Naw, do everything you can to keep schools as vulnerable as possible. Isn't there some liability for the districts leaving schools vulnerable? There has to be....
Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again. Didn't they even consider the liability?
I guess I have really mixed feelings about teachers being armed on campus. Mind you, we have not yet experienced what some of the US schools have experienced with these spree shooters. Note the word yet as sadly, I'm sure it will happen eventually, and I have no doubt it will convince me that teachers carrying is a necessary thing to do. Sad though that it does seem necessary.
The thing is, if they were wise, you'd never know who is carrying and who is not. (I'd guess there are a few that are carrying already....)
Tough decision to make. Assault a defenseless school and commit Mass Murder or risk getting my brains blown out in the Corridor for attempting it?
A new Repug Imsurance company will step into the picture and provide coverage at a 25% increase in premiums.
Having a teacher carry a Gun is simply stupid. I can not think of any situation where a teacher having a gun would make any difference in a school shooting.
Put them at the entrance if you like or surround the gounds, but in the school with the kids and everyone carrying is something you will never convince me is safer. I can see a teacher having a bad day, going postal and you got a old fashioned gunfight amongst kids possibly causing double the carnage when you dont know who the bad guy is? Maybe its my age but I aint buying into that.
Insurance companies tend to think with their bottom lines. If they say it's X number of $$$ riskier to have teachers carry I tend to believe them. I don't have to like it, but I believe them.
“One of the underwriting guidelines we follow for schools is that any on-site armed security should be provided by uniformed, qualified law enforcement officers. Our guidelines have not recently changed.”
Nobody is saying that "everyone" would be carrying. Its a choice. And the only scenario that I can see where it would pay off to have a couple of armed and trained teachers would be a school shooting.
Minutes seem like hours in situations like school shootings. Having to wait for the police or swat to show up means more deaths.
My high school teachers were by and large idiots. I would meet some of them 20 years after graduation and almost all of them hadn't progressed one iota. The thought of those numbskulls carrying guns in school is real real real scary.
Don’t get me wrong; I don’t think all teachers should be allowed to carry a weapon. I don’t have a problem with it as long as they pass rigorous training and mental evaluation. Some Teachers shouldn’t even be allowed in the Classroom let alone with a weapon.
I've reread the article and carefully read all the comments. I am still completely and totally on the fence with this issue, I will admit. As a mother, I recognize and see the need to do anything and everything possible to protect my child (our children in general). I am not wild about the idea of teachers being able to carry, or at least not all of them. I think R has the right idea with there needing to be appropriate evaluations. However, on the flip side, armed and properly trained guards may be the right solution? No question we need to protect schools and children, I guess the question is how to best do it? Mind you, some of the concealed laws in the US scare me in general (ie: being allowed to have a gun in a bar - I still feel alcohol and guns are a bad mix, just me though).
I guess at the end of this I feel incredibly sad that this conversation even needs to happen. It's sad that our children cannot be safe in school now. They are innocent, and should not even have to be subjected to the reason for this debate. I try to picture how I might have felt having armed guards or weapon carrying teachers - it would have terrified me. But again, there is the reality that there are people out there who will and do murder our children, and we have to protect them. This is a tough debate for me for sure.
I'm with Glass in regards to some teachers being far more dangerous in the classroom armed with the cirriculum they are supposed to teach.
How many teachers and administrators were there on campus on that horrible day in Sandy Hook? 30???? Obviously it is a hypothetical question and analogy, but what if 3 of them were trained and armed? How many lives could have been saved?
I had at least a couple teachers who were potential Zimmermans just waiting to slip through the cracks. I also had many fine teachers who I would trust to defend my children, armed or unarmed, just as those teachers at Sandy Hook did.
"pass rigorous training and mental evaluation." fine, but I think parents should have some say as well. Of course, if all parents showed that kind of interest in their kids and their kids' schools, we would never have gotten to this point and wouldn't even be having this conversation.
I don't trust anyone, criminal or otherwise, with guns around my kids. I never had them at home when they were growing up for a reason, and that same reason applies to school. Let them keep the guns outside or around the perimeter of the school.