(MSNBC) Should Teachers carry guns

[Devone6]

My vote is yes, with proper training, certfication, firearm always being on the person(teacher or ccdw in school) etc.....
+1 for Bob The Great, his comments nailed it(w/ rocky & CapnBald)

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Gunstogo]

As an educator I have thought about this a lot over the years. I could imagine the arguments about students getting ahold of a gun from a teacher or administrator through being involved in a fight or stealing a purse. Fortunately we have a lot of options. We currently have 1 School Resource Officer (SRO) on most campuses. High schools of 1800 or more usually have two sometimes three or four. We certainly could use more. But Bob is right, the issue could be solved by just taking schools off the list. That way the BG takes a gamble. Do the teachers have one or not. If they have to think, maybe they won't take the chance. If they do, there will be more than just a single SRO to deal with.

And remember, we are the good guys. We do eveything in the best interest of children.

[retsupt99]

The problem I have with this poll is the way the question is formulated:

"Should teachers be provided with weapons?"

The question makes it sound as if every teacher will be handed a Glock at the beginning of the school year along with their number 2 pencils and other class supplies. CCW by teachers should be allowed for those who want it, and who must pass qualifications to earn it.

that the wording is misleading. It does make it sound like teachers could be handed a gun. I work in a school, and I know that few of the teachers would even touch a gun (although in Florida, it's more than one would expect) yet alone use one.
Just let the law allow carry in schools...problem solved.

Be prepared...stay safe!

ret

[randytulsa2]

However many WANT to be armed should be.

And their unions shouldn't be able to prevent it.

I don't see any difference between teachers and the rest of us that way. To deny one the most effective method of self-defense, and the defense of those placed in her charge is to deny it to us all.

[profshadow]

i'd sure like to see college students able to carry ... elementary schools are relatively crime free. .. many public universities like the one i go to have crime rates higher than most urban areas.... and we're all gleefully unarmed.

Too true. All some of us on university campuses have are a "sharp wit" to defend ourselves. And too many of my colleagues only have an acid tongue instead.

Good thing parking off-campus is at the roadside of the campus where I teach, even though I'm in Florida and probably could get away with parking on campus.

And of course, I worry about my daughter and late classes. She can't legally carry tear gas or a gun. Just that little pocket stunner. And maybe a general use pocket knife.

[SCGunGuy]

There's another poll at http://www.foxreno.com/education/10007586/detail.html

[JimmyC4]

I had the commentary below posted in a new thread I started, but that disappeared and now I can't find it; so here it is again!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMMENTARY:
It's time for new thinking about guns in schools
By Andrew Rothman

In the last two weeks, we've seen a rash of deadly school shootings. In
Bailey, Colo., an armed man burst into a school, held six girls hostage,
molesting some of them before killing one of the girls and then himself. In
rural central Wisconsin, a 15-year-old boy shot and killed his school
principal.

And in Lancaster, Pa., Charles Carl Roberts IV took 10 Amish girls hostage
at a school, then shot them, execution-style. At this writing, five girls
have died, one has been removed from life support and brought home to die,
and four are still hospitalized.

Roberts wasn't Amish, police say, and held no particular grudge against
them. According to Pennsylvania's State Police commissioner, he just picked
the school because it was close, and had little or no security.
In all of these murders, the perpetrators chose to attack where they knew
there would be no effective resistance to their violence.

Unfortunately, that is the situation in almost all of our schools.
FBI statistics have proven that the single most effective means of
preventing violent harm is to resist with a firearm. And yet our lawmakers
and school officials have effectively assured that these deadly attacks will
continue to occur in our children's schools.

It doesn't have to be this way. In Israel, after PLO terrorists targeted
school children in 1974, the government started letting reservists keep
their guns at home and carry them on the streets.

Teachers and school nurses started to carry guns, armed parent (and
grandparent) volunteers patrolled the schools, and no field trips were
taken without armed guards.

As a result, the terrorists gave up on schools as targets. Well, one
particularly stubborn terrorist attempted a suicide attack in 2002, but an
Israeli teacher shot him before he harmed anyone.

In March 2005, when Jeff Weise killed his police officer grandfather, stole
his police guns and drove to Red Lake High School, he had nine minutes
before police arrived, time enough to kill an unarmed security guard, a
teacher and five students and to shoot and seriously injure seven more.

An armed guard, an armed principal or an armed janitor could have
stopped him within those nine minutes and cut short his deadly rampage.

Some will undoubtedly argue that more guns can only lead to more violence.
But to do so is to fall prey to the worst sort of moral relativism.
Offensive violence and defensive force are not the same; force, even lethal
force, in the protection of innocent lives, is a moral right embraced by
Mahatma Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, and every
legal system in our history from Minnesota Statutes to the 4,000-year-old
Code of Hammurabi.

Under Minnesota law, schools and day cares may allow faculty, staff, parents
or visitors with carry permits to carry a defensive firearm in the school.
All it takes is a letter of permission from the principal, superintendent or
day care director.

As a firearm instructor, I'm willing to do my part. I, or one on my fellow
certified instructors, will provide carry permit training, at no charge, for
any public school employee with such permission.

Minnesota school officials, we need those permissions to be given -
Minnesota's children are worth protecting.

Andrew Rothman, of Chanhassen, is a certified firearm instructor, executive
director of the Minnesota Association of Defensive Firearm Instructors
(www.madfi.org) and the father of two children who will soon be of school
age.


Copyright (C) 2006 by Andrew Rothman. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce this article, complete and unaltered, in any format.
_________________
MADFI (www.madfi.org), the state's first and largest nonprofit carry instructor certification organization.

NRA, MADFI, UT certified firearms instructor. Class info at www.mngun.com

[Bob The Great]

I had the commentary below posted in a new thread I started, but that disappeared and now I can't find it; so here it is again!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

This one? -> http://www.combatcarry.com/vbulletin...297#post211297

And like I asked there, do you have an outside link for that wonderful article?

[JimmyC4]

In a Private Message, moderator rocky said:

Since your post was along the same lines as the MSNBC post I merged the 2.

Well, I'd agree that it fits best here, but you put it somewhere else, rocky. Please leave it in this thread, since it pertains to teachers carrying.

Bob The Great, I have no link to the article, since I copied it from another forum, with permission of the author as you see at the bottom of the commentary. You should be able to contact the author directly via the information he posts at the end of it; he'd likely be able to help you out.

[Bob The Great]

Bob The Great, I have no link to the article, since I copied it from another forum, with permission of the author as you see at the bottom of the commentary. You should be able to contact the author directly via the information he posts at the end of it; he'd likely be able to help you out.

Thanks. I'll see what I can find out.

[update]
Mr. Rothman emailed me back. The article is availible here, for anyone else who's interested. --> www.madfi.org/post/RothmanOpEdSchools.pdf

[peacefuljeffrey]

The director of school safety for Milwaukee Public Schools, Pete Pochowski, expressed opposition to Lasee's proposal.

"Statistically, the safest place for a child to be is in school," Pochowski said. "We have problems in our schools, but not to the point where we need to arm our teachers and principals."

Children in countries such as Israel and Thailand are far more vulnerable to daily violence than students in America, he said.

"In the country we live in, we have a lot of freedom," Pochowski said, "and we have to expose ourselves to some danger to keep that."

Um, in countries such as Israel, don't the teachers have the right to be armed? I thought I had read that they do carry guns, there. The population of Israel is, itself, mobilized in a way that the U.S. population is not, to deal with threats.

We have a lot of freedom in this country, that is true. But Mr. Pochowski offers that leaving our kids exposed to school attacks against which the school staff can do NOTHING is part of what we pay to be free?! He's got to be kidding.

[peacefuljeffrey]

Only if they shoot better than many of them teach.

I am as easily convinced that the problems we are encountering vis a vis educating our youth are due to crappy parenting as I am that they are due to crappy teaching.

The values of the parents will rub off on the kids. I know because I was a kid on whom parental values that held education in high esteem rubbed off on me and my siblings. We all went to school with kids who didn't do well or take school seriously. Funny, you could blame the teachers for doing their jobs poorly, but then how did the same teachers churn out successful students in the very same classes as the bad ones who didn't learn much of anything?

I think that the poor state of education has more to do with the attitudes of the kids, which are permitted to exist by the attitudes of the dumb parents who have lost (or abrogated) control over their kids. There's no discipline anymore -- parents don't even understand or accept the need for it -- and so the kids rule the roost (like inmates running the asylum) and you get what we have.

[cpmiv]

So we must endure danger for our freedoms? Sounds like the 2A could fall into that argument as well. Liberals are so much fun let them talk long enough and they give you an argument to use against them.

I guess Israel has a bit of motivation going for them. Living in a region surrounded by enemies tends to bring out the survival instinct and common sense. Perhaps if we had manditory military service things would be better all around.

[peacefuljeffrey]

I agree Bob. Many of the packers on the shooting web sites are teachers or work at schools. They already have their guns and methods of carry. They have already had training and back ground checks. If more training was wanted it might be that advanced training could be given by local, as in close by, law enforcement, possibly on a donated time basis. I think most carriers would jump at that. This would keep costs down and it would have people in the schools that have already made a commitment to self defense. Would it be perfect?No, but it would be a big step in the right direction.

Agreed, and I fully endorse the idea of armed teachers, administrators, and other CCWers in schools, but we need to remember one big thing, and that is, parents and other concerned parties are going to want some sort of assurances that the armed adults have received training regarding not letting possibly unattended guns fall into the hands of students.

Some people carry in day planners, briefcases, shoulder satchels, purses, etc. This is perfectly legitimate, as we all know, for everyday public carry -- as long as the carrier is attentive. Put the same situation into a school, and a left-behind purse suddenly provides a gun to a student. (Now, unless you believe that guns turn people bad, the likelihood would be that a GOOD KID finds it and does the right thing with it. But the odds are skewed by the notion that some BAD KIDS would be on the lookout to pilfer a teacher's accessory just on the hope they'll get a gun out of the deal.)

So wouldn't this necessitate a sort of administratively enforced standard for manner of carry?

[peacefuljeffrey]

Perhaps if we had manditory military service things would be better all around.

We would probably either end up much better off, with a tougher population less inclined to knuckle under to criminals and also much more disciplined; or we'd be educating a class of super-criminals who know know how to aim, fire, use cover, etc.

Depends on how much you think of human nature.