the interest of accuracy.

Quote of the year, my first and last nomination:

"I merely disagree with you that turning schools into downtown Baghdad is "rational." The only event I can foresee from that is wholesale slaughter on a massive scale."

Wholesale slaughter on a massive scale, or how (1) + (2) = mass homicide:

(1) A grazing zone:

"If you want to kill a large number of people you really don't want them shooting back at you. Even if you are intent on dying their action can prevent you from accomplishing your goal. If mass killing is your goal you want your victims to be unarmed. And if you want unarmed victims then you are attracted to a 'gun free zone' of one kind or another.

So to accomplish your goal you are looking for several things. One is to find a crowded location. You can't kill lots of people if there aren't lots of people. You need a confined space. Otherwise your targets can escape too easily. And you want people who are unarmed."

The pictorial depiction of the written description:

http://tarpbg.com/SPECIALS/2000/columbine....Sketch_0048.htm

(2) H and K on the hunt looking for prey

So is the claim here that the lack of some responsible adults with access to and familiarity with 2 to 4 .22s, 2 to 4 Browning Pro 9s, and 1 cellphone .22 is the only thing that prevents Columbine from rightly being described as wholesale slaughter?

No one is otherwise disputing that these events are "isolated", the problem is that we know to a veritable statistical certainty that we can expect the "isolated" to continue [every now and again]. And sorry that it does not strike you as sane, but in light of the veritable statistical certainty, the insane thing to do was to make it so that anyone bent on mass homicide could ever think that he had an unarmed captive audience with no immediate worry of any threat to his own life. In other words, my question for you is why you're apparently so hellbent on providing the feeding ground?

Lastly, how long until help arrives? Note the timing here, from receipt of call, to arrival, to suicide, to actually entering the library for purposes of retrieving the wounded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbine_High_School_massacre

I hope that's not what some mean by "swift response". But even if considered "swift, we still have:

"Key Finding 10

Despite prompt law enforcement responses, most attacks were stopped by means other than law enforcement intervention..."

So you might say that every now and again, the "isolated incident", they get it right, otherwise it's wait, wait, and then wait some more, and in the other circumstance the attack is over before they can even get there. This last is the problem for some, as I don't think that some have offered any solution that truly puts some others on the scene in the first instance with the means to intervene. They don't have to carry, but some at the immediate point of contact are simply going to have to play the role of first, immediate, and if necessary, violent contact. And, sorry, but I have more faith in our teachers than I do our security guards [unlike BoF who doesn't want to be cloned, maybe it's the security guard who has the fetish that nighttimer described (he has the job strictly and only because then he can carry and he just loves cleaning that gun)].

See: http://www.treas.gov/usss/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf

Mrs. Pigpen:

I wouldn't say that there's no gun violence at federal buildings:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/229385...shooting21.html

The problem with your examples is otherwise that in every instance, the additional presence of armed me won't add all that much to the existing security and so no need. Now take your examples and rank them by armed "police" presence. Now you know why our schools fare the worst in relation to the rest of your examples. They're a "soft target". The only break that runs in our favor is that the main inhabitants of schools are kids, and they can't own guns and otherwise don't have the same access to guns as you and me, and then there's that residual remainder of a good morality, call it inhibition, that keeps even the majority of mass murderers from killing children. And that puts into further context the matter of just how soft the target, since we have most present lacking the means and most of those who have the means also have the inhibition, and still more are killed in schools than at the airport, at the federal building, and at the White House.

Lastly, maybe one of these days nighttimer will see that there's no Rambo here, as the one without the gun killed nearly as many, I mean, an unarmed human directed her wards to remain in that damn library. She had 4 minutes from the call to 9-1-1 to evacuate a death trap. Maybe if she'd had access to a gun, she might have atoned for that error. Then again, maybe she wouldn't have:

"So I came here last month, to tell Congress that it was time -- past time -- to keep guns out of the hands of children. I am outraged that in the year since the Columbine tragedy, Congress has done nothing to protect our kids from gun violence. Nothing!"

Apparently, she's never thought to get a gun and fight back, as opposed to cowering behind the front desk while her wards are indiscriminately murdered. Oh, and so you know, when H and K left the library, the kids left too via another exit, leaving the 4 adult staff members to later be "rescued" by the SWAT team. Leave it to our children to once again show the way.

There are, however armed personel and strict, heavy security at federal buildings and airports. Are there armed personnel at schools? Maybe we need to hire armed personnel to be placed in schools.

And the evidence you've provided for this oft-repeated statement on this entire thread is (drumroll please) ZERO.

But feel free to keep trying to project onto me your own heavily pronounced tendency to make "shrill, hysterical, overly-emotional appeals to fear and nightmare worst-case scenarios". I'm sure there must be someone out there who might find that convincing.

Since you asked, I tend to think this NT's description is accurate. One need only look at some of the Iraq and national security threads you've posted on.

Scubatim, are you suggesting a "permanent licence" policy for in-school firearms, or a temporary hold-over, until harsher gun-control regulations can be passed in schools and elsewhere?

You're pointing to a book; you're not saying what's in it. What is this Lott study? Has it ever been reported in a peer-reviewed journal of social science? Have any scientists, social or otherwise, ever commented on it?

I would like to know the answers to such questions as these, and to know more about the study, before I accept that the book pointed to truly supports the stated conclusions.

First, how do you make a zero tolerance policy harsher? Secondly, I am suggesting that if we can see that there aren't shootouts in federal buildings and airports, why not make the security at our schools mimic those buildings? Have armed security personnel checking everyone that comes in and out of the school.

scubatim, perhaps you find irony in asking me to provide sources for things that I have said as matters of opinion, mimicking my request that someone, aevans I think, provide a source for his assertion that most crimes are committed with guns obtained illegally. The latter is a factual statement of very far-reaching significance, so its provenance certainly deserves to be considered.

A claim that providing school security were better left to the professionals is clearly an expression of opinion. It is moreover, an opinion that I suppose the vast majority of responsible Americans would join in.

I further said that the occasional occurrence of a terrible plane crash is not a demonstration that the aviation policies designed to prevent crashes are not effective. Do you really expect a source for that, or are you just trying to be obnoxious? If you doubt the proposition, say something against it. It is, in any case, less a factual statement than a claim that the other side has not proven its case: you know, the occasional news story of a bad school shooting doesn't prove that present school security policies are ineffective -- which is what someone was claiming. I ask you, do so many deaths from cancer prove that cancer treatment is ineffective?



Ah, thank you, Ted. But such a criticism in the NEJM is not to be taken so lightly. That is a very highly reputed scientific journal, not a journal of liberal opinion. I would like to examine this study myself. I'm an econometrician by profession, so I'm competant to comment on it. I wonder if it's in the library.

Does Lott have a control group of counties, for example matched to the test group by region and demographic characteristics? Does he say, "See, crime fell by more in the test counties than the control counties," or only "See, crime fell in the test counties?" Does he test for statistical significance? Does he control in any way, besides matching counties, for independent sources of variation?

"What purpose does a gun-free zone serve?"


Absolutely none. The term "Gun-Free Zone" is ridiculous. Criminals are going to break the law anyway by shooting someone, so they're obviously not going to look at a "Gun-Free Zone" sign and say, "Aw, darn. I was gonna shoot my teacher, but now I can't."

I do not feel safer in a gun-free zone. I do believe in the right of a private company or amusement park, etc, to install metal detectors and to put up signs that say "We do not allow guns on our property." For all the good it'll do.

I think people should be allowed to walk around with rifles strapped to their backs. Think about it: how willing are you going to be to insult someone when they've got a gun displayed proudly on their person? And more than that, there probably would be less of a willingness to use it, because of all the jollies you can get out of simply displaying it.

And let's take it a step further---I believe that in communities where hunting is common, and every home has a parent who hunts, or has a gun for home protection, there will be no children bringing guns to school to show their buddies, and therefore less accidents involving children and guns. If a gun is not displayed as a novelty---i.e. evil and secretive---then the kid who brings the gun to school, and says "Hey, look what I found in my dad's sock drawer!" will more or less be greeted with a "So what, loser?"

You know, it's funny. I actually tend to be a liberal at heart---but I really believe in the 2nd amendment. May God have mercy on my ambivalent soul.

What you mean is, you've read some gun advocate's collection of anecdotes of how armed citizens helped to deter crime. I have not doubt this happens. You also mean that you haven't read a collection of anecdotes of how armed citizens killed or wounded innocent people, either because they fired when the shouldn't have, or fired wildly, or just got angry and became (by definition, it would seem) "criminals." I have no doubt this also happens. Personally I rather suspect that combative gun use by persons not previously identified as criminals much more regularly results in crime or tragedy than it prevents crimes, but I admit it's a factual question. It is not one, however, that is resolved by pointing to a list of anecdotes.



That something is not a serious counterargument deserves to be pointed out. To rail against hissy-fitting liberals, or whatever, is just whacking at a straw man. "See my smelly straw man here? He looks just like you! Whack whack!" That is bad argumentation, and bad argumentation is never justified by bad argumentation on the other side. If someone has sneered, by all means, point it out; don't sneer back.

Now as for "certified school employees," that is not the whole proposition being debated here. What is proposed is a general popular armament. But further, what are these employees certified in? My wife is a state certified teacher you know, and she even has a National Board Certification; that doesn't make her competent to wield firearms, particularly in violent situations. Nor is she educated in how to deal with situations that might, or just might not, justify the use of deadly force, as policemen and security professionals are.

All I am saying is, if more school security is needed, let's leave it to the pros.

Ted's claim that providing trained security professional to schools costs money is certainly true. But he goes too far when he claims that this is a good reason not to hiring the pros anyway. After all, police cost money, don't they? Is that an argument for armed vigilantism in place of solid police work? Or perhaps we should rely on volunteer teachers instead of trained ones, since teachers also cost money?

The grenade-wielder in your example didn't make it past the security checkpoint...so to answer and reiterate, gun violence on even this 'soft target' is extremely rare by comparison to other 'soft target' non-gun-free zones outside of the schoolhouse. In your link earlier, there were 37 violent weapons related incidences total from 1974 to 2001. Over a period of almost thirty years and that includes knives as well as guns. How many violent juvenile incidences outside the school yard? There's absolutely no comparison. This topic is in desparate need of perspective.



Well, from what you've described above I don't imagine a weapon would have helped this person anyway.



It's a local and state matter. Sometimes there are, currently, armed security personel in schools. Depends on the area and the schools. Some are armed with tasers, sometimes there are metal detectors.

As part of membership in a union or professional association, teachers receive liability insurance in connection with their professional responsibilities.



http://www.tsta.org/news/current/06SummerAdvocate.pdf
(This is a PDF file)

I wonder how much more teacher groups would have to pay for liability coverage, if teachers were allowed to tote guns in the classroom.

By an odd coincidence, last night I watched a movie trailer online for Sylvester Stallone's next film. Seems 20 years after putting the character out to pasture, the 61-year-old actor will wax himself up and return as "Rambo." Stallone is a little long in the tooth for the role as both time and gravity have had their way with his once chiseled physique. Still, with enough makeup, the right lighting, camera placement, editing, computer generated imaging and other Hollywood wizardry, they will probably be able to pull off the highly improbable for the undiscriminating viewer.

But Rambo is still only an embodiment of macho fantasy which allows the easily manipulated to dream they told can be a lean, mean, killing machine that acts ruthlessly, methodically and with laser-like precision in the dispensing and destruction of one's enemies.

It is Monday Morning Quarterbacking at its venal worst, to mock a woman who survived a horrific event like Columbine. It's easy to sit back in the relative safety and comfort of your computer, KHT and sneer at someone for "cowering" but I wonder if all things remained exactly the same and it was your butt on the line, how would you have reacted any differently? Would you have pulled your piece from your holster, coolly lined up your aim, and fired blowing Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris to hell and gone?

Or would you have ducked under the heaviest piece of furniture you could put between yourself and the killers, praying hysterically that they would shoot someone else (but not you) and blubbering like a lost child looking for mommy until the SWAT team showed up?

It's not an "either/or" scenario. NOBODY knows how they would react in a time of crisis until the moment comes. That's when people find out who wants to be a hero and who wants to simply get out alive.

There is nothing particularly brave in mocking and scorning a survivor of a terrifying tragedy such as Columbine. All it takes is the ability to be as callously cruel and unfeeling as Harris and Klebold were.

If I can just try to break in here with one subtle point its this. How much security do you think will be required? And what would the extent of training be?

I mean with the columbine incident you had two people on foot with some firepower and ammo? Will teachers have to be to the expectation of swat? Its still not going to stop anything from occuring unless you have at least three people I would think in a classroom ready to spring into action at all times. Thats they only way I can see a classroom being safe not to speak of the rest of the building.

It overall sounds like a massive program if you actually wanted to install such. The other reality is basically accepting another facet of the gun in society and saying its ok now because a handful of people at a school have guns. The kids know the police will arrive at the school, and at columbine they offed themselves. So what’s that saying, that maybe someone could have stopped them.

Listen, if you are in a multi roomed area with long hallways and you hear gunfire, what are you going to do, go rushing into your own ignorance looking to die? I have had marginal amounts of urban training and the reality of it is something no person typically would ever elect to put themselves into. So again I would think for the program to have any actual ability to stop a shooter at a school the training and resources required such as amount of people would become staggering, or what you do have is hope and a band aid. Maybe if we give the teachers flash bangs and thermal vision equipment and have the building rigged to go into absolute darkness we can have some version of the navy seals movie going.

Then of course what other options is there. The gun is the motto of freedom to many in America, some would come up with all kinds of excuses to keep them even if it were there children who happened to get killed. I also don’t think its a logical debate with such people to be honest. The real reality of guns is if someone wants to use one negatively, if they take there time they will succeed to some extent. So basically to me its just a reality you have to deal with, and of course in time to try and fix problems that guns have in a society they answer is to turn that society into a military base on lockdown full of trained and armed people, I mean it sounds great. Its why I fear working in any social group and of course why I hate communism, but it does not stop some people from instituting such anyways, in the name of freedom.

Nighttimer:

Sorry, but the only Rambo film that I've seen is First Blood. The Rambo and the Chuck Norris movies hold no fascination for me, and not because I'm not fond of dangerous and Herculean rescue efforts, as one of my favorite short books is 90 Minutes At Entebbe. But there's no fascination for me because the movies are so contrived as to constitute the absurd. The reality here is that this school had a fire plan or two, an earthquake plan or two, a flood plan or two, but no one gave any thought to what in the hell do we do if someone bent homicide decides to assault the place. And we know that because, well, unless this woman simply never got the word, not only was the worst decision the one to not evacuate, but if you stay in the damn library, you barricade the damn doors and you keep your students away from the damn windows and preferably behind some cover/shelter [here, barricade all doors and circle the wagons]. And it wasn't like, what with all those bookshelves there with books on them, that there was some lack of materials to use to effect the barricade [or two or three]. And re the evacuation that didn't occur, one might try getting as far away in the other direction from H and K as possible, or find some other location that can be locked from the inside and then barricaded and then you wait for however long it takes to be rescued. Instead, this gal simply told the kids to get underneath the desk and she dialed 9-1-1. Then she stayed behind the main desk while H and K entered the library, passed the main desk where she was, and then walked over to the left side of the library and began taunting, teasing, and killing her kids one by one. And then after H and K left, and the other students left via another exit, she remained there for hours until "rescued". Why did she remain when the kids left, I mean, if it was unsafe to exit after H and K did, then why did she not do much, if anything, to stop her kids in the library from leaving? How much "courage" does that take? I don't otherwise "credit" people for being blind lucky enough to have not been discovered and shot.

And they are her kids, yes? Or don't you get that reality? Someone breaks into your home, you gonna hide under the kitchen sink while the wife and kids are hunted down and murdered? There's no difference between your home and Columbine. So make it her own kids, at home, and then speak to me about Monday morning quarterbacking.

You are otherwise wrong, since if she had had some prior training under simulated conditions, our gal could have been conditioned to manage her fear and done what she needed to do [she'd have been scared feces-less, but she'd have got it done]. The blame here starts from the top and runs on down, but even so, ultimately, she is still responsible for living up to her own duty to her kids. As near as I can tell, other than telling the kids to duck and talking on the phone, she did nothing. She apparently didn't even try to stop her kids from leaving the library when she didn't think it was safe to do so herself. And if you haven't figured it out yet, with the first shot inside the library, well, from their natural disaster training the kids have been conditioned to get under the desk and so they would have. For the very same reason, no surprise that our gal told her kids to get under the desk. That was her conditioning and so that's what she fell back on when she got rather afraid. And that's what happens when we posit that some are only "here to teach" and we prepare for natural disaster while ignoring human disaster. And that's my problem with our gal, as Congress can never make it so that H and K will never kill again, they will. And so she should have said that in addition to any other item or matter, we need a plan, some training, some simulated exercises that are not treated as a joke, and maybe the Coach could have access to a .22 so that when he comes back to evacuate some more of his kids a good man won't have to die.

All that's left to be said is that your extreme hyperbole here, in equating my "callousness" with the "callousness" of H and K, well, how afraid of guns and death are you? I mean, the two [guns and death] are apparently inseparable for you, and here you are running to the other extreme of downtown Baghdad so that we all won't notice your great fear here. You might try seeing that, since when you do, the odds go down that you'll be found hiding under the kitchen sink when some invade your home.

And not that you care, but I've shot the woodpeckers who would damage the walnut trees, the blue jays who would wreak havoc on the fruit of the vine, and the one coyote. My thought re the coyote was, well, as you can imagine, coyotes and the flock of sheep is not a good mix, and I had seen the uncle and the cousin shoot coyotes who were in the trap or otherwise in the line of fire, but I had never before shot one. They reminded me too much of dogs. But the night before I took my one and only coyote, when bringing the sheep in, I noticed that the one lamb had had his throat partially ripped out by a coyote and so there was dripping blood and also the pink spray cloud whenever he took a breath [not to mention the hole in this throat]. And so the next day when the uncle, the cousin and I were checking the traps and saw a coyote near the woodline, well, after uncle had unlocked the .22, removed it from its safe carrying position, and then loaded the weapon, I said, Uncle, can I have the shot. Following my shot, as l looked at the dead coyote and the entrance wound just below the ear, my one and only thought was simply that this is one coyote who will never take another lamb. So I'm not quite cut out to play Rambo in your film, as there's no machismo or chiseled chest in it for me, just the desire to see no more dead lambs. And so I too am also conditioned, and so just as after the death of the one lamb, so too now, and it's nearing dusk my friend, when the coyotes like to hunt, so come, let us go out and stand guard over the flock. And that's all that this is.

You're right that anecdotal evidence is generally unreliable, but there's one type of case when it does shine light on a situation: namely, when it's overwhelmingly lopsided in one direction. You allude to cases where people (presumably adults) who legally own their weapons create tragedy despite having no criminal history prior to then, but if you can point to any that would be relevant to this discussion, please post them. Just so you're aware, anecdotes that would not be particularly relevant to the discussion are: hunters who shoot another person (unlike in the current situation, hunters are regularly discharging their weapons), someone who gets into a fight with his or her spouse or other family member at home, suicides, and people getting drunk. Examples that would be relevant would be something like an armed restraurant owner shooting or even intimidating patrons for no real cause, or anyone else who's been certified to carry a weapon on the job doing something he shouldn't be doing with it while on the job, particularly during daylight hours. The only anecdotes I can think of of that kind are from police officers or other "trained security professionals" - the very people you and others here think should be the only ones allowed to bring weapons into schools.


If your implication is that I've been saying that anyone who disagrees with me belongs in that category, I really don't think anything in my post justifies that. I was posting an observation of counterarguments (such as they were) that actually had been raised. At the time of my posting, it was a very accurate observation - with but one exception that I happened to miss at the time I posted, namely your mentioning of the Japanese exchange student (it was admittedly factual, but not particularly relevant). I apologize for that.

The reason, by the way, why your citation of the incident in Baton Rouge doesn't apply that much to this debate is that it happened late at night at a private residence. In situations like that, people are going to feel more justified in using deadly force, because of the level of fear involved when one feels at all invaded in one's "safe retreat" - one's own home.


That's not what I'm proposing in this discussion. I'm proposing allowing school employees to carry weapons if they've been through some kind of training.