RE: Reality Check: Trump Did Not Make It Easier for Severely Mentally Ill People To Buy Guns
I was going to walk past this but I can’t. The last thing you want in a live shooter situation is a teacher with a gun. There’s so many reasons but here’s the two big ones for me:
It’s really hard to shoot accurately with a short barrelled weapon. Unless you know what you’re doing, at any range beyond about 20 feet most people can’t hit the side of a bus with a pistol let alone a shooter armed with an AR 15. Soldiers and police train constantly to develop and maintain these skills. Unless the teacher is a gun enthusiast themselves, then they have no chance of mastering this. It’s made worse by the fact that the type of weapon needed in that situation would have to be large caliber. You need to drop the shooter with one shot. Anything below 9mm is pointless. If you hit the shooter with a 22 (or pepper spray or a taser) and your just gunna piss him off you’re not going to stop him. You might slow him down but it’s 5-10 minutes before a small caliber round will bring the guy down. So best case the teacher hits him, draws attention to himself and his students who now become the shooters primary target. So you give em a bigger caliber weapon that’s even harder to control and they are less likely to actually hit the guy anyway. It’s pointless.
Even teachers who can shoot straight aren’t trained to react in a live shooter situation. They’re teachers, not warriors. They’ll be scared shitless and are more likely to shoot themselve or their students than they are the other guy with the gun. They’d be a liability not an asset in that situation.
My daughters teacher is miss Wallace. She’s a lovely, middle aged woman and a fantastic teacher. Even still the last thing I want in a school shooting situation is Miss Wallace drawing a 9mm. I’d rather she just hid in a cupboard. It’s safer for her and my daughter.
This was a pretty good argument. And poor miss Wallace. Hopefully she'll never have to hide in a cupboard!
I don't believe anybody is suggesting that you just give teachers guns and say "here go protect the students." I don't believe anybody in their right mind would suggest such a thing. The only way that the above points could be valid is if that's exactly what you did.
What people are suggesting is that you train, and the key word being just that "train" teachers who desire to be armed for the purpose of protecting their students.
Teachers as you describe them sound like wilting flowers weak and defenseless. I'm sorry but I strongly disagree with that insinuation. Teachers are tough. Just think what a teacher has to go through on a daily basis.
Again I am sorry for saying this, but it needs to be said, in an active shooter situation your daughter would be much safer if she, or another trained staff member, had the ability to fight back.
There's also the psychological aspect of it. The fact that her school would no longer be a gun-free zone would in and of itself be a deterrent. Murderers target gun free zones. So because the fact that staff is armed would mean but they would probably never have to use their weapons. Murderers are cowards chances are great that they are not going to go shooting people in a place where they themselves can get shot.
Remember the key to arming staff is training. And I'm sure there's a lot of teachers out there that would willingly go into training for it.
Screw that, we have all the guns in the world lets train our kids like in the old days how to fire a weapon in school shooting/range class, in turn teaching the next generation of teachers and women.
It’s got little to do with teachers being wilting violets and more to do with the difficulty of what you are asking them to do.
Nothing I posted suggested the teachers would be roaming the the school. I think the problems I describe are the same in the situation of a class locked down with a teachers standing between them and the shooter.
But we can agree to disagree.
Have you even been in combat or in a situation where someone is trying to kill you? The above points are totally valid. Regardless of the scenario you come up with you are asking someone to effectively operate a weapon against a hostile asssialant. It’s not a shooting range with a paper target at the other end.
I agree with you to an extent about psychological deterrence but this seems a band aid solution that doesn’t address the deeeper issue. The issue I have with this whole issue is that this shouldn’t be a problem for teachers to solve. When the system is so broken that you have to give your kids teacher a gun to keep them safe, you got a big problem.
The idea NOT for the teachers to walk around looking for the hostile shooter. The goal would be to first secure the classroom, lock the door, take a defensive position with your students behind you, and guard it until police arrive. I can't think of why this isn't a better solution than waiting helplessly for the shooter to break in and spray bullets at people.
The thing is this subject will always be open to Monday morning quarterbacking. Suppose a teacher did end up killing an innocent while trying to defend his classroom. Are we going to scream about how arming teachers was a horrible mistake? How can you know if despite the 1 child, 17 others were saved?
Also not every teacher should be armed. Only those who feel confident enough to take up that role.
I get where you are coming from. However, this isn't like Miss Wallace is going to throw on her plate carrier and start clearing hallways while engaging hostile targets. Miss Wallace isn't going to be trained in close quarters combat tactics.
What Miss Wallace having a gun means is the final line of protection. That shooter actually enters Miss Wallace's classroom and is going to kill everyone in there. Miss Wallace, even though nervous and with some inaccuracy, has a chance to eliminate the threat. At the very least she has caused the shooter to change their current focus to the immediate threat that is Miss Wallace crouching in the corner with her 38. Even potentially causing the shooter to run from the classroom. A mass shooter is looking for easy targets.
But Miss Wallace doesn’t want this job. She wants to teach our children, not defend them from violence. That’s why she’s a teacher not a cop. The focus should be on putting her in situation where she doesn’t need a gun and can focus on teaching rather than expecting her to solve other problems created by societal failings.