Teacher here. Like just about everybody else in my profession, I'm against this, for three primary reasons.
#1: The most likely consequence of a large number of guns in schools is a student getting his/her (his: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/opinion/boys-violence-shootings-guns....®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region) hands on a teacher's gun and using it on...well, anyone.
#2. As others have mentioned, in the event of a shooting, an armed teacher trying to use the gun to save the students and ultimately injuring or killing innocent students.
#3. From a personal standpoint, I'm imagining a scenario in which I am the person closest to the shooter and the shooter is a current or former student of mine. For context, imagine one of your children wielding a gun and shooting it at the other members of your family. Would you shoot him to protect the rest? That's how I feel.
5
New York city buys their police issue Glock pistols with extra heavy trigger pulls. This is supposed to make them safer but also makes them very inaccurate particularly in a stress full situation as the 2012 situation cited in the article.. It is difficult to hit a target with a pistol at any distance in these situations even for a trained officer. In the recent situation in Parkland an officer with a pistol going up against someone with a semi auto rifle would be unlikely to get close enough to eliminate the threat.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/05/foghorn/ny-democrats-introduce-...
4
"... an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle ..."
Teachers wouldn't stand a chance if all they had were handguns, so they would also need assault rifles, body armor, and radios. That is how US military forces are often equipped. Here are photos showing what teachers might look like under Trump's proposal:
The Women of the Army Rangers’ Cultural Support Teams
By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
September 14, 2015
https://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/army-rangers-cultural-support...
(Scroll down to the third photo.)
G.I. Janes
By REBECCA MURGA
JUNE 21, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/22/opinion/global-agenda-magazine-gi-jane...
(Scroll down to the second and third photos.)
2
Should not be MANDATORY, but, to put in uncertainty for potential shooters, should be OPTIONAL and ALLOWED.
Instead of arming teachers, let's just do a better job of securing school. As a teacher, I do not want to be armed. I know how to shoot, but I have not been taught to shoot under stress. The military has not brainwashed me into being a killing machine. In fact, I have been taught the exact opposite. I am a teacher because I love people, not because I want to work in a war zone. I would stop an intruder if they entered my classroom, but the idea of living in constant fear of an intruder is insane, which is what would happen with a gun in the room. Further, most situations would probably come down to a teacher overreacting to a mere argument or a student trying to get the weapon. The reality is that school's are statistically safer than they have been. Look at the National Center for Education Statistics https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=49. But, the stats from this site do not include numbers from the last two years.
2
Sheriff Andy Griffith didn't carry a gun and was happy to explain why.
His reason applies to teachers today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fer9ql7itc
I am a gun owner and a former (non-professional but national-league playing) competitive athlete. I've also coached high school players, one player--who had a private coach--qualified for Wimbledon and made it to the semis. My point is there is a world of difference between practice and competition and competition and a life-and-death situation. The degrees of adrenaline rush increase with each and while time helps us to acclimate to real life scenarios, many people never approach their abilities in the competitive arena that they do during practice. I'll make the leap and say the next leap to a life-and-death is more profound.
And while I am not trying to excuse deputy, Scot Peterson, his story will not be uncommon if #45's NRA friendly proposal goes through. Pundits scream either "No Guns" or "Guns for Everyone"; however, reality and good governance suggests compromise works. Get off the binary train-tracks that can only go to one place.
Sometimes a trained, armed guard freezes when they should act: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html....®ion=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
2
For those who have witnessed or survived a shooting, or keep the company of those who have...
The cause of PTSD has a lot to do with the aftermath of a traumatic event... what happens to the person after the event rather than just the event itself. For eye witnesses, or people easily triggered because of their own history, it's important to take care of yourself in ways that have been proven to work. That includes not watching news constantly (not exposing yourself to repeated images) and - this is important - not re-telling the story repeatedly without interruption. In the brain, the more a neural network fires, the more likely it is to stick around. Repeating the story is like walking the same path - it becomes more permanent the more we wear it in. Among others, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR are two very effective trauma treatments. Bessel van der Kolk, who has appeared here at NYTimes, is one of the world's leading researchers on trauma - a very good source of information.
I wish every parent, teacher and medical professional had some basic training in attachment and emotional first aid to avoid the overamplification of trauma. Here are a couple of essential first aid kits:
http://www.ginaross.com/images/emotional_first_aid_brief_guide.pdf
https://francescaredden.com/emotional-first-aid-trauma-prevention-every-...
1
"Even police officers often fail to hit their target when they shoot. How much worse would such an unintended consequence be in a crowded school?
…The best way to prevent the threat of a bad guy with a gun is to keep him from getting the sort of battlefield weapon the Parkland killer used, by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and by tightening background checks."
Using the same logic should we disarm police in cities, public events, etc.? No. But another statistic needs to be considered which would be the negligent discharges from a large number of school personnel across the country compared to the threat. Public mass shootings are rare in spite of what is portrayed in the media, and the number of events have not been increasing.
As far as assault weapons in the NYT today in a Fact Check article "But Mr. Winkler noted that most mass shootings are committed with a handgun, not a military-grade assault weapon."
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2018/feb/14/what-we-know...
"A stricter definition was in a 2015 report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service that defined "mass public shooting" as a multiple-homicide incident in which four or more victims are murdered with firearms in at least one or more public locations, including schools."
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/04/mass-shootings-more-d...
"Mass Shootings Are Getting Deadlier, Not More Frequent"
1
It’s ludicrous to think that strapping on a 9mm Glock or spending time shooting at paper targets makes one an effective shield when facing a deranged AR-15 armed terrorist. Even seasoned law enforcement officers, like the one at Stoneman Douglas High School, fail to perform in such cases. But that’s what the President and the NRA are suggesting. This is not about protection, it’s about money. A million armed teachers means money for a million Glocks – plus ammunition. And President Trump, selling this NRA proposal, said that “practically for free you have now made a school into a hardened target.” https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/22/politics/donald-trump-gun-reforms-school-...
Teaching, being adept with guns, and being able to kill in a live active shooter situation require three very different occupations and skill sets.
2
Banning assault rifles would have little impact on mass shootings or overall gun violence. The 2016 FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) shows that rifles—including assault rifles—were used in about 2.5 percent of the 15,070 murders committed that year. Most rifles used in the murders weren’t assault rifles, so you would not reduce murders by 2.5 percent by banning assault rifles. The actual reduction would be much closer to zero, since murders denied assault rifles would use other types of firearms or other types of weapons. The killer in the most deadly school shooting—Virginia Tech—used handguns. According to the 2016 UCR:
• Handguns were used in 7,105 murders.
• Knives were used in 1,604 murders.
• Unarmed killers strangled, beat, kicked or stomped 652 victims to death.
• Blunt instruments were used in 472 murders.
• Rifles (including assault rifles) were used in 374 murders.
• Shotguns were used in 262 murders.
I don’t own a gun. I’m not opposed to banning assault rifles or handguns, although I would prefer we first repeal the Second Amendment. But no gun law that has a chance of passing or would survive a Second Amendment challenge will make a difference. We need to work on ridding U.S. society of its homicidal impulses.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/...
The truth is there is NO individual right to bear arms under the Constitution; the right is a collective right. The Heller Court's Majority misread the Second Amendment -- http://www.freeprnow.com/pr/how-scalia-misread-the-second-amendment .
That is not to say there should be no legal right for individuals to bear arms, but the parameters for doing so need to be ensconced in federal legislation like any other dangerous instrumentality sold in interstate and international commerce. Our Congress has the authority to enact such legislation under the Commerce Clause.
The Heller decision can and should be overturned. Its holding lacks constitutional merit. Moreover, it has provided our representatives with a shield of inaccountability and irresponsibility for not regulating a gun culture that has run amok of one of the underlying bases of our constitutional republic: to insure domestic Tranquillity.
Maurice F. Baggiano, Member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court
7
Those unfamiliar with firearms always assume that shooting up the place is the order of the day. Firearms are primarily a deterrent. If a potential school shooter knows the target isn't soft, they will be much less likely to engage the target in the first place. Let teachers and administrators and even parents who are willing to carry, carry.
I am a retired teacher and I think that the idea of arming teachers is absurd. The real solution is to VOTE out the legislators who support the NRA. There is a real chance that the Blue Wave will actually happen but we need every person who reads the NYT to ACT, not just fret about the threats to our democracy. Please join groups like Swing Left, Flippable, Indivisible or your local Democratic town or city committee. If you are in a blue state there are a lot of things you can do NOW to help the campaigns of progressive candidates all over the country. Join PostcardsToVoters.org to send handwritten postcards to voters in selected crucial contests (people tend to not toss out handwritten notes). We need to START NOW and join the organized groups that are working on this. As Thomas Friedman wrote this week, it’s CODE RED. It’s time to act now. The antidote to anxiety is action.
4
You know how a gun grabber gets converted to a gun owner? It only takes one realization that you're in deep trouble and help is minutes, or longer, away.
Someone should introduce some solid facts about firearms into these discussions. I've heard many false statements based mostly on ignorance. Our president, who chose not to serve his country because he had bone spurs, believes a teacher with a puny 9mm sidearm is a match for someone with the likes of an AR-15, which more than one Democratic has referred to as an automatic weapon. The only way the teacher would survive this encounter is if he, or she, successfully snuck up on the perpetrator without being seen. The 9mm is no match for a 5.56mm rifle round. The perpetrator has an aiming advantage because of the longer barrel whereas a sidearm has at best about 4". Then there's the effective range under pressure issue. Arming teachers, ha, it would have to be one help of a bonus and still a fool's errand. We continue to dodge the real issue.
2
The absurd suggestion that arming teachers (or other "good guys," for that matter) is the solution to anything can only be the idea of someone who gets all of their firearms and defense "knowledge" from television cop shows.
3
February 23, 2018
The judgment of a teacher speak volumes especially in the earlier grades. We must expect confidence in our navigating - dear one say dealing with our most important matters of life and death effecting our individuals in the collective natural order of worthy strengths. This editorial says it right let the teachers teach and not be a bulwark carrying a weapon.
We learn from teachers at best - but the human condition to often brings students personalities that are unfit, unsuitable or just lacking maturing or welling to absorb the lessons that are being taught: let alone connecting to the educational culture - in the classroom culture and yes have not been evaluated to properly accept a suffering and disabled student but is thrown into the class almost as an experience that yes - backfires and God knows this is of collective promotions for too many officials to fail in making sound and educated judgment for all, inclusive of a student on question and just to blurred to project a worst case scenario as in the case of - "school professional shooters!"
Let us all do our job but smart and with knowing failure is not an option when our society has incompetently guided regulations and tracking those that are a danger to life, liberty , and pursuit of happiness for especially in this case: family, teachers, students and our modern sophisticated operational manual for common sense - in the complex word needs!
jja Manhattan, N. Y.
1
I seem to remember from my short time as a police reporter that a cop, as a matter of safety, was taught not to go into a hostile situation until backup arrived. Am I wrong about this?
Arming teachers ? I must be dreaming... so the USA would become the only country in the world to do so ? Talk about being a unique country... for all the wrong reason.
This debate still evades the fundamental question of the Second Amendment, the one written when when loading and firing a musket took more than a minute not 600 rounds per minute...
I am so so happy that my kids don't have to live in that sick environment.
Good luck America!
1
A well armed deputy posted outside the Florida school went there though waited for 90 seconds and entered only after shooter stopped killing. Nothing surprising even police want another armed police, at least one, to support him in the action.
2
Before Trump considers arming teachers, he needs to arm himself with facts and common sense. Unfortunately, he has no ammunition.
1
So first the GOP supports gun laws that turn classrooms into war zones, and then, instead of admitting their mistake and apologizing for the many innocent children who have been murdered on their watch, they want us to believe that the solution for school safety is NOT to remove the criminals but to tell teachers that they're on their own and should start considering their job as half teacher, half cop ... ?
In that case, why don't they propose the same kind of strategy in other war zones?
Why aren't they providing the Taliban and ISIS with cheap and easily accessible weapons, to then permanently put US boots on the ground whose job it is to be targets for terrorists day after day, and to try to shoot some of them before they get shut themselves ... ?
The way the GOP tries to spin the demands of their NRA donors doesn't make any sense.
No Western child outside of the US has to go to school in the morning with the constant fear of all of a sudden finding itself in the middle of an armed fight between shooters and teachers. So why would the GOP, who moreover claims to want to defend individual freedom, ask America's children to give up their freedom to study in all safety, instead of doing what any other Western government manages to do, which is simply protecting its children effectively ... ?
Why did the GOP just pass a law making it easier for mentally ill Americans to buy weapons?
The GOP's arms race has become a war against America's children.
IT HAS TO STOP.
3
I want the "individual freedom" to live without fear of gun violence.
4
It's always the teacher who is made responsible for everything. We are responsible for making sure the students pass the test and if the student doesn't we are told that we are not doing our job. It is the teacher who provides breakfast for students in their classroom because they didn't get breakfast at home. It is the teacher who hugs the student when they are upset. It is the teacher who writes that recommendation letter for that student to get into college. It is that teacher who stays with the student who parent is late picking them up. It is the teacher who encourages the student that it is okay if they made a mistake on a test. They will help them to pass the next test. It is that teacher who goes into school early and stays late to help the student with their classwork. It is that teacher who protects their students by having their students go into the closet and tell the students they will be okay. It is the teacher who takes that bullet to protect their student from being shot.
So now the great minds of Donald Trump and Wayne LaPierre want teachers to carry guns. I say to them, I don't think so.
I believe in students having the right to learn in a safe environment not in a fortress with teachers wearing guns.
I hope to march with those students when they march in protest in Washington DC next month. God Bless the children because it is obvious that Congress and the President isn't blessing them.
1
I thought it was the government's first and foremost job to keep its citizens safe?
If the GOP wants to abandon the most essential function of any government, and wants to tell ordinary citizens that from now on they're on their own, rather than passing the laws needed to effectively protect school children's freedom to study rather than get killed at school, then why don't they start leading through example?
Come on Trump, prove that you're a REAL tough guy, and tell your security detail to go hunting as from now on you'll spend your weekends no longer golfing but training to use a gun, and then carry it with you when going to work in the morning, just like you ask teachers to do ... !
And please Rubio and McConnell, have the guts to tell the officers who are securing Capitol Hill to go and learn a real job, as from now on any American is supposed to be easily able to defend himself - all that is needed is a gun and some training to use it, and that's it.
Any objections, anybody ... ?
1
The President of the United States is protected by the best trained and best equipped security service in the world. Even so four have been shot and killed; several more shot and wounded.
The NRA mantra is that the solution to too many gun deaths is more guns. How well has that been working out so far??
Be interesting to know if the share price of glocks went up when Trump suggested arming 700,000 teachers.
The only way to get a ban on assault weapons is to organise a voluntary group of lawyers, nationwide, to get a law change and challenge the NRA. They could all communicate over skype. There's lots of mums and dads and grandparents who are lawyers who would volunteer their time to this united states 'think tank' for law change.
The common factor in mass casualty events in the United States is the assault rifle. After the previous, ten-year assault rifle ban expired mass casualty events increased. A teacher with a pistol or even a trained defender of any entity with a pistol will be no match for an assailant with an assault rifle. Other ideas such as expanding police, swat type support or establishing separate, comparable school security forces are needlessly costly compared to the obvious step of reinstating an assault weapons ban. Anyone who wants to do otherwise cares not for public safety for any of us.
Michael
In Orlando, FL
I was a rifle platoon leader in Vietnam. After Vietnam I chose a career in education: teacher/counselor/coach for thirty-two years. I know about fire power and carnage. If anyone is serious about sensible gun control laws at the top of the list will be assault weapons. No one needs to own an assault weapon! Arming teachers is totally insane. What is equally insane is that we are even having this conversation.
This is a perfect application of the National Guard, with additional school situational training, and their automatic weapons: every school, every day just like in Grand Central I passed through an hour ago. They are trained to kill an adversary without hesitation. Most of the millions of Americans who own weapons, and the newly proposed "combat" teachers, have no understanding that once you commit to utilizing a weapon, you are committed to taking a life. Few are conditioned in performing that act and the slightest hesitation will get them killed. Just uttering the term "packing heat" just demonstrates how ill-equipped mentally they are to actually kill.
"I guess the argument is that an unarmed teacher in a roomful of kids with a shooter is better than an armed one."
I guess the argument is converting U.S. schools into armed fortresses appeals to the aggrieved and belligerent vision of the extreme right - but is seen as an ugly, dystopian, and wholly avoidable scenario by more Americans.
Assault weapons and high capacity magazines ban.
Mandatory background checks that work.
Period.
2
Contrary to Wayne LaPierre and Donald Trump, the answer to gun violence and mass shootings is not more guns! That any sane person would consider this is ludicrous.
I personally think that this would never be a go here in NJ, but if it came to pass, I guarantee you that parents would pull their kids out in droves. Furthermore, as an educator in a large, diverse public high school, I and many of my colleagues would quit.
Guns in schools equals less safety, not more.
2
What other non-military profession requires the experienced, well-trained professional practicing his/her craft to be armed and provide their own security? Do we ask nurses to pack heat? Do surgeons have sidearms on the instrument tray in case some maniac bursts into the operating suite with a semi-automatic weapon? Does the lawyer or the engineer or the designer or the actor or the athlete have to actively provide workplace security and risk their own lives to protect their customers/clients? Why do we expect this of teachers?
There is an entire army of “Court Officers” protecting all the professionals in our court system. Corporations, law firms and hospitals likewise have professional security staff. The United States Capitol Police Force protects the Capitol building so senators and representatives can concentrate on their work. But teachers? I am a retired teacher who was an expert in early childhood literacy. What about my skill-set would have qualified me as a sharpshooter, and why would I have to assume that responsibility when other professionals with similar levels of experience and education are PROTECTED BY SECURITY PROFESSIONALS?
Heroic teachers dying as they do their best to keep your children safe from madmen with killing machines should not be interpreted as an entire profession volunteering to be the first line of defense. Teachers are heroic in so many ways that society never acknowledges. Do not use that against us.
3
Note to Teacher's Unions: If teachers are required to engage in shoot outs to protect their students, they should get the pay, training, benefits, equipment and immunity of police officers. It should also be made clear to them that they will be required to perform the duties of teachers and police officers, as part of their job descriptions, at the time of hiring, and that they must be willing to give up their lives for their students, so that they can give implied consent. In addition to their masters and Ph.D. programs, they should be required to attend and pass the Police Academy. They (or their families) should also get law enforcement purple hearts, have honor funerals paid for by the city, and receive all other benefits that law enforcement, military and firefighter do when they lose their lives in the line of duty. Then we can sit back and wait for the first case to set precedent in how to deal with teacher gun wo/men threats, not to mention the absurd pictures going viral on facebook of women teachers' lame attempts to conceal a weapon beneath typical women's attire.
1
It seems something else important is missing from these assessments. If we did arm teachers, some number of them would not secure their weapons properly. It’s very common for gun owners to have guns stolen, and it happens to police officers too. In one highly publicized killing in San Francisco involving an illegal immigrant and a tourist, the killer had taken his gun from a police officer’s car.
A bunch of hormonal, curious kids would undoubtedly want to get their hands on these guns, even if they aren’t killers. We’d have thefts and accidental shootings. Not to mention, if someone DID want to start a massacre, they wouldn’t even have to bring their own weapons — they could just pick them up in class directly.
Presence of a gun in a class room that can be inadvertently left unattended can lead to pranks by grown up students and looked upon as a play thing by very young students. In many instances very careful parents have forgotten to lock up the gun cabinets or absentmindedly left guns around, and children have played with them resulting in tragedy. Same thing could happen in schools too.
Why are people surprised with Trump’s idea of Guns for Teachers? The man is known for talking first without thinking on many issues, why should the gun control be any different? I am surprised that in addition to his suggestion of paying bonuses to teachers Trump has not asked that their guns toting skills be part of teachers’ annul performance review. Would teachers asked to buy their own guns or supplied by schools along with books, white boards and markers? If purchased, can the teachers claim guns as a work related expense? These are rhetorical questions just to show how stupid is the idea of asking teachers to get into a gun fight. However, I would love to see a remake of Schwarzenegger movie Kindergarten Cop where he also doubles as the Terminator. The NRA would actively promote the movie and Trump would nominate that as the best movie of the year.
Who will pay for this? Will parents receive a back to school classroom supply list of say, 3 boxes of tissue, 2 packs of crayons, and a box of ammo?
American movies and TV shows really need to stop promoting this fantasy that the plucky hero or heroine can face down an assault rifle with a handgun. And stop having the bad guys fire an assault rifle into a crowd and nobody gets hit.
More guns, more paranoia, more death. America’s never ending story has now settled into an accelerating cycle of societal self-destruction. Today’s NRA and it’s sycophants have only one mission, make sure there is no longer anyplace to hide. Under modern leadership, they have devolved into an antisocial pariah. It is well past time for it’s less militant members to recognize this, seize control or quit. Do it for your children.
1
This 19-year-old man had a history of domestic violence - not just guns. He was physically abusive to his then high school girlfriend, then profoundly vulgar and threatening when she ended the relationship, stalking her and threatening another boy she dated. He physically assaulted his mother several months prior to her death in November, beating her with a vacuum cleaner hose. Local police had been called to the home 39 times. This killer had been reported to police for killing small neighborhood animals. At what point will America not be in love with and keep making excuses for violent sons?
Maybe Trump never heard the phrase, "Death by cop." That's when someone with a gun acts out in a way that cops are forced to shoot him to stop him. These disturbed individuals deliberately CHOOSE to attack armed police because at the end of their event these cowards want to be dead, too, but don't have the courage to shoot themselves.
So yes, Mr. Trump, arm teachers so that those who choose "death by cop" now have the option of acting out their fantasies in schools, in front of a truly terrified audience of children.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_cop
First take away funding for public schools, then require schools to have armed staff. Is this a further attempt to make the NRA more influential and American public schools less successful? We could save a lot of money and just close schools down. Based on the result of our last election, intelligence and critical thinking are not important to half of Americans anyway. If president Trump’s proposal is a sincere attempt to make students safer, it is an absurd fantasy and difficult to comprehend that lawmakers are having this conversation.
The problem is not individual “sickos,” but America’s love affair with guns... and a national epidemic of stupidity. Stop mass shootings at the source: Ban military-style assault weapons!
There's a sicko in this story, and it's the president.
I headed a school for 19 years. The idea of any armed person in the school is horrifying and extremely dangerous. One can't even imagine the possibilities. An accident. A gun being taken from a teacher. A crazy teacher. An actual "situation" where the teacher panics and more children die. I could go on.
The worst aspect of this moronic idea is that our children would learn that the world is unsafe. That people can't be trusted. That violence solves problems. That the adults they count on for love and security are frightened.
I close my eyes and imagine the utter mayhem that would ensue when more people with more guns are enacted as the solution to more people with more guns. I have lived a long life. I no longer want to live in this country, but love of my grandchildren will keep me here.
1
In 2010, a professor at the University of Alabama-Huntsville stood up from behind her desk and began firing her 9mm handgun. Three were killed and another three were wounded.
How can the answer be more guns?
Trump focusing his energies on arming teachers makes as much sense as allowing Senators and Congresspeople who are funded by the NRA to stay in office. Vote in 2018. Vote in 2020. Vote in 2022. Vote in 2024. Vote in 2026. Vote in 2028. Vote in 2030. Heck, run for office yourself. Every crisis is an opportunity. As Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Farewell, NRA Sith Lords. Hello, New American Jedis. The Force Of Love is with you. Always.
2
Homeschooling has never looked better.
3
Two of the most retch-encouraging faces we are exposed to are those of La Pierre and the Trumpster. Equally appalling is the garbage they spew. Based on the number of existing AR's in America, our best hope is the identification of would-be maniacs through waiting periods and background checks. Teachers have enough to do just trying to teach. No guns for them, please.
2
More guns equals more victims. What is difficult to understand about that?
LaPierre epitomizes greed at the expense of others. LePierre is so entrenched in his guns sales and the profits of lobbying he cannot possibly want a sensible solution. He's as morally bankrupt as the Wall Street bankers. Warren Buffet once said, “I will tell you the secret to getting rich on Wall Street. You try to be greedy when others are fearful. And you try to be fearful when others are greedy.” LaPieere is now playing off the fears of the American people and trying to profit from the death of the 17 in Florida. Sell guns! Arm Teachers. It's anarchy as its finest. LaPierre talks about socialist ideologies destroying our freedoms instead of guns killing children and teachers. We must overcome our fears and attack harder than ever. We must take to the streets and demand change. Barrack Obama needs to lead this effort.
Arming teachers is another way in which society has outsourced difficult jobs to schools. Originally a teacher’s job was to instruct a young person in how to be a good citizen, giving young people the skills to live in America. Then schools had to teach kids about sex, since families were uncomfortable doing it. Teachers were supposed to be able to spot signs of child abuse and report this to police. Teachers were supposed spot signs of mental illness. Schools were made responsible for making students ready to go to work, because businesses did not want to train their own workers. Now it is the job of the teacher to protect and serve, to kill an intruder who probably is one of their students. How often has a homeowner been able to kill an intruder with their firearm, compared to having the gun used against them or one of children accidentally getting killed by that gun? The madness that comes out of Trump’s mouth has become so commonplace, each additional insanity has less impact.
All it takes to stop a bad guy with a gun is a Congress with a backbone and a determination to do what is right for our country! More firepower in the hands of school employees as a solution to school massacres. Are these people serious?! We are living in Crazyland.
As a retired teacher, I am incredulous that this keeps coming up in any gun control discussion. Do my younger colleagues know that their calling has become so dangerous that they need to go armed to their classrooms every day? Let's see my checklist list for today. I don't want to forget anything--
lesson plans
support artifacts for lesson
tests and papers to grade
textbooks
loaded assault rifle
(You don't expect me to defend my students with inferior fire power, do you?)
homework assignments
newsletter to parents
I also can't forget to add ammunition to my supply list.
That's it for today. Maybe I should go ahead and get one of those bullet-proof vests they sell at the book store. They have ones designed with a school theme now. You know, the ones with little notebooks. pencils, rulers, dictionaries and glue bottles printed all over them. Maybe I'll get a nice lilac one.
Yes, Mr. Trump has done it again. He has us rattled and squawking. But he is wrong if he thinks we are distracted.
Yesterday I heard him argue that someone like General Kelly would make a great teacher. Oh, no, I guess that is not what he said. Because, even he can't take the next step in his fallacious argument that a person who is "adept" at shooting guns is therefore a good teacher.
Teachers used to grouse that those who could coach a sports team had an unfair competitive advantage in getting hired to teach in high schools. Now, I suppose submitting target practice scores will be part of the hiring process.
Meanwhile, all over America, parents are begging their teacher sons and daughters to consider a safer profession. And bright, idealistic, energetic young people are going to abandon their teaching vocations and become... what? I hope politicians. We need bright, idealistic, energetic, young people who are ready to stand for election when we #ThrowThemOut!
1
Along with Trump's pledge for the "best people" we should arm teachers with the "best gun". They need to be issued 12-gauge tactical shotguns (camouflage finish). Any teacher can use it: point and pump. So what if some students get sprayed, the bad guy hopefully gets most of the buckshot.
Teachers may welcome the extra exercise of carrying the weapon and forgo any additional compensation. Or, the shotguns can be secured in each classroom with a "Do not touch" sign.
Look, this is not a serious solution. Let's stop pretending it is.
Have we not had enough of this kind of thing? No improvements to health insurance because of "death panels" or "socialism"? No investigation of (ongoing) Russian interference because of "fake news"? No condemnation of Trump for endless lying, ethical violations, sexual assault, and much more because of...what?
VOTE Republicans OUT. I don't know if they actually believe this covfefe, but at this point, let's stop talking ourselves blue in the face and let's get on with some common-sense solutions that will actually do some good.
What basically Trump is doing, is advising killers to shoot the teacher first.
An enraged person with an AR-15 vs. a nervous teacher with a handgun. What a joke -- the AR-15 wins hands-down. Only somebody who never served his country in the military would think otherwise.
When the teachers may have guns, the gunman will take them out first.
1
there is room for the mental illness issue in this discussion. trump is mentally ill, given his narcissistic personality disorder, sociopathy, and frontal lobe dementia. lapierre is seriously out of touch with reality, so delusional and paranoid that he may be considered psychotic. and the gun-lovers who cling to their AR15s likely have a gun fetish, which might be amenable to behavior modification therapies. the republican members of congress appear to be employing denial as their primary defense mechanism, and this is clearly an indication that they are becoming detached from reality.
2
Breaking News: Guns are the problem, not the solution.
1
If you want to put these politicians in their place, make the requirements for gun ownership should be the same as getting an abortion.
As a life-long educator, it is a travesty to me for anyone to suggest that adored, caring mentors/teachers for our children should carry killing machines tthatany child knows could kill them in an instant. Not a society I want to live in ever!!
1
Another moronic idea as well as a failure to address the real issues from Trump. Teachers sometimes lose it and can go ballistic, or even panic when confronted by someone armed. The first deputy to arrive at the Florida high school waited over four minutes to enter. He froze. Arming teachers is Trump's way of placating the NRA. And the same old excuse from Wayne the coward LaPierre, is getting old. We are not losing our freedom by banning AR-15 assault weapons. We are losing our kids by not banning them. They are the only ones who have the temerity to confront politicians and Trump. It's called self preservation. We need to listen and support them.
If only Travon Martin had had a gun, his altercation with George Zimmerman would have ended peacefully. Each would have realized the deterrent nature of the other gun, and, having no bad guys, the good guys would have parted amicably after a rational discussion.
1
Authored by the same folks that shout about police brutality when more than one shot is fired to neutralize a perpetrator.
even the idea alone to mention, is insanity! you need year of training .!
Wayne LaPierre, the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association said: “To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun”. NRA should give Mr. LaPierre a raise for doubling the gun sales in one shot; for every sale of one gun to a bad guy he is assured another sale to a good guy. Two wrongs do not add up to one right.
1
What happens when all the 700,000 teachers get fired or are forced to resign because they didn't fire a shot at the guy with the assault weapon on auto. Whose going to teach the kids then!
It also sounds like the President is a cheap skate looking to slave labour teachers into doing two jobs for the price of one.
I wonder how many "little darlings" would think it fun to try and trick, tease, or inflame, a teacher into pointing gun at someone.
If any teachers had guns all teachers would be the first targets.
Another reason arming teachers is a bad idea: someone like Nikolas Cruz would know who the armed teachers are. They would be the first to die followed by the students in their classrooms.
Another bad idea of President Trump. How is a teacher with a gun going to kill a person who quickly comes in a classroom and starts shooting an assault rifle?
Imagine if states begin to use the number of "highly trained and armed" teachers to the criteria used for school accreditation? BEYOND ABSURD!!!!
Thank you. A third grader has more sense than Trump and La Pierre. I would remove my children from school in a heartbeat if teachers became armed guards.
2
When a majority of Americans voted for Trump, their actions signal the end of common sense, civility as we know it, and meanness. After Obama, this country returned to its racist roots and devalued education. With that said, it's not a surprise Americans returned to the past scared by immigrants, rising birthrates of minorities from outside the US, minorities in this country and people who are vastly different from the majority. These are the ones who voted for to keep their so-called values from going away. It's sad, but there it is. This includes gun ownership of machine guns which serve no useful purpose within general hunting and wildlife protection. Just because the second amendment says that everyone has the right to bear arms, it doesn't mean a UZI, AK-47, or TEC -9. Combined with folks with issues such as mental illness, madness or just plain evil/madness, guns should be denied to them too regardless of handguns, rifles, muskets, and things that shoot bullets! Teachers and other school staffers are trained and paid to assist, educate, not gunslingers! However, I am not surprised by Trump's stupid and asinine comments that educators and staffers should be armed. You noticed that he hasn't mentioned school monies and additional resources that can FURTHER benefit America from not going to the rabbit hole that voted for him last year. America has failed here.
What a novel idea: letting teachers teach. Outside of parents, teachers are the most crucial caretakers in your child's life. Now the NRA and our president and some of the population want teachers to take on military duties as well. For all the reasons that have already been mentioned, it is unbelievably shortsighted and stupid.
The idea that a shooter is a coward and will be deterred from entering a building makes no sense. A boy, sufficiently disturbed, angry, isolated, feeling hopeless, is in his twisted way trying to make a statement about his view of life. Contrary to the idea that he would be deterred, he expects to be killed and martyred .
Apparently we all become experts and fully understand mental illness when we encounter it, so let's by all means build more mental institutions and willy nilly throw the offenders into them.
And let's have more suggestions that play right into the playbook of the NRA.
Have Mr. and Mrs. Trump identify the teacher, at their young son's school, who will be assigned to carry guns at his school?
Here we go again. Trump and his ilk have the solution to an oil fire--throw gasoline on it. The idiocy of adding something just about the same to a terrible problem already is flabbergasting, but should I be surprised? (A simple search will reveal a growing amount of research evidence of seemingly common sense--more guns equals more gun injuries and deaths. And the "American Sniper" was killed at a shooting range!) The philosophy of social Darwinism is amoral and manifests in control through domination, so guns and money can be tools to advance its hideousness. Add to it Trump's ample behavioral features of a dangerous mental disorder, and you have the full demonstration here. The radical extremists in what used to be called the Republican Party, combined with the corporate Democrats, have made excellent use of the P.T. Barnum advertising agencies to sucker just enough people to maintain themselves as political stooges for the plutocrats in this situation. They'll also maintain the militarization of this country (fascism anyone?). Please let the sanity of protest against them keep momentum for the November elections to vote out all of the gun-slinging stooges!
Canadians hunt. Swedes, Norwegians (white ones, no less) and Finns hunt. The Brits hunt. The French hunt. Germans hunt. So do Estonians, Danes and Dutch. So does almost every other country on the face of the Earth,. The keep their guns in their homes, not in some commercial storage facility. But they do not share our collective sociopathy of killing their own children.
Certainly the solution to our massive gun carnage isn't more guns, as President Trump and Wayne LaPierre advocate. But there's something far sicker than the prevalence of guns that makes our country so sick. Norwegians don't want to come here, Mr. President, and who can blame them?
1
Ah yes, I get it, teach the basics, you know, "OK everybody, always keep the barrel pointed DOWN, OK?", that sort of stuff.
Would teachers have the right to refuse to use or carry a gun? What if all teachers in a school did so? What would their legal status be if they killed a gun toting intruder? Would they be criminally liable if they shot someone who appeared to be about to shoot? Would they fail to be given a teaching job if they failed a gun test? A foolish, crazy suggestion to give teachers this responsibility.
The idea is deadly, to both the teachers and kids.
The NRA is salivating over 700 000 new gun sales.
The Congress is silent.
The President is a Draft Dodger who never handled a gun, nor looked down a barrel...when he should have but was too cowardly to but who now knows exactly how those teachers will react in the face of gunfire.
But worst of all, no one seems to care that a handgun in a purse is not what it is going to take to silence and AR 15 at thirty feet. That is like putting a bb gun up against a cannon and expecting a miracle.
The result will be a puddle on the floor under the teacher. The only question is will it be blood or will it be urine. The kids will be dead in any event.
3
If 20 percent of a school's teachers are armed and required to track down a gunman immediately after the shooting starts, that leaves fewer teachers to guide students to a safe space.
Bottom line: we'd be abandoning kids in the cockamamie hopes of tracking down a gun man and shooting it out like the scene in a Hollywood western. We'd be leaving our children alone to protect themselves, letting them figure out for themselves how to save their lives. Hard to imagine anything more reckless, more dangerous or more stupid.
Teachers should strike.
Or add a Sniper Yard Duty roster to gun down any potential mass murderers intruding. Whether the attacker is using a knife, fork, or an assault rifle, aim between the eyes.
Other presidents are cowards. If bad guys dont get guns, how do we know theyre bad? The only way to stop a good guy with a gun…you can’t stop a good guy with a gun. Its impossible. Teachers I believe you are good guys. Especially if you buy guns.
Also school uniforms will be bullet proof. I think the shooter will think twice, maybe three times, against kevlar. Target trained teachers will need to remain calm if ever an incident. Best practice is to wait for the assailant to relaud so he’s distracted. PTA meetings, school Pie Nights, football games, and even teddy bear picnics will have concealed weapons. So much safety.
Teachers please strike. Demand change.
It is insulting to teachers that Trump thinks if you throw teachers a little bonus, they can also be security guards.
Our thoughtful president thinks that it would be a good idea to send a teacher
armed with a handgun to confront a psychopath with a death wish and an assault weapon.
Our brave president would be right there next to the teacher repelling the bad guys. But, alas, he can't.
Donald, you are excused. You can stay hiding in the closet behind the children, we know you are unable to perform your duties because of your bone spurs
Your the teacher stuck IN your classroom
You've locked the door and you hear him coming down the hall
You've got 30 little ones in your room
Bang he just blew the lock off the door
Your choice - you want a gun or not
I don't care either way
But I think it should be your choice
As someone mentioned earlier, what if it had been a terrorist killing 17 children in a school in North America? What country would we have bombed into oblivion?
Can't we do the same with the NRA? (metaphorically speaking of course).
1
This idea is frightening and bizarre. How far down are we going to be dragged before this erratic child in the White House and his cadre of misfits with their horrible ideas are going to shut up? I listened for a sickening while as LaPierre spewed his bile for the world to see. He represented himself as a very ignorant and hateful person. But he's got the big bucks to buy off the Republicans, some Democrats, the president and anyone greedy and inhuman enough to buy into is diatribe.
Perhaps we should also utilize Cyborg Terminators from the future to terminate future mass shooters before they even reach high school.... Excuse me, we are just talking fantasy in this proposal to arm teachers, are we not?
I think the President and Wayne LaPierre watch too many crime shows on tv where the good guys rarely miss the target.
1
Gun toting teachers in a school: what a stupid, stupid idea.
Sit back, relax and close your eyes and think about this: Shooter arrives, SWAT notified and enters school not knowing where shooter is, students in the hall running and screaming, teacher runs into hallway brandishing a weapon and yelling, SWAT, not knowing teacher is on their side, kills teacher.
Repeat.
We worry about mental health issues as a deterrent to mass shootings. With the frequent "lockdowns" and "practice drills" that are being conducted in schools today, imagine the damage that we are doing to our children's mental health. Add that anxiety to the fear of state mandated proficiency tests and we will be creating a generation of children who will fear going to school every day, wondering if their walk to school or the bus ride will be their last. Now the President wants "gun-toting" teachers! How do you think a five or six year old will respond to that? Are we creating a good learning environment or a barbed wire fortress?
I had the pleasure of teaching public school in New Jersey during Christie's tenure. In the wake of the Great Recession, we saw the middle class devour itself when, suddenly, the unionized tortoises of the world, teachers, had it better than many of the private sector hares. For anyone who seriously considers arming teachers a good idea, consider what the country already asks of them, what it doesn't provide to perform an extraordinarily difficult job consistently, and the disrespect they've endured.
Please! Those who have taught and engaged students in learning know that as stress increases so do impediments to learning. With all the pressure on teachers and students to excel Trump now wants to add the stress of carrying a firearm to the mix. It just shows how much Trump knows about education. What we need are learning environments that nurture students, that are peaceful and where discussion and openness to new ideas is encouraged. We need to create environments where thought can flourish and where humanity reigns. These gun nuts have gone too far! Enough already! Clearly this is more about the gun industry wanting to sell more weapons and the kids be damned. Money and power over young lives. We must say no and support our kids. We need to vote out anyone that wears the NRA moniker out of office. The NRA is a badge of shame. They are now tangling with America's future leaders in a battle they will not win. I am with the kids. No guns in school!
1
It took generations to create this problem and it will take generations to solve it. Arming teachers is not the answer. Banning assault weaponry is. There can be no reasonable debate about this. If it comes down to confiscation, so be it. It will take time to accomplish, but it is the only answer. The rest is just nonsensical gibberish that will never solve the problem.
Here's a great job opportunity for our military vets that can't find work right away when they return home. Guarding our schools. They're trained in surveillance, weapons, restraint when using a weapon and knowing when to use it. And let the Fed pay for it. Not the school districts. It's the politicians that won't put a stop to this madness because they Kowtow to the NRA. Let the reps get the money from them. This is a version of hell that a mere pittance of our population has unleashed on the American people. Make them pay the freight on it just like I have to pay for my hobbies.
So right next to the easel that displays big books such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, the daily calendar activity in the circle area near the teacher's rocking chair, I'm going to store a firearm in the recess safety bag? Or do I wear a holster? Somehow, while calming frightened kindergarteners to stay quiet, I'm supposed to focus on a shooter in the hallway with an AR-15?
In an ideal world, a prospective perpetrator would neither have access to a hand gun nor to a long gun. In the real world, someone bent on obtaining a hand gun and/or a long gun will ultimately be able to succeed. It is in the real world that the answer to protect our fellow humans in soft locations (e.g., churches, hospitals, schools, theatres, etc.) must somehow be formulated.
Please consider and recommend this to your teachers and school staff in your communities to aid with protecting students and defending your school should there be an active shooter, etc. Sailors are sometimes boarded by intruders and are not allowed to carry firearms in some locations. So, among some sailors they use wasp spray...it allows you to be 10 to 12 (maybe even further) feet away from an intruder. It can be sprayed towards the face of an intruder...you don't need to do anything, but already have the cap off then just aim and spray. It is also something anyone, any age could potentially use as a defense mechanism. Please share this idea if it seems like an alternative and viable idea. Could be used at a 7-11 or in other businesses too.
2
Grasping at straws....what in insane proposal to an insane state of affairs. Perhaps we should look more closely at the environment and conditions are school kids are working in. Parkland has 3,000 students - over 2,200 high schools in the US have over 1,600 students, many have armed guards and metal detectors already. There is research that points to more violence and bullying in large schools, and that the optimum size is 500-900.
Finally somebody who has or does not accept NRA money has a rational solution. Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban that W let lapse. It worked and the obscene amount of money that has influenced politicians could be used to help our democracy, instead of divide it.
We seem to pay quite high professional salaries to fire fighters and police officers who risk their lives daily in the service of others.
Presumably then, trained armed teachers would then need to be paid at similar rates. And that would almost certainly bankrupt a majority of smaller school districts.
2
Good god. Traditionally in the Armed Forces, It takes a pressure and fear in a military hierarchy to get men to fire on another human beings. It takes a lot of training for a policemen to learn not just how, but when to shoot - and we have way too much evidence of how hard it is react correctly in the instant when that decision gets made.
It figures that Mr President know-nothing know-it-all would rehash an NRA proposal without even discussing this with experienced professionals.
What I am shocked by is that we are even accepting this as a sincere proposal.
As another commenter suggested, lets give Trump his own damn gun, and cancel the Secret Service and other security details that protect him. For that matter, let's issue guns to Ivanka, Jared and the Trump boys - at least one is a self proclaimed big game hunter after all, and of course to Melania.
Why are even we discussing this as a serious proposal??? Just another sign that Trump- and the NRA - know how to direct the media towards their ends. Not even the Russian troll farm could come up with a more insane idea.
7
I It takes very little training to rid military recruits of an aversion to killing people. Many have no such aversion. It takes military training to teach recruits to fight back rather than cowering. They have to be taught that not fighting back is the surest way to be killed.
This country has descended into madness.
9
Those who have experienced crime, violence, and injury at the hands of others understand that there is seldom any warning, that outcomes are not predictable, and that the incidents tend to happen over a short duration. We all view narrative stories fiction and non-fiction depicting such human dramas but these are selected to inform and to entertain, they are exceptional. This tends to give us the illusion of being able to anticipate the outcomes of our reasoned responses that form in our imaginations. If all school staff were armed and trained, equipped with body armor and automatic rifles as well as handguns, the outcomes in future school shootings would be different but not necessarily less demanding of human sacrifice. A lot of people shooting means a lot more potential collateral damage. Good guys preventing bad guys in a conflict with guns is a swell narrative but reality is not controlled by the rules of morality stories.
5
When they harden the school sites, the killers can move to the school buses and corner bus stops where the children congregate. Is the next step to arm bus drivers and post armed guards at the bus collection points? Where will it end? We could reenact the "showdown at OK corral."
10
It is an insult to the necessary professionalism of police to suggest that a teacher with a handgun could be relied upon to shoot an AR-15 wielding active shooter. Policing is a full-time occupation, involving constant training and practice, not something that NRA-loving dilettantes can match in the heat of a moment.
14
@ jrh0 Asheville, NC
I doubt "the necessary professionalism of police", as long as local police forces are recruited from mercenary gunslingers, poorly trained in the use of arms and self-control.
An excellent editorial.
Wayne la Pierre is not about to concede, and therefore the polity/voters, when well-informed with all the confusing arguments, must decide
who represents their opinion best.
It is illegal to not educate in each state.
Therefore our children and grandchildren are being immorally forced to be at the mercy of the complex, often idiotic laws.
The NRA has to restrain itself from its usual rhetoric,
and apparently is unable to do this.
Every Amendment is interpreted, and the Second is
interpreted too.
This phenomenon is political. If the la Pierres are unable to concede, then their specious, bad faith
rhetoric is obsolete in the opinions of nearly every
voter whom has a child or grandchild in a public
or private school.
2
Have we considered that the Foreign Policy on Terrorism demands we
Stop them, there-- Before they enter?
Why does that no also apply to schools (churches, movies, etc)?
2
We stop the bad guys from getting in the airports. Maybe we should move the schools to airports. Or put air marshals in the schools.
My family is steeped in education including many teachers.
The suggestion to arm teachers is beyond reason and even embarrassing to have to discuss. But look at the source!
If DJT is convinced that arming individuals to promote and ensure safety he should have no problem dropping his entire security detail.
Just give him a gun! Anyone comes after him, he can handle it himself. That is what he is expecting of teachers.
Educating teachers should not include marksmanship training.
Vote November 2018!
10
It works both ways - a "bad guy" with a gun can stop a "good guy" with a gun. I realy do worry for you americans. The arms industry and the absolute proliferation of weapons amongst the population (which is the impression i get) almost invalidates the obvious argument for gun control in a civilised society. How on earth are you going to get from where you are to where you need to be?
6
It is astonishing that so few people know that there are many places where teachers are already armed - in at least 18 States - and it hasn't caused a problem. Really.
Here is a news report from June of 2017 that says teachers may be armed at school in 18 states: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/06/28/teachers-packing-heat-more-educator...
great, those 18 states are now uncivilized territory.
1
This has to be one of the lamest concepts pushed by the NRA. And antithetical to republicons core ideology of low taxes and no spending. Who exactly is going to pay for all of these guns for teachers, and the massive training it would require to get them even remotely effective. Jeezus, even police officers who are required to train constantly, have a difficult time shooting effectively under high stress situations, forget about being out gunned. No sane person with a pistol would engage a shooter with an AR-15. Especially, as wisely pointed out, a person with a death wish. Rambo teachers, good luck with that.
3
One further problem with armed bystanders in any shooting event: the police are justifiably likely to shoot anyone they see with a gun, especially someone firing a gun.
4
While dumbfounded by Trump's really imbecilic idea to arm teachers, just remember that according to three credible sources, he received $30 million from the NRA for his "campaign". And keep remembering that many Republican congressmen have received $millions as well from the NRA for thier campaigns.
This editorial sensibly provides reasons why arming teachers is such a bad idea. It should be required reading for all.
4
Imagine being the poor teacher who accidentally kills an innocent student, and having to live with that the rest of your life. Arming teachers is a cartoon solution from our cartoon president.
8
It has become apparent to me that there is one organization in this country has evolved towards a terrorist organization...and there are plenty advocating for it....
4
I'm wondering why the Editorial Board didn't bring up the question of why the NRA and the president think that teachers and coaches should be in charge of defending their places of work. I have never been asked to carry a loaded weapon and defend the people around me in case of an attack. We already have many brave teachers, counselors, administrators, and coaches that have lost their lives defending the children in their care. We have many school employees that have been responsible for saving children in active shootings. Who's going to look after them in the next shooting?
2
Good article, valid points. Some great comments as well. Cathartic to vent but better to act: VOTE! ELECT those willing to stand up to the NRA and who won't perpetuate the sick gun and violence worshipping US culture!
3
It might have already been noted in the comments here but the good guy with a gun in this situation, the deputy - was hiding and nowhere to be seen. There's your "good guy with a gun." And he was a trained officer no less. This whole idea is beyond absurd. What will teachers whose lives and aspirations are spent in dedication to the educating of children have to do to make this work, become part time soldiers? If they'd wanted to shoot guns for a living, they'd have become police officers or soldiers.
4
The proposal is VOLUNTARY. When we have paid professional law enforcement who FAILED to act on site, after many other law enforcement failures, teachers can't do much worse.
As a public school teacher I find it trapping to argue the point of teachers carrying weapons. The proposal by the president is absurd and foolhardy. One that leads Americans down yet another false rabbit trail.
Look at the bigger picture! LaPierre and Donald Trump are powerful people seeking BIG profits. The rationale for arming teachers is clear! Sell more guns. Open new markets.
Conservatives with Liberal gun laws equals military style weapons for all.
Can we not see another example of highly influential business tycoons persuading Americans to buy yet more "destructive essentials"?
School districts buying guns nationwide? Really? The perfect enabler to the gun industry, which in case you didn't know, is the NRA: an association of gun makers, not a defender of our constitution, though it does a good job of pretending!
Wake up, voters! Does it take a teacher to initiate wisdom and critical thinking. While it is one of our jobs, we are not the sole providers of knowledge and wisdom. Common sense still lives among us. Tap into it!
Assault weapons have proven (again this week) to intimidate law enforcement officers on the job. How can we expect teachers to be willing to hunt down the mass shooters spraying bullets?
Think America! Does it take putting an "educator" in the White House?
Hey, I like that! Imagine a person of reasoning and intelligence; with integrity, wisdom, and thought governing our nation!
4
I do not understand this oxymoron of that dude, Trump, "defending the Second Amendment" "the right to own weapons."
That Second Amendment was conceived to own arms in milicias to be able to bring down the government if it became authoritarian, not to "hunt with a cannon, or an AR-15m or a tank."
All those measures proposed by Trump are a joke, and a bad one, just to appease the relatives of the victims: until next massacre.
If a terrorist had entered that school in Florida and killed so many children and teachers, it would be an all-out war to the Middle East; but not at home.
You take the weapons away, we live in a secure society, like Japan, Australia and Western Europe.
5
Maybe it is just me, but I think every person carrying a gun in public, occupied places (as opposed to hunting grounds) is an imminent threat to my life (see Zimmerman, George). Am I allowed to shoot these persons, in self-defense? How am I supposed to sort out which are dangerous, and who are the good guys with guns -- wait for them to point the gun at me?
I
4
These sicko ideas about "guns" is just more effort from the 1% to lower the quality of education and control the topics of public discussion.
The issue here is not guns.
The issue is Ar15's and the fact that no civilian has any legitimate use for them.
1
Arming teachers would destroy our public education system. Not only would the best teachers exit the profession, but most parents who could would remove their kids from the schools. Perhaps that's a secondary goal of Republicans? They don't exactly have a great track record of spporting public schools.
7
This was never a serious proposal, but rather a smarmy, though smart,diversion from having to consider serious moves like banning assault weapons. Trump is a master of the tactic and we seem to fall for it every time. We should all just forget about the silly notion of teachers as gunfighters and try to keep on subject.
3
teachers are already "highly trained," to teach in schools. assault rifles fire high velocity rounds which travel much further than pistol rounds. a teacher, or anyone, that has only a pistol must get mighty close to the shooter to be effective. we already have armed security at a lot of schools. there was a sheriff's deputy at the parkland school. unfortunately, he did go in the school or challenge the shooter at all. this is a canard from the Nra and their boot licker Trump. when their arm the teachers proposal is not endorsed, they will not do anything else to address the situation, "They didn't want to protect the kids !" is what they will say. Sad!
3
The gun lobby's bad idea to arm teachers really has just two underlying drivers:
1) help sagging gun sales by introducing 700,000 new customers, and
2) act like they care by proposing a "solution"
And at the Florida massacre there was a good guy with a gun, but he froze and never engaged the killer. Does anyone really expect someone with less training to become a superhero ?
2
Anyone,being on the other side of a school when an attack occurs is going to take awhile to locate the shooter,who is armed with an assault rifle shooting many rounds(and children) and confront them with a pistol.They will lose that gun battle,then what?
The ONLY way to prevent this is to ban all assault weapons.
True hunters and home protection people can still have those weapons built for that,but not ones made to slaughter humans at a fast rate.
BTW,being that Trump had a "bone spur" and couldn't be drafted he sure seems to think that anyone can confront a heavily armed persona and stop them with a pistol. He has no idea how ludicrous this is.
1
I am not sure which is more ridiculous and less likely to solve the "problem":
1. Fewer guns in school.
or
2. More guns in school.
The gun "problem" is a manufactured problem....designed to cause endless debate without resolution and to guarantee re-election of various cynical (dem and repub alike) politicians.
to my mind........putting 3000 teenagers in a SuperMax lockdown "educational facility" with minimal adult supervision....now THAT is the real problem.
And what about mass-shooting venues other than schools?
1
When a disturbed student menaces a gun toting teacher, does the teacher "stand her ground" and shoot the student as the police sometimes do when they fear an assailant is trying to get their gun? When a teacher with a gun sees a person with a gun in an actual incident does she shoot, and then afterward realize she just killed a teacher she didn't know? Setting aside all the reasons arming teachers won't deter shooters, this proposal is like giving a potentially deadly medication to a 1,000,000 patients because it will possibly cure 10 of them.
6
Create a Citizens Reserve along the lines of the Army Reserve in which members of the NRA, in particular, those who own an AR-15 are properly trained and then assigned for a designated period of time to patrol schools and other public places around the nation. (Yes, they will be subject to a strict background check.) Let them be the much lauded good guy with a gun to meet the bad guy with a gun. At least until we figure out what else needs to be done to heal the nation from the sickness that besets it.
At a time when we should be recruiting, training and accurately compensating great teachers, the spectre of armed classrooms is sure to turn even more potential teachers away from the profession. Is that the real goal of the Trump/deVos approach to education? A way to do further damage to our public school system? We can find a billion dollars to arm teachers, but not equip classrooms, improve teacher salaries, and support educational needs? This is insanity. Even if you get past the moral repugnance of this idea, the simple impracticality of it should be glaringly obvious to anyone who thinks this through.
5
Wayne LaPierre and Donald Trump are both unmoved by evidence. We have the evidence from Australia's gun ban in 1996. We have the evidence from Connecticut's semi-automatic gun ban earlier this decade. Stricter rules regarding gun ownership reduces gun violence.
Leaving aside that they are not evidence based, LaPierre is dishonest in his defense of the Second Amendment. If he truly wanted to defend the right to bear arms, he would also fight for the right for people to bear other arms, like swords. He is only interested in guns.
The only way to deal with corruption like theirs is to shun them, politically, economically, even socially. This is not the advocacy a civilized society needs.
1
So by this logic, if there is an outbreak of killer disease then the best way to combat it is to give more people the disease. Brilliant! We'll be immune to bullets in no time.
2
The GOP Administration and their NRA allies ought to look at the statistics. Even police have trouble hitting their targets (well under 50%). Crack shots need both special eye/hand coordination and continual training in hitting MOVING targets. How will teachers have time for the intensive weapons training that would be required and the constant refresher courses on shooting moving targets. Stationary targets are relatively easy compared with moving targets.
Who would pay for all this training? The chances of hitting a shooter are very low. And what if the armed teacher shoots some student while trying to take down a person with an assault rifle with a handgun? Will that teacher be suspended, sued, terminated, tried for murder? This proposal is a preposterous effort to distract us from gun control. We need fewer guns, not more. The laws in other countries show that gun control is effective. It has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. The gun advocates like the NRA simply lie to create fear the government is coming for our guns and more sales.
2
We need to outlaw the AR15. That is what will stop these mass shootings.
But since so many people allege that "we protect x y or z so well why not our children?"
Along those lines and I'd like to point out that Police and the military seriously restrict how and when you can have and use your weapon. In the military when you are not in a combat theater you don't get to have a weapon on or near you unless you are an MP or on the range practicing. I figure the police has milder restrictions since so many take their weapons home but they still have to have psychological exams and proficiency exams and a place to lock them up at home.
Why don't we have at least the minimal restrictions the police have for civilians? Seems only reasonable since those who are professionally trained to use weapons have restrictions that those who are not professional should have to meet at least the minimal standard applied to Police.
Imagine seeing our teachers with upholsters and belts around their waists, or any other form of support to carry a gun. Yet, the sight would be terrifying.
In the name of security, to even look at the idea as a job combination, is beyond comprehension.
Several past tragedies, have caused so much pain to families. Yet, our elected leaders have made no serious and acceptable attempt towards seeking a lasting solution to this growing 'epidemic' of gun violence.
Each time lives are lost, we see the same tape recorder playing, with politicians and the NRA repeating the same message.
How many more tragedies should we wait to see to make our elected leaders, wake up to address the need for real gun control?
The NRA should not be financing election campaigns, and politicians should not be accepting monies from this organization.
Provide guidelines to determine what type of guns can be allowed to be sold and in possession by individuals. Impose stricter background checks. Raise the minimum age from 18 to 21 years for gun permits. What is it that impedes to have these guidelines in place? They do not in any way, take away people's freedom to bear arms, nor is it an objective to change the Second Amendment, which is a hopeless and groundless argument on the part of the NRA.
The absence of proper and meaningful guidelines is what has allowed gun ownership to remain wide open, a weak link and motivation to gun violence in this country.
I'm not good at math, nor do I know what guns cost. Would someone please figure out the income that gun manufacturers will make if 700,000 teachers buy or are given guns? I believe Trump's insistence on arming teachers is just his way of generating funds for the NRA's bosses. He's paying them for their continued support. It's basically a money making scheme.
3
Police Chief Chris Magnus surmises that the arming of teachers or other school personnel might be a bad idea, because the shooter might possibly expect to be killed in the attack. But should it really matter to survivors of an attack that the wish of a mass killer to be shot in a shooting spree is granted — by an armed teacher, so that he or she thwarts the killer’s wish to kill them, too?
Trained police get shot by amateur gunmen every year, so it’s not a rational rebuttal to just dismiss out of hand as worthless the suggestion for armed teachers in schools. But dead men tell no tales about their motives that we can trust. What we know from mass shooters with certainty is that they nearly always choose targets, unarmed and unable to defend themselves.
The availability of guns in our society is as critics insist directly related to shootings with guns. It’s also just as true that the same availability of guns keeps most people safe from armed criminals. How do we know? Criminals arrested for mass homicides, like Nickolas Cruz, are apprehended acting to escape justice, not caught trying to be shot.
The article misses an important point: Armed teachers could be mistaken for the shooter by police - and end up dying as a result. What's to stop a few tough boys from taking the firearm of a teacher and shooting any and all. With so many armed teachers, what about the teacher who loses it, and starts shooting? So much could go wrong here. We have a right to relax as a nation. We won't have this critical freedom until semi-automatic guns and bump stocks are limited to licensed shooting ranges - and background checks are air tight.
3
The authors of the Second Amendment saw an armed citizenry as a necessary defense against the tendency of government to grow tyrannical. Their purpose was to ensure Americans are armed to confront forces of tyranny on the battlefield. The amendment is designed to protect exactly the type of weapons—assault rifles—people most want to ban, despite the fact that rifles—including assault rifles—account for only 2.5 percent of murders.
This is at the top of the list of really Big Lies sold to reduce fears but at its heart another giveaway to the NRA at taxpayer, teacher, and children’s expense. The unintended consequences are obvious except to those who profit from fear. When suicide-by-teachers becomes a thing, then what? Thoughts and prayers undoubtedly.
1
It turns out a "good guy" with a gun is not all that is needed to stop gun violence. It turns out we need courageous, paid, trained, experienced , close quarters combatants too! That sounds like special forces trained sailors and soldiers.
Let Trump, the GOP, and the NRA propose, pass and fund any and all their solutions to end gun violence and henceforth all gun violence will be on them. Oh wait, that is the current state of affairs.
I am a teacher, and I became a teacher because I love the mission of giving every child access to as many opportunities in life as possible. I became a teacher out of love for human beings. I believe in compassion for all humans, which includes protecting those who are showing signs of mental illness and aggression. I will quit teaching before I ever carry a gun, for this goes against the message of compassion and human understanding that I try to instill in my students.
3
What a sad comment on our society, we are talking about arming teachers. This is not right at all, this is not a solution to the issue. Hope people wake up and see what liabilities are involved with arming teachers. It is interesting how the NRA is trying to change the discussion to more arms than looking at common sense gun restrictions. What civilian needs an assult rifle except to kill someone. This is another diversion the NRA and our politicians are taking to divert the rational discussion about gun control. Here is a young man 19 who could buy an assult rifle but could not buy a beer. Does that make sense? Hopefully some real solutions will be proposed and enacted.
3
Only in America do we talk about arming teachers. Well, they probably have similar conversations in Afghanistan. Another issue is the shooter showing up with body armor on and the teacher having no protection.
2
And what happens when a frustrated teacher loses their cool and pulls it out on a student? It would be bound to happen.
2
Obviously expecting teachers to provide SWAT style security for our school kids is a non starter.
Guards have to be guards. Teaching is a already a full time job.
Back of the envelope cost for effective properly trained armed guards, not X Wal Mart greeters, for 50 million kids in over 100,000 primary and high schools exceeds $ 50 billion per year, reaching the size of the US Army.
Are Trumpians and the NRA willing to put money where their mouths are?
Can we afford a NRA society in blood or treasure?
Over a century ago in Dodge City and Tombstone you had to check your gun before entering town.
What have we come to?
3
The nearly weekly attacks on people by individuals who want to kill as many as possible, the proposals to arm teachers with semi-automatic weapons for protection, and the report this morning that one of the school guards froze during the latest attack on a school are exactly the kind of environments the military faces in war zones. Some combat veterans have noted that it is common for soldiers to freeze during combat and that who will and who won't cannot be predicted. All of this begs the question: Do people in the United States now need some kind of military training in order to protect themselves from such assaults? Is the United States becoming a war zone?
There are HUGE risks in arming school teachers:
1) Sufficient training -- do teachers have the time to invest in becoming experts with firearms and maintaining that? No. However, trained security and police do. Then there's the matter of psychology. It's one thing to be trained with using a weapon, but what about the stress of a real-life scenario? The unanticipated stresses?
2) Danger of Additional Shooters -- police can often arrive on the school scene of a hostile shooter within 10 minutes of being alerted. Now you've got the unknown of not just the shooter, but one or more other people (teachers) armed who are trying to take out the shooter.
3) Police and SWAT are highly trained for this -- let them do their jobs!
4) Precedent -- we've had many, many decades of extremely minimal gun violence in schools. It's only the past 10 years or so that we've seen a spike, due to extremely easy gun access and Internet sites that educate on how to obtain and use them. THAT is what needs to be addressed. Arming the schools is NOT the answer. Nor has it been the answer for all the schools in modern industrialized nations. There's a reason why. The gun use question has been thoroughly debated and determined that arming schools is NOT the answer!
2
Think about this as the "arm teachers" proposals continue to circulate. There is no evidence, none, that even suggests that arming teachers will result in the prevention or discouraging of school shooters. Such suggestions are speculation, wishful, magical thinking at best, and a calculated diversion at worst.
What we do know, and what we have experienced, is that military assault weapons with large capacity magazines carry out most mass shootings of any kind. There is no debate about this.
Arming teachers would be one, massive, social experiment with predicable devastating and horrific consequences.
I don't understand the general position of the US on guns and weapons. On the one hand they feel that gun ownership is perfectly fine and some sort of "given right". Americans may differ around the edges as to the extent that citizens can own/possess a gun, but the right to bear arms seems to be un-questioned.
This seems completely opposed to their view on foreign countries' ownership of nuclear weapons, where the US feel that they have complete authroity to deny that country's right to bear arms.
We all know why the contradiction exists, lets not be disingenious, but its a slippery slope. And you wonder why the US wonders why!
2
I love the point about the inescapable reality that teachers are human...and therefore are subject to the same stress-induced fear as anyone else. Where's the conversation about the emotional and psychological impact of asking people to pack and use firearms? When hospitals become the next target for mass shooters, are we going to then suggest that physicians, surgeons, and nurses be ready to shoot?
1
Instead of arming teachers and administrators with guns, use that money to educate. Use that money to train teachers and administrators to recognize that a student is in crisis. Use that money for social workers and counselors to work with students and parents. Use that money for a good reason like better mental health programs. Use that money to educate college students who are becoming teachers how to recognize students in crisis. Use the money intelligently and not to provide guns to teachers. We have become a society of violence and hatred. We are living in the 21st century not the 18th century. We keep on saying enough is enough. So when will it actually be enough.
All that money that the NRA has given to the Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump, use that money instead for the good of the country not for more guns.
I ask, why do you need a gun? Many people can't answer that question. Or they say it is my right. Well, you know what, it is my right to be safe when I enter a school, a movie theatre, a store, a restaurant and a concert.
We need gun control and politicians to start working for the people of our country instead of the gun industry and the NRA.
1
Arming teachers and fortifying schools means admitting that school mass shootings are going to be allowed to continue to happen.
And that is simply not acceptable to the students, teachers and parents of this country.
The goal needs to be to stop mass shootings altogether, and not to reduce the death rate in the mass shootings every time they happen.
1
When I am convinced that armed "good guys" will never shoot unarmed good guys, I might consider arming "good guys" in schools.
But while trained police officers continue to kill innocent people at calm traffic stops out of panic, I'd prefer not to assume that a teacher in a mass shooting is going to be calm and judicious.
2
Perhaps a middle ground ...
Place a tax on the manufacture and import of guns and ammunition. Allocate the revenue from that tax to each state by population.
Allow states to spend that money on wall mounted finger print locked tasers and training for teachers and/or mental health evaluation and treatment.
Finally have the federal government track and publish the effectiveness of each states methods.
Enacting the NRA agenda to arm teachers would impose additional costs on schools that are already underfunded and struggling. To do it correctly, taxes would need to be raised so that they had the money. Thus, taxing the general population to fund talking points for the NRA. Cheaper to make assault weapons and high capacity clips illegal to own. No sympathy for those who made poor life choices to own these things.
1
I would rather have American school children reading "The Hunger Games" in school than living through it. But Emma Gonzalez does remind me of the heroine.
2
Has anyone considered the notion that Donald Trump's belief arming teachers in our schools just may be responsible for creating a new, more lethal attacker bent on reigning down violence on our children?
An attacker that will be different, more heavily armed, may even recruit allies to help in his attack. Trump needs to be careful here, needing to take into consideration his actions may have the opposite result. He just may be breeding an attacker(s) like we've not seen before.
1
Can someone tell me why mass shooting in schools and other venues is predominantly a US problem? Many other countries that have ready access to guns don't experience these tragedies.
2
If the NRA wants to conscript an army of people, 99.9% of which will never use the weapon (which conveniently would enrich NRA sponsoring corporations), the NRA should start pushing for conscription.
Then we'd have:
Army
Navy
Air Force
Coast Guard
National Guard
Teacher's Corps (the largest armed force in the nation)
How wonderful a world the NRA promotes for us. It used to be a sign of civilization arriving in towns in our expanding frontier when women would start arriving in numbers, and city government started requiring citizens to disarm in city limits. But now gun industry wants us to zoom backwards.
1
Another issue I have heard raised before is that multiple people with guns would confuse police when they arrive — they would not be able to tell at a glance who is the shooter and who are the "good guys." This is a terrible idea all around.
1
Marco Rubio just claimed that if a guy wants to shoot an entire classroom with a rifle, he'll find that rifle, no matter what the law says. And that, he then added, is why we don't need laws that limit access to war zone weapons.
It's sad to see how people spreading these lies never even TRY to explain why, IF their hypothesis were true, somehow in all other civilized countries there are no school shootings, in other words no men so eager to murder innocent children that no matter how strict the gun laws are, they find guns anyhow.
What makes America's young men so much more crazy than those of all other Western countries ... ?
The GOP never has the guts to address this kind of fundamental questions, and that's obviously for a very good reason: THEY DON'T CARE. This isn't about logic or trying to solve a real problem, it's ONLY about keeping their NRA campaign donations, and that's it.
And now, instead of studying the cause of this problem and fix it, the party that wants us to believe that they love the police and the military, proposes to create a completely parallel civil army of teachers, SIMPLY to try to obtain schools as safe as in all other parts of the world that aren't in the middle of a war.
Since when is having to know how to and be prepared to kill people in order to be merely able to survive in your workplace, as a teacher, somehow INCREASING rather than dramatically lowering the "individual freedom" of those teachers and their students ... ?
1
Gun control is not the heart of the problem.
What needs to be fixed is campaign financing in America.
Trump’s single desire is to solidify his base. The notion of arming teachers, of hardening schools, of broadening gun ownership, of having gun use as a primary method to settle problems fits the Trump base exactly. Trump pivoted for his empathetic card reading to speak to CPAC, drooling over guns and how they are more important than a tax cut. Forget the NRA; they are simply cheer leaders Trump uses to gin up the gun owners who will do anything to protect their weapons. It is a perfect system; Trump doesn’t have to accomplish anything to get their support, he only has to create fear.
Sorry folks -- most of you would rather let school shootings continue than think of pragmatic ways to stop it. Yes -- if we banned all guns and had perfect back ground checks and psychological tests that can zero in and identify this with a very high probability of becoming a mass killer -- we would not have any more school shootings. But those things aren't going to happen. If you think they will -- any time in the near future -- then you're guilty of magical thinking.
So instead of attacking Trump, why not offer up some pragmatic ideas. And I guarantee you making schools hardened targets is a good idea. How you do it, the details, can be worked out. But it is the one approach to stopping school shootings that will work. Banning guns, etc. is simply pie in the sky.
1. It is not feasible to arm teachers with anything other than a hand gun if, for no other reason, it would have to be out of their hands at most times and subject to someone using the gun meant for protection against the people who were supposed to be protected.
2. Police officers and FBI agents receive many hours of training over many months in the handling and usage of handguns. In addition, they are required to constantly go to the shooting range to keep up their marksmanship. Nevertheless, as the article indicates, the handgun is an extremely inaccurate weapon. The chances of another student or teacher being injured or
killed, rather than a shooter, are high.
3. The handgun is not an effective weapon against an assault weapon. It just isn't. So, unless you want to live with the idea that there will be schools having multiple people patrolling with assault weapons, you need to try something else.
4. Schools in this Country are trying to figure out how to buy enough supplies and books on their limited budgets. Who is going to pay for all these people being armed and who is going to pay the astronomical premiums that any insurance company would require, assuming you could find an insurance company willing to cover amateurs with guns in a school setting.
It is just a dumb and unworkable idea.
Trump isn’t proposing anything revolutionary. Many schools already designate teachers to carry concealed handguns, especially in rural school districts. Some schools place signs outside the schools warning faculty members are armed.
Schools wouldn’t necessarily have to purchase guns for their teachers. About 36 percent of American own guns. Twenty percent of school teachers probably already own guns.
Most schools wouldn’t have to pay armed teachers bonuses or stipends. Many teachers would volunteer.
A teacher armed with a semiautomatic handgun can squeeze off rounds as quickly as a shooter armed with an AR-15 or other assault rifles. A mass shooter might have a larger magazine, but the teacher only has to hit one target.
Teachers who take one of the course required to obtain a concealed handgun will have more firearm training than 90 percent of mass shooters. Mass shootings are usually first- and last-time events for most shooters.
Less than one percent of armed teachers would ever confront a mass shooter. It not as if engaging mass shooters would take up classroom time. Classroom teaching stops when a mass shooter shows up.
This is the usual drivel from the uber leftists who inhabit the NYT's editorial board. They are against defending our children with deadly force from armed and trained teachers from those whose seek to kill them. Instead they want to ban guns and repeal the sacred second amendment. What mass murderer would ever be stopped from committing his heinous crime because he respected a law against possessing an AR1? Get out of your elitists NY bubbles people!
1
The Second Amendment is not sacred. It is an ambiguous policy from 200 years ago.
3
my elitist NY bubble prefers not to get the smack shot out of it. but thanks for the suggestion.
Expecting a teacher to be ready and willing to take a human life with a firearm is insane. How many people in America could do such a thing at their job? Or anywhere? It is a horrible idea! Anyone who says they could shoot an armed assailant at work has no idea what they're talking about. Ask a police officer how difficult it is to face someone with a gun. Ask how difficult it is to shoot a human being and take his/her life. Now ask yourself: Could I really shoot and kill someone?
It is the duty of the 300 million American majority to face down and crush the 3-5 million NRA members that are enslaving our country. We must stand up and march against this irreligious army that is killing our children.
5
Just the dumbest idea ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And to give the teachers a bonus if they'll learn how to shoot. Trump really has lost his mind...........
1
This takes idiocy to operatic heighs.
all this will mean is the shooter armed with AR 15 will take out the teacher
first.
the stupid it burns
1
With the number of stupid and destructive ideas flowing out of the Republican Party and their funders, they might as well walk around shooting our children!
Any teacher that thinks it is a good idea to carry a gun in school shouldn't be a teacher--period!
2
If ever there was a reason standing in perfectly clear sight to get out and vote on 11/6/18, this is it.
Our president is a certified moron.
Our kids’ lives hang in the balance.
This all seems like a really, really bad nightmare.
But it is not. It’s really happening.
Vote, people. Vote! On 11/6/18, VOTE!!!!
I am literally SCREAMING from the rafters:
VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!
2
The country would be much better served arming them with STE(A)M education tools.
By the time the shooter with an assault rifle gets into the classroom, it is already mostly too late. They have already killed people in the hallways and stairwells, and in the classrooms via element of surprise. While we have to live with such guns available in society, the answer is to have at least 2 police -- with their own AR-15s -- at each entrance to the facility. They may not stop a pistol from being brought in (unless we add metal detectors), but at least they will stop the guy with a large duffel bag of guns and ammo magazines. Tax the hell out of guns and ammo to pay for the 100,000 cops needed to do this job....
1
We keep devising ridiculous ways to stop events while they are going on instead of preventing them from happening. Get rid of the guns and the problem is solved. At least, get rid of the machine guns......that would not require any change to the second amendment.
1
It only demonstrates how IGNORANT is 45th.
2
How much do we need to know to realise that DJT is off his head, he is nuts and unfit. I know from personal experience that when you live with nutcases some behaviours become normal, but this is way over the top - please my country wake up! Get rid of these morons in congress and this incompetent nuthead.
The idea is so rediculous it's not worth a comment.
3
Clearly we need better mental health care for the White House. And using their logic we can safely replace the Secret Service with a few armed teachers who can also lead tours, formulate policy, meet with Nunes at night, polish statues and otherwise be occupied with things other than security. tRump is truly a moron.
1
If this absurd proposal gets any traction at all, teachers should absolutely walk off their jobs en mass in a nationally coordinated protest until it goes away. Our president is a complete and total moron. Don't let him take your attention away from what's really going on with guns, Russia, and the upcoming elections!
1
Another truly terrible proposal from the right wing nuts.
1
Donald, the dumbest person in the Room. EVERY Room.
4
He makes me long for the good old days of Bush and Cheney. And I am a liberal............
1
Pogo
Me to. It's sad to think that Bush and Cheney looks better. Actually I am not sure about Cheney. That might be a stretch.
America,
Your country has gone nuts.
3
In a seemingly endless list of stupid ideas, trump manages to add the stupidest one yet. And lapierre is just plain full of it.
2
1. We have a terrible problem with mass shootings.
2. The NRA is the cause of these problems.
3. Eliminate the NRA and our problem canl be solved.
3
If you arm the teachers, the first one to have his/her head popped when a deranged a hole enters the classroom will be the teacher ! C'mon gun nuts, use some common sense. That person will not stop a shooter, s/he'll be the first one to die.
1
I cannot actually write a comment that doesn’t include profanities.
1
They had a good guy with a gun Wayne, he failed!
2
Is the US seriously debating this perfect idiocy? Please tell me this is just a nightmare or a bad way to appease that ignorant fool in the White House and his beloved NRA?
4
Donald Trump and Wayne LaPierre, the leader of the NRA since 1991, are brothers under the skin. Neither one served in the military. Both got deferments to dodge Vietnam. Chicken hawks. There’s no evidence either one enjoys shooting a gun or has much experience with firearms, long guns or handguns. Deer hunting? Skeet? Trap? One of LaPierre’s former NRA colleagues, John Acquilino, was quoted saying that if LaPierre ever joined his friends on a hunting expedition, he’d “run like hell.”
Yet both these chicken hawks come loaded for bear with their own verbal ammo when they’re standing safe behind a podium, in front of a crowd. Trump boasts he could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. LaPierre tells ferocious stories about government agents, “jack-booted thugs,” breaking into the houses of law-abiding gun owners. Both men profit from their interactions with the federal government while proclaiming to hate the federal government and ranting against regulations, rules and restrictions that threaten to emasculate a True American Man. They arouse their audiences with a heady brand of the macho American myth that preaches frontier self-reliance.
And they don’t care whether an armed teacher might well shoot an innocent student in the head because they, Trump and LaPierre, don’t really care much about students, domestic abuse victims, men who commit suicide with guns, grieving parents. They pretend to.
It’s all pretend.
What a filthy game ...
2
This tragic event marks the ~100th fatal US school shooting since Columbine. The students, parents, and teachers of Marjory Stoneman Douglas are valiantly trying to influence our national leaders to finally take action, and every American should stand with them.
Incredibly, within days, the NRA was back at the podium with the same scare tactics around loss of "freedom", our Idiot in Chief was promoting a NRA solution to sell 700,000 guns to teachers, and a US Senator looked right in the eye of a traumatized survivor and said he would continue to take money from this domestic terrorist organization.
The depravity of the NRA leadership and our Congress is crystal clear, yet hard to grasp. The 99th shooting didn't phase them, and the 100th won't either. Normal Americans hope we have reached a tipping point, but don't believe it. The NRA and their very abnormal, depraved congressional minions are immune to your pain, because they fundamentally fear the world and sincerely believe armed chaos is just inevitable. They can't imagine or grasp the carnage that a bullet does to a human body, because they have no normal ability to empathize.
Reasonable gun control is a battle for the soul of this country, between people who believe in a civilized society, and people who believe in an armed Darwinian militarized survivalist state.
If you want the civilized society, better stand with the Marjory Stoneman students now, because this is it.
1
You would be a fool to engage a crazed shooter who has an AR15 and a death wish. You wouldn't stand a chance with your pathetic little pistol. What teachers need are grenade launchers. Sure some collateral loss of life, but small price to pay for our freedoms.
3
Great idea! Teachers could be trained on firing a LAW, (Light Anti-Tank Weapon) in fifteen minutes. We need more military-grade weapons in the hands of our teachers. Fix bayonets and charge!!
1
Your President is a dangerous lunatic.
6
too much attention being given to another of the moron in chief's suggestions.
call your representatives and tell them to do what you want.
and please please please vote democrat this november.
1
The simplistic thinking of those who believe arming teachers is a good idea is breathtaking. To envision a "good result" of someone killing or stopping a school shooter, you must envision all of the bad results that would come from increasing the number of firearms on campuses, the accidents, the thefts, the collateral injuries to innocents, and the situations in which weapons are used inappropriately (think of the numerous incidents with police who are highly trained). And think of the cost, not just in dollars, but in time diverted away from the core functions of teaching to train, re-train, and maintain competency with weapons. The sum of all this is that arming teachers is a stupendously ridiculous idea, and the fact that the moron-in-chief is advocating it is just the cherry on top. The NRA wants to sell more guns, period.
This insane country "led" by the orange pinhead would rather protect AR15s than its children. GUN CONTROL! no more selling of military assault rifles to anyone. Massive buyback of existing military weapons. Stringent background checks. Quit perverting the second amendment all you pinheads at the NRA. America is sick of watching their children and innocent bystanders die because a teeny minority of pinheads shriek and grab their guns like they are clutching their pearls. Saying we need more guns to help with gun violence is like saying, "hey my house is on fire, I think it will help if I set the 2nd story on fire too, that will help". High time we quit acting like this is normal. Go all you motivated and courageous students - all reasonable adults in the US are with you and want to help however we can!!!
3
What a perfectly preposterous proposal! A truly untenable idea that gives new meaning to “stupid”. The NRA must be eating this with a spoon. Why not? 200,000 more guns! No wonder we’re the laughing stock of the world.
1
This avalanche of arrogant and stupid foolishness boasted by our Con-Man-in-Chief will bury him before too long.
He digs his hole deeper and deeper, and will receive due justice. The fool knows not --- as the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice.
3
Putin’s plan of sowing chaos in the country by having an idiot lead us is totally working.
1
Remember please that in the view of the Florida legislature
assault weapons don't kill high school students,
porn kills high school students.
Which proves the Florida legislature's Republicans are mentally ill and should not be allowed to buy ...
porn ???
3
The Dumbbell-in-Chief has been watching too many Clint Eastwood movies. But, you know, he spends most of his time watching TV. What a fool.
2
What’s next - priests toting rifles under their robes, doctors with pistols in their scrubs, etc?
This mad man not my president is more embarrassing and injurious everyday. Please Mueller, hurry!
1
Basically, Trump and LaPierre are saying to these teachers: Here is your 9mm handgun. Now go out and take down that guy with the AR-15. You'll get a bonus.
As a teacher, I will try to help your child under all circumstances.
However, I WILL NOT TAKE A BULLET FOR YOUR CHILD.
I plan to reach retirement.
If your child takes a bullet because YOU ARE TOO STUPID to demand restrictions on firearms, it is on YOU.
Is it possible tRump has the NRA & the NEA mixed up? Maybe his empathy notecard got smeared.....
1
donald jerk tRump, and his boss, Wayne LaPierre, say and do a lot of really stupid, inhumane stuff, but the idea of bringing more guns into schools, and making teachers responsible for THEIR failures to protect the public, is at the top of the list. Anything, any life, for a buck. Disgusting. America has decided that if you, elected officials, insist on supporting the NRA, you will soon lose your jobs. Ban ALL assault rifles, gun accessories, and ineligible buyers, every one of them. Make new laws, then ENFORCE them.
It’s time to call a spade a spade: the NRA and its employees are nothing but pure EVIL. Stop sugarcoating them, MSM, and call them out. EVIL. They are killing the rest of us.
1
At close range, less than 15m, in Nam less than 15% of the time did American troops firing, manage to drop their targets. I spotted six men in white, long sleeve shirts, AK 47s slung over their shoulders, about 15m away and 2m below us, broad daylight, smoking and calmly walking, apparently from the very potent marijuana endemic to that area. ($5/kilo!)
I requested permission to open fire. LT turned me down because “You’re a medic.” . Instead he lined up six of our ‘best shooters’. They, as usual, opened up on full magazine. Rounds went up and to the right! The fo kept walking. Slapped new magazines in. Up and to the right. And finally the stoned men woke up and ran away. Third magazines still being on full automatic. Never did one of them even stagger!
And these idiots want police officers in schools to have military M16s! The M16 bullet is light weight, high velocity and does massive shock damage, especially at close range. Downrange God can meet the students as they enter heaven. I never even set my M16s on 3 round bursts. Rapid fire, single shot. That is a major reason I was sent to sniper school. I never missed. I, as a medic, led my company in kills. Never had to put a second bullet into a target but shifted to the next target.
For real, in combat in Nam, more of our troops died from ‘friendly fire’ then the enemy’s!
At close quarters, a school police officer should be using a larger caliber rifle with single shot and a magazine of 20 or revolver with speed loads.
Good luck finding new teachers, or experienced ones, if they are asked to carry a weapon. This proposal is beyond stupid, but look who's running the show.
Harden the schools. Seriously? What about the mall? The cineplex? The hospital? The library? How'd that old political saying go? It's the guns, stupid. Sad. But you really can't fix stupid.
2
Does it surprise anyone that our President would suggest a silly solution to a complex problem? After he gets his morning briefing from Fox News and the NRA?
What it the next mass AR-15 shooting is at a supermarket? Would he then suggest we arm all the check out cashiers with Glocks?
How about movie theaters? Arm all the teenage ushers?
State Fairs? Arm all the drifters who run the rides?
Beaches? Arm all the lifeguards?
It is time for our president and our elected officials to act and speak as maturely as the high school students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. What a bunch of incredible young people.
Grow up, Donald. Grow up Rubio. Grow up the rest of you cowards in Washington.
This is what American kids are up against today: gun addicts and warped fantasists who are willfully blind to the clear path to rational, controlled access to guns that has been demonstrated by every civilised nation on earth; a party whose brand is fraud and enforced ignorance backed by the very suppliers of that gun addiction; a marketplace that rains death, mental illness and addiction upon the young in the form of guns, porn, screen based mind rot, ‘smart phones’, drugs, pop culture and ‘social’ media; a public education system that has been gutted in many states by the GOP; fraudulent, scavenging health care; climate change denial; a traitorous con named Trump and his pathetic followers; racist, misogynistic cave dwellers running the show in many states. Now the GOP brain trust proposes guns for teachers. The kids can’t help but think their country is insane. I have no apologies to make for any of this. It is time to bring down the Republican Party. It would be a service to the nation. Rally behind those kids. They can do it.
1
This idea is so crazy, so juvenile, so obviously idiotic, on so many reasons expressed by other commenters, that it takes one's breath a way. We really do have lunatics in the White House.
1
I have visions of Fredo trying to protect Don Corleone in "The Godfather".
Let’s start calling NRA campaign contributions “blood money” and demand that our Congressional representatives #GiveItBack !
Does anyone really believe that trump believes that arming teachers is a solution. If so you are as daft as he is.
1
One of the underreported negative consequences of having Trump as our president is the NYT editorial board’s need to comment on every harebrained idea he proposes.
Trump is a coward and a fool. He is the very opposite of a leader, such as Kennedy or LBJ or Obama, who realized the political risks but nonetheless used their considerable strength and intellectual might to push for civil rights, health care, climate action and yes, gun control. Trump merely parrots – and that is true for anything that actually has been “accomplished” (actually, only the abominable Republican tax cuts), which were entirely Ryan and McConnell. Now, he parrots NRA Wayne LaPierre, virtually word for word. It is astonishing how when he makes the pronouncement that arming teachers will deter any “sicko” from invading a school that no one asks on what basis he makes such an assertion. It is also utterly offensive that he added that this would be “hardening” schools “essentially for free.” Free?
NRA’s Wayne LaPierre goes way beyond spreading paranoia that any gun regulation at all will eradicate the 2nd Amendment and result in confiscation of all guns, to casting all Democrats, city-dwellers, intellectuals, the FBI, CIA, any judge who goes against the ultra-right wing as “European-style socialists” (more than half the citizenry) is another display of their mastery of propaganda and disinformation, but also their use of “projection”. The NRA ihas become a Neo Nazi political organization with a goal of establishing a Fascist State. LaPierre’s words are no different than Hitler’s. LaPierre's vision is to eradicate democracy and have us all live in an NRA prison.
2
I think we should all be free to carry concealed weaponss in the White House.....for our own protection....just in case.
Donald Trump vowed to end this “American Carnage” stating “I alone can fit it.” Guess again you Trumpsters. There is one word for Trump’s academic arms race proposal: stupid.
1
A President who evaded military service because of an alleged bone spur (I did two years' military service, by the way, during the first Shatt Al Arab crisis with Saddam Hussein in 1972) is deciding on how to combat violence at home and abroad?
Has there ever been such a bigger bunch of cowards -- ultimately GOP politicians from Dubya/Cheney to Trump -- leading a nation in times of foreign and domestic violence? Even Corporal Hitler served in the military, for Heaven's sake.
Where is the basic common sense? How can cowards be entrusted to lead nations, especially cowards who flee personal danger through military evasion, not to mention personal financial danger through Chapter 11 procedures that leave sub-contractors with nothing and save only the privileged secured creditors?
In Europe Trump would have been laughed off the stage after his first debate, not just because of his clear ignorance of the facts but because of his filthy mouth. When will the U.S. wake up and elect knowledgeable career politicians who exhibit a sense of decency?
Where are the brave, principled politicians like JFK who served with valour and whose brother took on the Mafia head-on?
I am not writing this not as an Iranian but as a concerned citizen of the world, concerned that the U.S.A. is falling off a cliff. I certainly don't want the world controlled by 'alternative empires', but that's where we're heading.
2
Beyond noting Trump's combo of stupidity, arrogance, ignorance and cowardice--by the way, this is the first time Trump's made it as clear as clear can be that he'll fold under pressure, which is what you really want ro see in a President--a couple points.
1. Hooray. One more shot at doing things on the cheap, and sticking teachers with the responsibility.
2. The grade-school teacher and ex-marine I saw on the news today was precisely right: as a Marine, she trained 52 weeks a year. And there aren't enough hours in the day for her to train for ahooting at an active shooter.
3. She is also right to say that she cannot trust the School Board, the local government, the Florida legislature, and the Gov to have her back.
4. The idiots who think this is a Good Idea are floating in fantasies about guns, and about shooting, and about fighting. When confronted, they'll immediately blather about, "Well, it's better than NOTHING!" Really? Then why aren't there any examples, anywhere, of a civilian with a pistol stopping a bad guy with an assault rifle in the middle of a crowd?
The point of arming teachers isn't to help anything. Well, other than oandering to the NRA and the far, far Right. And spending zero dollars. And washing one's hands of responsibility.
I saw a segment on the morning news about a teacher in Colorado who met with a reporter about the gun he carries(semi-automatic?). He rolled up his pant leg--it looked like he had trouble with even that part--and very slowly managed to take it out. I mean, come on, he was proud to be carrying it and la, di, da, but how much you want to make a bet he'd be dead before he even was able to get it out from his holster and aim at the shooter?
Well folks, you ask a clown a question, you get a silly answer.
2
The whole discussion from the BRA side is pure madness, here's what we're up against, please take the minute to Watch! Watch "NRA Ad" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/PrnIVVWtAag
I'm a former high school teacher who never had to deal with issues like these, because in those days there weren't millions of guns of all types in circulation. Wayne LaPierre is soulless. And Miss Loesch is a shrew. They have no idea what a good life could be like, since they live theirs with only one purpose. They want to see every teacher armed so their real customers, the gun makers, can sell millions upon millions more guns.
Arming teachers is the dumbest idea ever. Trump thinks he's in a John Wayne movie. Putin's puppet. NRA puppet.
1
Those who suggest arming teachers might do well to review the studies S.L.A. ("SLAM" )Marshall did for the Army years ago on the behavior of soldiers in combat situations. What he found was that in the chaos of a combat situation a significant number of combat trained soldiers did not fire their weapon. This would seem to raise at least some doubts about the assumption that a classroom teacher with a handgun and a bit of training will automatically turn into a Navy SEAL.
5
On top of my years classroom teaching i also volunteered in kindergarten for 3 years. Arming teachers is one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard. How many kids will die from accidental shootings? I would like to go back in time and shoot a few parents, myself.......
4
It has already happened in Pakistan where they started allowing teachers to carry guns after a Taliban (thanks reagan) massacre of children. Also a teacher in Utah shot herself in the leg.
I just love the cynicism behind Trump's and the NRA's call to arm teachers: Just imagine how many more guns they could sell ........
And then potential shooters would take countermeasures and transition to bombs and suicide vests, and hey presto, Afghanistan on your own doorstep!
The NRA and and spineless, immoral U.S. politicians are doing infinitely more harm to their nation than any potential foreign 'enemy' could hope to achieve.
15
You "just love the cynicism behind Trump's and the NRA's call to arm teachers..."
You'd probably love it a little less if one of your children were a victim.
N. Smith, that was sarcasm.
Aw, come on, with their THREE DAYS of gun training I'm sure they'll be ace marksmen...or markspeople.
7
Even by Trump's standards, arming teachers is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard. What an ignorant buffoon. It's so obvious that he is in way over his head and is all but irrelevant on such serious topics.
The obvious answer: vote out any and all GOP elected officials. We need some adults in the room in Washington as soon as possible.
10
It has not received much notice that Nicholas Cruz was trained to shoot in an NRA course he took. NRA should be cited as a criminal conspirator.
9
Just imagine, you are the teacher with the gun, you hear the shots, and you now know it's your duty to hunt down and kill the killer. In any given room or hallway you find him, there are running screaming children. He is already shooting, while you have to wait to get a clear shot. You stand out because you are the only one moving toward him, and if he sees you he starts spraying bullets in your direction, killing everyone in between, while you stand there yelling "Get down! Get down!" to the students you are trying to save. Best case scenario: once all the students are lying on the floor, some dead, some alive, you get off the hero shot and kill him. Now, is the first thought in your mind, "I'm sure glad I had this gun with me!"? Or is it "I hope I never see or hear another gun in my life."?
6
We don't have life guards at every body of water. And how silly would it be to have someone standing by the water yelling, "Don't go in, you'll just drown." Some people learn to swim.
If you won't vote for a politician that will repeal the Second Amendment, then you should embrace some half measure that lessens the carnage. Otherwise, you're the the guy, standing at the shore.
Primary Teacher’s yearly budget order: crayons, colored paper, graham crackers, bullets, holster, handgun, tiny flak jackets.
REALLY?
7
Keep both hands on your desk at all times.
No sudden moves now, son.
Keep your mouth shut and pay attention.
The teacher's got a gun.
Don't ask any questions. Keep your head down.
Don't try to get up and run.
It's the answer for unruly classrooms.
The teacher's got a gun.
Better have your homework.
Better know one plus one.
Better not be "tardy".
The teacher's got a gun.
11
And some students in your class get into a fight and one of them grabs your gun?
7
If POTUS wants armed defense in our schools he has the authority to do just that. Call out the National Guard. They are already trained in the proper care and use of weapons. Just one rifle team patrolling a school campus would discourage many would-be shooters.
What is the downsides?
Do we really want to transform our school campus into fire bases or concentration camps?
Do we think some mass-shooters are also looking for suicide-by cop?
Oh, just another stupid idea...just like arming teachers!!!
5
We are meerly focussing on the symptons....not the problem.
The Doctors up the dosage of the prescription....and the blood pressure continues to rise......doctor and patient both deliberately ignoring the REAL problem.......a lifestyle that isnt working anymore.
....
And so it is with the Politicians who year-in/year-out prescribe "gun control" in order to get re-elected without making any positive impact on a society that has hopped the rails to become a disfunctional, big-brother, no-individual responsibility, central bureaucracy paranoid, authoritarian state.....
....
the sheep never look up.
.....
Parkland, FL......funds a high school according to strict Federal guidelines in order to obtain millions in Federal monies and to comply with increasing numbers of regulations.............now has a High School for containing 3000 teenagers, with very little local input or control.....in a facility that more closely resembles a dehumanizing SuperMax Prison, complete with lockdowns and armed guards. There is very little common community there, certainly no parents have the time to investigate what really happens at Douglas HS day-in/day-out, and the teachers?(sorry....the "educators")? Go thru the motions, dont make waves............its a bureaucracy and the Union will handle it.
...
The Highway to H3!! is oft times paved with good intentions.
“To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun,” Mr. LaPierre told a gathering of conservative activists.
This tired statement is irrational and nonsensical----besides being untrue!
In the 19 years since Columbine, approximately 100,000,000 additional guns were sold and added to America's arsenal. Presumably most of these guns were bought by "good guys."
What has it brought us? No more school or mass shootings?
No, it has brought us Newtown, Orlando, Las Vegas, and (again) Florida slaughters!
More guns do not help, and only make a bad situation worse. It is only a matter of time before the next mass shooting which can happen anywhere.
America is awash with guns. More guns = more innocent deaths due to violence.
No one is trying to stop hunters from hunting, or people from protecting themselves from their irrational fears. But PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO LIFE! To live without fear that they or their loved ones will be senselessly killed with a gun.
There is no need for civilians to be armed with assault weapons or to be carrying firearms without registration, training, and insurance, just as with automobile use and ownership.
NOW is the time to stop these senseless, uniquely American slaughters!
If your Congressman does not agree or gives excuses for not enacting reasonable gun safety measures, vote him out of office!
****A Connecticut physician
5
“The bots focus on anything that is divisive for Americans. Almost systematically.”
“This is pretty typical for them, to hop on breaking news like this,”
“...going to find any contentious issue, and instead of making it an opportunity for compromise and negotiation, they turn it into an unsolvable issue bubbling with frustration,”
“What we’re seeing is a continuous assault by Russia to target and undermine our democratic institutions, and they’re going to keep coming at us.”
The goal is to push fringe ideas into the “slightly more mainstream,”
Thank you NYT for helping me determine that this editorial was written by Russian Bots.
1
You are obviously the type of person that the bots attract.
1
Ah, yes, "let the teachers teach," and, "let's be realistic," and, "loonies really shouldn't have access to assault weapons," truly fringe ideas.
I wonder, was Wayne LaPierre packing when he gave his speech? Were guns permitted in the hall for C-Pac? Concealed carry?
These guys talk big about other people's job situations, but I wonder if guns are on or in the desks at the NRA?
They would never allow people to carry guns at these events. Someone might shoot them.
Ok for teachers, though .
A question -- how long has the National Rifle Association owned the Republican Party?
2
I watched C pac and the rantings of LaPierre as long as I could and began to wonder if I should try to leave the country and find a safe, sane place to live.
Then I realized he is just a spokesperson for the gun makers and the banks and
companies that support this insane raving. LaPierre made the front page of the
New York Times today but this is not what should happen. The people who put him there - the companies who support the NRA and foster this jack-boot philosophy and make money as our school kids are massacred, should be featured on the front page - exposed like the dirty rats they are.And with all his
"socialism" finger pointing, they had LePenn, the daughter of France's major fascist who herself spouts socialism as a key speaker. What a freakout! And what a contrast this was to those terrific kids who spoke their hearts out, marched and fought for change. If I stay here any longer I want to march with them in Washington if they'll let an 86 year old join the crowds.
2
What kind of a country are we living in? Is this what a civil society does? Arm its teachers to be ready to pull out a gun? Are our schools the new battleground? And America has the audacity to pass judgement on the Taliban and their barbaric ways! Donald Trump, Paul Ryan, Rubio, LaPierre and all those folks who lack the courage to speak about gun control are the real Taliban.
2
Just imagine, the SWAT team arrives. Do they take out the shooter or the gun waving teachers or both?
2
There is a protocol for just such a situation.
The Good Guy With a Gun is also human - not a super hero. A Sheriff's Deputy did not dare go into the MSD school to face someone with an AR-15 - a human self preservation reaction.
Isn't a good guy with a gun likely to shoot the wrong people or, more likely, be shot by the good guys of SWAT?
What a business opportunity! 700,000 new guns, likely overpaid for by the tax payer. LaPierre loves that proposal, as do all the firearms dealers bidding to supply all that weaponry! The school IDs will have to double as dog-tags.
Don't ban bump-stocks. Make Bump-Stocks Useless Again - by banning Assault Rifles. Or leave the ARs at the gun range. Moving ARs can be done by UPS/FedEx only from gun ranges and a gun manufacturer or law enforcement and signed for.
Lets have a Good Guy Gun Association that represents reasonable gun owners 60+ million non-members of the radical NRA.
2
This kind of lunatic red herring is why all the teachers, and their unions, should join in one of the planned school walkouts in March and April. Your schools -- our schools -- are being held hostage to the NRA's implacable desire to sell more and more guns. It's time to march.
2
Yeah! More guns to people!!! win-win situation More guns for NRA industry, means more jobs, and more deaths (the more guns on the streets the higher the death rate; world stat) which means more funerals... again more jobs. And as the death rate continues to rise, people will say that the solution is to put even more guns in the hands of people (teachers now, but hey why not arm UBER drivers so to stop terrorists on streets, or UPS people), the sky is the limit.
1
The President is deranged and, frankly, possessed with the same violent thought patterns that mass shooter have— that somehow shooting will bring an end to their misery.
Our misery is that our President is deranged.
2
We must call it what it is: a cancer. The National Rifle Association is a cancer, a cancer that has metastasized throughout the body politic. Wayne LaPierre has cancer of the brain. He is very ill and very contagious, contaminating us as a country. We are very fortunate to now have a group of 17 year surgeons who are preparing to quarantine and ready to operate. Let's all join them on March 24th. The hope is that 500,000 Americans will march. Let's make it 5 million. Let's make sure "Never Again" becomes real.
1
Maybe the five time draft dodger can buy an AR 15 and protect the school children of America.
1
Hey, Trump, you spend one day handling a class of 35 students by yourself at teacher pay, armed with an assault weapon, then open your mouth about guns in school. Where do you put your weapon when you're conducting a chemistry experiment? When you turn your back to write on the blackboard? When you're eating your cheeseburger with fries? When you're going to the toilet?
2
Suddenly Donald Trump loves the teachers - amazing! , just a few days back he and his fellow DeVos and rest of GOP were behaving like teachers are despicable unionized creatures and touted "private schools"
Good at-least 20% of teachers ( who as per GOP stooges like CPAC etc supposedly earns 100k every month with millions of confirmed retirement ) now can get a "little more " bonus to agree to train and carry a gun in my "preK" kids class!
Does GOP hypocrisy ever stop ?
4
Why can't we sue the NRA???
In my 60 years of life I have never heard a worse idea from a leader of any kind. Our president is truly deranged.
5
A school will sometimes hire a teacher who may know the subject matter, but does not know how to teach it. My high school algebra II teacher had to leave in the middle of the year, and was replaced with a permanent substitute who had a hard time explaining the material. To make matters worse, the sub did not seem to like teenagers, and had a hard time controlling of the class.
By the end of the school year, he was yelling at us, and describing us in vile terms I had never heard before. I shudder to think what might have happened had he been armed.
3
If Trump and NRA allies seriously pursue "hardening schools", then serious parents have no choice but to forget about war-zone public schooling and instead focus on a fresh movement of increasing charter and independent schools in USA now, as more and more people realize that can't protect their children in public schools, armed teachers or not...
How many foundations do we have? The Gates fndn , for example, has 6 divisions, including medical and community development funding...fndns could play a role in a new public school system, with freedom from terror-mind a primary goal...
That still leaves us with problems like Nick Cruz, who was expelled from the HS that he came back to and murdered at...
1
"fndns could play a role in a new public school system, with freedom from terror-mind a primary goal..."
Let's assume that some magnanimous benefactor actually provides the money to shut down every last public school in the nation and replace them with charter and independent schools. Do you really believe that this would solve the problem? All you are doing is shifting students from one building to another. The students are still the same people with the same issues and the same problems would arise. Neither charter schools nor private schools have magical cloaks of impermeability that protect them from violence - they simply have the power to remove students who are problematic.
Trump says today the school shooting is the fault of the armed deputy doing nothing, tomorrow it will be the fault of the armed teachers doing nothing. Let's roll back the gun laws to how they were intended by the founding fathers: a musket that a well trained person can fire once a minute. Anything more than this is a liberal rewriting of the constitution.
2
At the risk of repeating someone else’s comment, arming teachers also creates the situation where a clever or desperate student might be able to get their hands on the weapon. Also what if a profoundly depressed or angry teacher decides to use the gun in a horrific, unintended manner?
8
Here in Chicago, the comment section of one of our newspapers is regularly filled with people spewing venom about "greedy, lazy, money-grabbing teachers" because of how teachers are paid.
So what ever would cause a teacher to be depressed or angry?
@cwolfe...beautiful and right on target sarcasm.
1
This is the poster child policy of a party that has lost its way–economically, morally, and intellectually. There is no research, no strategy, no plan, no understanding of a school’s role in society. What there is instead is evidence free phallic gun worship combined with smug certainty. Republicans who support this–and anyone else–are deluded or outright liars.
5
We've heard the 'arm the teachers' proposal after every single massacre. Given the weaponry that's easily obtainable, it would have to be with tanks.
1
"One can envision parents with the means to do so swiftly yanking their children out of that sort of environment."
This exactly it. Public schools become increasingly perilous, then fail and all education is privatized...and the wealth gap becomes an uncrossable chasm.
2
gunfights are typically over in a matter of seconds. To survive one, let alone win one, requires overcoming the natural fight or flight response of the nervous system . Doing that requires repeated training in simulated tactical situations that is reinforced over and over, along with gaining muscle memory required to draw, aim, fire and reload a weapon without actually thinking about it. Do Trump et al really expect our schoolteachers to go through all that? Ridiculous and dangerous.
2
Republicans and the NRA—offering simple solutions to complicated problems since 1980.
3
And who owns the liability for the inevitable killing of a nine year old carrying a stick? And do we then cry, "Arm all the students? ".
This proposal by The Great Orange Dope is beyond preposterous and well into insane. This alone is enough to pull out the 25th.
4
In their NYT reporting today, "Another Shooting, Another Gun Debate", Baker and Shear write of this unique American malignancy and the perceived major 'foot-dragged', "The N.R.A. remains as potent as ever" ---- or are they? actually powerful enough, and more importantly wealthy enough, to be the real cancerous cause of 'no action'?
Looking at the paucity of NRA's membership (only five million), their low membership fees, the nearly bankrupt U.S. small-arms manufacturers, and with a careful investigation of the NRA's outsized lobbying expenses, their NRATV network production and start-up costs, not to mention Wayne and the others' healthy administration costs, it would seem to be almost the type of miracle that Charlton Heston used to depict in movies that the piddling NRA could punch above its weight so "potently", eh?
And yet the NRA can't be blind to how synergistic and useful as a 'cross-selling marketing message' its famous slogan, "The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a (bigger) gun" would be to thousands of time larger and wealthier corporations involved in the nearly $ trillion dollar 'Defense Department' budget --- the so-called 'Defense Industry', 70% of the global weapons corporations, or as Georege Bernard Shaw called them (and the banks backing WWI) "Merchants of Death".
It might be worth deploying some of the best investigative journalists at the "Times" to see if there are any backdoor funders making the NRA so "potent".
2
I know Mayor Di Blasio wants to close Rikers Island Prison, but we had better not demolish the structure. If puppet master Wayne LaPierre gets his way we’ll need it, and the guards, for the future NYC Central High School.
2
Due to the alarming growth of teachers abusing children, arming the molesters is probably not a good idea.
Even better; give every child an assault rifle to carry from class to class. If every student in the school building was carrying a machine gun, it is unlikely that anyone would enter the building to cause trouble. And think of the profits for the gun industry. Everybody wins! NRA forever!!
2
Veterans who became teachers want no part of guns in the classroom.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/teachers-well-quit-before-trump-makes-us-c...
2
In 2015, 46 US police officers were killed. All of them were armed.
1
Honestly, I feel like guns in general, should be banned. Take the gun out of the equation and the shootings will drastically decrease. Adding guns, however, will not solve the problem because adding what needs to be taken out will only increase the number of deaths. I, personally, would not like if I am in a classroom and I see a teacher with a gun. The purpose is to be safe in school and to be educated for a brighter future. Adding weaponry to our "learning environment" and it will not only damage the safety of the students but also the desire of receiving an education.
The Ed Board is right.
You got to either fish or cut bait.
Seems to me a bona fide guard should be on guard. Not teaching part time and on guard part time with only a hidden hand gun that has to be located, pulled and activated while receiving a stream of AR 15 firepower.
A shooter IN the classroom or lose in halls is a failure.
Guards should be professionals in full SWAT mode bristling with firepower actually capable of taking out attackers armed with assault weapons on sight before God gets the news.
With halls clear and classroom doors locked when in session such guards could be fairly successful at suppressing attackers.
Sick that it has come to this but, with the NRA in control and the pervasive US shoot 'em up gun mentality, we have to protect our kids.
Someday, over the rainbow, maybe sanity will return.
1
Well said.
A shooter having an AR15 is the failure. They should not be available to the public at all.
Police officers will tell you of their dread over having to use deadly force, thinking of all the things that could go wrong, and often do. And these are people who go through months of firearms training and courses on tactics, including tactics in cases involving lethal force. As one who worked in a police pension system for a time, I know about officers who took stress disability pensions as a result of killing someone. This isn't cops and robbers, Mr. President!
The image of an armed teacher successfully disabling a shooter with a military style automatic rifle and a bulletproof vest is a ludicrous and imaginative vision perpetrated by the NRA and the gun lobby. It is believed by people whose vision of gun violence is derived from scripted movies where the right people get shot and the hero rides off into the sunset.
The reality is that police officers are (should be) given many days of training on how to discharge a firearm in a crowded area and whether it is safe to do so without additional casualties or your own death. Moreover, those accurate decisions may need to be made with seconds of warning. In what can be an environment of human chaos in a school under fire, merely correctly identifying the shooter may verge on impossible
It is simply delusional to believe that a teacher, or an average citizen, with a few hours of training can safely defend himself and his students against military style weapons is a delusion.
It is a nightmare vision to think of bullets flying every which way down a school hallway with every person carrying a gun, teacher or shooter, a potential target. Maybe there should be a law that requires mass killers to carry a sign identifying them as the bad guy. ...
2
75 armed police "never went in" at Columbine. From 60 Minutes: "At 1:10PM-nearly 2 hrs after the 1st shots were fired-SWAT team finally entered the west side of the school" https://goo.gl/DyyyUT How can a security guard (or teacher!) be expected to accomplish what a police force cannot?
2
Arming teachers -- not a bad idea, but where else have there been mass shootings? Movie theaters! Well, let's arm the ushers and concession workers. Fast food joints! Give a gun to the cashiers and cooks. Houses of worship, start collections to arm the minister, rabbi, etc. (Catholics have an edge here because they can also arm the altar boys and any nearby nuns.) Military bases, ah...apart from the MPs, soldiers aren't allowed to carry weapons. Well, just reverse that regulation and hand a rifle to them all. Nightclubs -- maybe the bouncers pack heat, but let's arm the waitresses and bartenders, too. Outdoor concerts, yes, yes. Everyone bring a gun so if someone starts shooting from the 30th floor of some nearby building you can all start shooting back. THAT'S IT! everyone should have a gun. Everyone already has a smartphone, so why not a transformer-like phone/assault weapon, updatable every two years.
4
Who is this fabled civilian "good guy with a gun" - I suspect from NRA's point of view, it's anyone willing to pay the money to buy the firearm, who hadn't yet proved malicious intent. In that light, aren't they one bad day/bad decision away from crossing that line?
Furthermore, police and SWAT have steadily increased their firepower to meet the demands of the better-armed enemies they face. Arming teachers is a slippery slope. Will the teacher's handgun be enough to even deter, much less stop, a motivated (and likely suicidal) perpetrator in body armor with hundreds of rounds and a high-velocity tool with rifled barrel designed for maximum carnage, lethal accuracy and speed of firing? That's ridiculous. It just makes that teacher the obvious target of the next burst.
To comment on this "solution" to gun violence in schools is to elevate it into the realm of rational discussion where it does not belong.
2
There are 480,000 schoolbuses in the U.S. and they'll seat about 70 children and a driver. An enterprising killer with his AR-15 might not be dedicated to assault his victims at the school. He might just select a bus route, wait at the last pickup when the bus is full, then jump out, shoot the driver, and then mow down all those inside who would be sitting ducks. The Trump & NRA solution would then advise putting an armed security guard on each of the 480,000 buses or perhaps just arm the drivers.
This is a beautifully writren and forceful argument against a horrific idea. Agree 100%. Kudos!
1
We will never be able to prevent madmen form getting and using lethal weapons. The ONLY thing that can ever possibly work to end this type of assault is someone there who is armed and ready to defend themselves and others.
The rest of this article's posits are pure unadulterated nonsense.
The Sun Sentinel reports: "Of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history, 19-year-old Cruz is the only shooter to survive. Gunmen in Orlando, Virginia Tech, Las Vegas and Sandy Hook either killed themselves or were shot dead by police." These people aren't cowards. They are suicidal.
1
“To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun,”
Um no. To stop a bad guy with a gun, you make sure he doesn't get a gun in the first place - just like they do in every other developed country in the world.
LaPierre's favorite shibboleth is a classic example of the fallacy of composition.
To get a better view in the stadium it makes sense to stand up.
But if everyone stands up, no one gets a better view and everyone is worse off.
Likewise, it sounds reasonable that you would be safer if you had a gun. But if everyone has a gun, you're not safer anymore, and everyone is worse off.
1
All it takes is “a good guy with a gun” to prevent school shootings, according to Trump and the NRA. But a gun is not enough. It also takes knowledge of and experience in combat maneuvers, a strong sense of responsibility, and the willingness to sacrifice one’s own life to save others. The “Officer good guy with the gun” at Parkland ducked and ran instead.
So just how are the millions of schools in the US going to find the people who have such qualifications? Is there some test that you can give the teachers you want to serve as armed as protectors in order to determine who will be brave, who will be cowardly, and who might have issues of their own and end up using that gun in anger? I know of no such test.
Maybe what we would end up with is a lot of “protectors” with the same level of bravery as Officer Peterson, or even “Cadet Bonespurs.”
Amen! Bravo! Right on! Thank you, NY Times editors, for this thoughtful argument.
1
"Let the Teachers Teach"
Amen!
2
It's long past time to recognize the NRA for what it is: A racketeering organization.
Their filthy money has subverted the meaning of the Second Amendment and made meaningless the promise of the Declaration of Independence: "...that all men....are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
How can we achieve Happiness when our children are cowering in fear in their schools, at music festivals, at movie theaters? Since when is civilian access to weapons of war "a well regulated militia"?
The NRA uses their vast financial resources to rig our elections, imposing a letter grade rating on candidates and primarying the ones that don't measure up to unlimited guns for all. All but 1% of the tainted NRA money in the 2016 election cycle went to Republicans, drowning out any hope for meaninful gun regulations.
It is high time to recognize this organization for what it is: a cancer on America and to prosecute it with the full force of the RICO laws.
This land belongs to We the People. Let's take it back from the amoral NRA gangsters.
4
If Trump's armament idea takes hold, would General Kelly, as Chief of Staff, be the logical adult supervisor in the White House "day care center" to pack the heat? Have to protect the Oval Office Kiddies, you know!
What kind of nation and society is this, where people ...
1. seem to partly accept mass and school shootings as an almost common and inevitable happening and as an acceptable price for 'freedom'?
2. think it's normal to have security and metal detectors at school gates?
2. considering armed teachers and fortress-like schools as a reasonable solution?
Non of these things are inevitable, acceptable, normal or reasonable!
NRA guys like Wayne LaPierre obviously have a sick understanding of freedom; their personal freedom to own assault weapons is paid by other people's lack of freedom, as they have to hide in fortress-like homes, schools and office buildings to be save.
Living a life in the constant fear that an armed person may appear and kill you anywhere and anytime is the opposite of freedom!
4
Until the AR is banned, NRA slogan should be
"“To stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a 'better' gun"
How can it's firepower be matched?
I wish the Times would do more reporting on the gun companies and their executives
They are the ones behind the NRA money and are manipulating the conversation always to the same conclusion; More Guns
It is far past their time for some public shaming
3
The more I read (I can’t bear to watch this inhuman beast actually speak), the more I am convinced that he needs to be taken out of The WH. How, just how, can those who enable him carry on like this?! They put everyone at grave risk, nationally and internationally. It has gone too far.
This latest lunacy, arming teachers, is beyond the pale. He is unfit for office, sullies the constitution with his every word and deed, brings America and its former standing to its knees. How much longer will the Republicans pretend all is well? Is that they don’t want to speak out for fear of headlines? Is it that they are so craven that dead schoolchildren and teachers are worth nothing to them?
Just, please, can somebody tell me why this horrific administration still holds sway? It makes no sense at all, it is just beyond belief. I am crying as I write this, crying for those children, for those teachers, for everyone who has been affected by this utterly heartless cretin and his enablers - from their lies, their decimation of healthcare, their greed and their total self-absorption. Not one of them is fit to clean the shoes of those brave young people who are speaking out, who are holding a mirror up to the greed, deception, and corruption, of this WH. It has to be stopped.
Mueller, go get ‘em, no mercy.
2
Trump knows as much as what it entails to be a Teacher as the New York Times editorial board! Spot on here, but normally clueless. ABSOLUTELY frightening!
1
Arming the teachers would also make them the target in a shooting event.
Emigrate (to a civilized country)! If you have school age kids. America is a lost cause.
2
Guns are a cancer. The cure is to get rid of them. That can't be done in America's dysfunctional democracy. . The condition is inoperable. This is a fatal disease.
The whole premise of teachers having guns is morally bankrupt. The fact that anyone would consider this option is pandering to Trump and the GOP who have befitted from NRA campaign contributions. This is a ruse to look like Trump is promoting a solution of substance, when in fact, it encourages more gun use, and placates the NRA, who supported him. What a sham, and a cold-hearted one at that. Besides, arming teachers is no guarantee that this can prevent mass shooting tragedies, not to mention, what happens if the gun falls in the wrong hands? If anything, it is a cynical proposition by Trump, because it lets him and the GOP off the hook rather than roll up their sleeves and tackle any real meaningful legislation.
6
I find Trumps notion of arming and training teachers to use weapons is beyond ridiculous and dangerous. I have spoken with a friend of mine whom after years in the Israeli IDF, then became an air-marshal.
His argument is that being trained on a military rifle is one thing where accuracy is possible when properly taking the time to site a weapon. HOWEVER, he required complete retraining when given a pistol, precisely what one needs as an air marshal. The reason being that there is NO ACCURACY in aiming a pistol. One centimeter to the left or right puts a bullet on a totally random trajectory.
Take for instance, how often we hear of police firing 30 rounds at a perpetrator and only three hit their mark. AND THESE ARE TRAINED POLICE! Or shootings where pistol shots miss their mark but hit a random innocent person .
Chances of a teacher wielding a hand weapon and hitting their target vs an AR-15 is highly unlikely and would result in more, rather than less, deaths.
What a dumb idea our leaders have! They need to stop and think!
10
Shoot first, think later. What stupidity.
2
Frankly, the notion that an armed teacher is a deterrent or could 'break [the shooter's] stride' is just ludicrous. No, it's stupid.
If we can assume, that mass shooters, active shooters, etc. are akin to terrorists in that they have a singular objective: mass loss of life by means of a weapon they employ, with little or no regard for their own safety in achieving this goal, why would one then believe that a deterrent would have success in curbing such incidents?
A step further, let us consider the deterrent: a school teacher, armed, most likely, with a small caliber handgun. Several of the last, headline-grabbing mass shootings in the United States have been conducted by well-armed individuals, wielding semi-automatic or manipulated fully automatic weapons. Some of these perpetrators have even employed ballistic armor, high-capacity magazines, and multiple weapons. Can you see where I'm going with this?
Further, a better-equipped assailant, with no intention of surviving such a situation, might relish a firefight, as the Columbine shooters did during the end of their siege with Colorado armed response units. Many mentally ill shooters, terrorists included, choose 'death by cop/soldier' as a preferable means of death. Mathematicians and scientists appreciate that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. Why, then, are we circling the core issue?
56
Your last point is correct - some of these have been suicidal as well as homicidal. Additionally, the idea of a shoot out could be an exciting lure. Wrong direction to take.
The idea of arming teachers in order to create "hardened" classrooms is so dumb for so many reasons that it amazes me that it would be put forth. However, we do not have a President capable of deep thought.
It is an insult to teachers to offer them "a little bit of a bonus" so that Mr. Trump can keep his cozy relations with the NRA "practically for free." There are so many levels of insult in his comments that it takes one's breath away. As someone said in a recent NYT article, "no amount of training can prepare an armed teacher to go up against an AR-15."
I grew up in the times when we hid under our desks or went to the basement in school for an air raid drill. So far, no students have died as the result of a nuclear attack on the US. But how many have died because of the proliferation of military killing weapons available to their fellow citizens - because gun fanatics want it that way?
Safety caps, seat belts -- but what protections are in place for us against Nuts with Guns? (Who might possibly recognize they have mental health issues, might possibly be willing to have treatment, might possibly benefit from the treatment in how many months or years - all the while able to keep their guns?)
This is a horrible stain on the US. Any person who is a parent or grandparent and did nothing to stop this should hang their heads in shame when they look at their kids and grandkids. Bless the kids who have the guts to say they've had enough.
46
Mr. Trump has been watching too much TV that he actually thinks life is like that. And America is now being governed by such an insular ineptness that kids can be routinely killed in their schools on a mass scale.
"Kids can be routinely killed in their schools on a mass scale." Let that sink in for a while. There is no other place on earth where that statement would be acceptable. America is insane for accepting it. America is lost for accepting it. Because, by suggesting teachers arm themselves, America is accepting that these tragedies can continue, and has collectively agreed to do nothing. That is the definition of insanity. America is insane. The rest of the world can now see it plain as day. The leader of the free world is allowing kids to be murdered in schools. How can America then judge any other country for their crimes?
3
Mr Trump has never had to live a life where he was in any way responsible for his own safety and security. He has no idea how to get along with people or what it takes to handle those who use aggression and violence.
The idea of a stranger going off like this is a fantasy land scenario for him. He has no idea how the things he has done or others do in our society actually affect real human beings never mind how an even worse life might affect a person.
The deputy was trained for just this situation. This was his job. But it was up to children and teachers to defend themselves. Children are children. The job of the teacher is to teach. If a trained man with nothing else to do for his paycheck but defend people proves himself worthless, while children and teachers throw themselves in the way to defend their fellows, this is war, war against our own. Just what is it the NRA is trying to protect? Nothing but the right to sell guns. But the 2nd Amendment says nothing about the right to sell guns. The NRA has turned a peaceful nation into war zones, for only its own benefit, where it is impossible to protect our most precious possessions, our children. The NRA fanatics and businessmen offer nothing but foolishness. Their arguments do nothing but further disarm the vulnerable, setting us all up for the next sucker punch.
7
The NRA has no problem selling guns to bad guys. They insist that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. This is an attempt to sell two guns.
8
Saying that only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun is like saying only a good guy with thoughts and prayers can stop a bad guy with thoughts an prayers. The NRA and its bribed politicians keep spewing their nonsense so that more guns and memberships get sold, and those with common sense will just get frustrated and go away. It took decades to go after Big Tobacco as a public health hazard. We need to get rid of mass-murder weapons and tighten control on every other weapon. Vote, sue, speak up, and defeat the NRA.
2
Both Columbine and Parkland had armed trained police officers on site at the schools and still there was tremendous loss of life. How can arming teachers be the solution?
3
At first it seemed like Trump might be showing genuine concern for the student survivors and the parents who lost their children. It was a thinly veiled ruse. Trump's solution came straight out of LaPierre's playbook: sell hundreds of thousands of more guns by arming teachers. That's the only solution the NRA ever comes up with and we've got a president and a ruling party that's with them all the way to the bank.
2
When dealing with any of these ludicrous and disingenuous proposals from the NRA and its lackeys, please remember that they are the paid representatives of the gun manufacturing industry. It is no coincidence that everything they come up with involves arming more people and therefore selling more firearms.
So, we're going to stage shootouts in the kindergartens now? It is hard to imagine an idea more ridiculous.
1
There WAS a good guy there with a gun.
A trained guy.
An "on the job" guy.
He called it in. And he waited outside and refused to engage the killer.
Just another reason why this is a bad idea.
The answer to our gun problem is NOT and NEVER will be "more guns."
4
Number one, anyone who hides behind a pillar when his job is to protect children in not a good guy, he is a coward. Second, if he was not the only one armed perhaps one or more of the others would not have wimped out and actually done something.
We can thank Hollywood for the myth that a good guy or gal, running at full speed and shooting from the hip, can hit the armed bad guy from the distance of a football field with total accuracy causing him to drop his weapon and surrender,
The reality is the total opposite. A gunfight is absolute chaos, and I say that as a Vietnam veteran and a retired police officer. Even expertly trained marksmen miss their targets in the adrenaline- fueled fight often from just several feet.
To even think that teachers could deter a gunman intent on mass murder would be laughable if the idea wasn’t coming from the president of the United States. Trump is a simpleton. His view is that of a simpleton.
Police officers WANT assault rifles removed from the street. Because they are so very deadly. And because they kill so efficiently.
7
Yep. There's a darn good reason that cops, and soldiers, and SEALs don't get into shootouts with a pistol in the middle of a screaming, running crowd.
I wonder why we did not put armed flight attendants and Pilots or allowed other Good guys with guns on planes after 911 . why we had to spend so much money and creating a full New Federal Department of Homeland security to stop terrorists from hijacking planes .
First, we did put armed Sky Marshalls onboard after 9/11. Second, arming teachers is not the only thing that should be done, making entry to a school more difficult with a gun is also needed, just like the security procedures that went into place after that.
We did not have to create Homeland Security and it should not exist.
Frankly, I believe even the discussion about such an issue in a so-called "civilized" country is lunacy in and of itself. What does it say about the mentality of a country that allows a minority to turn its environment into an armed camp, yet, continues to place those in power who enable it?
Well America, I believe the ancient Greek philosophers had it right. "In attempt to exert its power outwardly towards others, empires eventually turn that power AND tyranny inwardly towards its own people". Well, here it is!
By the way , throughout history, ALL of the empires that evolved like that DIE.
There was an armed guard on the Parkland campus. It did not deter the shooter, though as a former student he would have likely known there was an armed guard.
3
Ban assault weapons. Semi-automatic weapons were used in 6 of 10 largest mass shootings. Banning them will certainly help.
3
The issue is NOT guns.
The Issue is AR15's!
There is no legitimate civilian use for them.
3
The tribal, pseudo logical arguments in this editorial are a good example of why nothing ever gets done about gun violence. Each side refuses, or is unable to see any value in suggestions from the other side. The overriding reality is that an effective solution will require the ideas of both sides. While Trump is wrong in failing to see the importance of banning military-style weapons, the Editorial Board is wrong in not seeing the value of arming a select number of specially trained teachers and coaches, preferably those with prior military or law enforcement experience. The value of an armed teacher is not the psychological impact on the shooter, but the capacity to force the shooter from offense to defense, thereby saving lives. I taught and coached for more than a decade in grade school, high school and college. As someone with "experience in the trenches" I would want to have a firearm to try to wound or kill the shooter in order to save the lives of the children under fire. And there's no need to arm every teacher; arming 8 to 10 teachers, administrators and coaches in each school, combined with banning military style weapons and magazines and requiring universal background checks with all loopholes closed and timely data input required, along with prohibiting firearm access to the mentally ill and those on a terrorist watch-list would be a very effective way to make our children safe in their classrooms. But it will require that both sides to open their minds.
1
By arming one teacher, you are introducing a lethal weapon into a school 180 times per year. One gun-security slip-up and now there's a kid holding that gun.
More guns in schools will mean more gun deaths in schools, period.
A picky little question from the benighted leftish tribe: would you happen to have any example, any at all, of an armed teacher or office worker or whatever, "forcing the gunman from offense to defense, thus saving lives?"
There's a very nice Times story on a principal who heard the shooting, went out to his truck and got the UNLOADED .45 he keeps there, locked up, and confronted the stupid kid as he left the building, when he wasn't shooting any more.
Didn't fire a shot. Good for him.
And that is as close as it gets. Open your mind.
Peter, If a limited number of teachers are properly trained, the chances of a kid who wants to kill other students getting a gun from a teacher is as unlikely as him getting a gun from the cop on the beat or a security guard. And before closing your mind, ask yourself this question: If you were a student hiding under a desk as as shots came closer and closer to you, would you want a trained teacher to fire at the shooter in your defense or not?
1
Another diversion tactic meant to obscure the the real conversation, being who can own a firearm, what kind of firearms are permitted to be sold and who is liable when a firearm causes harm and damage.
Kudos to Rose Wong for this superb graphic. I
t should be on t-shirts all over America for students and teachers who would like their schools to be places of learning, not gun manufacturers profit.
It makes me. as a school teacher, almost feel like 007.
Is an armed teacher ready to deal with the likelihood that in a gun battle with an active shooter in a crowded chaotic hallway that they will kill the wrong person?
2
Thank you for saying what should go without saying. The fact remains that our elected officials are shirking their duties and trying to force the public to shoulder a responsibility that interferes with normal life. We are undergoing a public health crisis in which innocent people are being slaughtered en masse, almost on a weekly basis. And this epidemic has been caused by the same elected officials who are paid by us to make decisions regarding public health.
It makes me sick to my stomach that the president of the United States is capable of writing this: “a ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people.” That is, in his twisted thinking, the solution to the problem of violence on campus is gun-slinging educators roaming the campus.
Even a person with minimal education knows that a deranged person doesn’t think rationally. So, it’s appalling that Mr. Trump who never tires of boasting of his superior intelligence and education should think that the awareness that the teachers are in possession of guns would prevent “the sicko” from heading to the school. But will that prevent “the sicko” from rushing to the nearby gun-shop and buying a gun?
No country in the world has more deadly weapons than the U.S. does. Has that stopped terrorists around the world from attacking the U.S.? Terrorists are in the category of “the sicko” Mr. Trump is talking about. They are prepared to die for what their sick minds think is right.
By carrying a weapon to his class, a teacher is indirectly conveying to his students that he is afraid of them, that he views them as his enemies. Is that the kind of student-teacher relationships that our president wants to build in this country?
As the editorial rightly says, "The best way to prevent the threat of a bad guy with a gun is to keep him from getting the sort of battlefield weapon the Parkland killer used, by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and by tightening background checks."
Our president, the Republican party and our Sec'y of Education are all for privatizing everything public, education most of all, perhaps. Denigrating public schools, teachers and teachers' unions was a long-term strategy. But it's taking too long.
It may be cynical of me to propose the following, but I'm afraid cynicism is warranted here. Arming teachers and others in schools will make armed camps out of public schools. Parents, who don't want their children in such armed camps will leave public schools in droves (those who can). Think I'm wrong?
1
After 9/11 an effort was made to arm pilots to prevent another similar terrorist attack. Federal Flight Deck Officers are normal pilots who go through a training program administered by federal agents on how to thwart terrorist attacks on airplanes. The training covers the use of firearms in confined spaces as well as non-lethal ways to subdue potential terrorists. These pilots are issued firearms by the government which they carry in the cockpit. They serve as an additional detterence to potential terrorists. This same approach could be used in schools. Arming teachers alone will not solve the problem, but it could be part of a multipronged approach to prevent school shootings.
Can us teachers carry Marines Special Operations combat knives too, Mr. Trump? And get training so after we shoot the rifle out of the hands of the killer we can do some close quarters combat? I bet you a bad guy would not dare to come in my school if he knew us teachers had combat knives. Then America would be great again, huh, Mr. Trump?
2
Is not that just what we need, 700,000 more people with guns?
Teachers no less.
This will be a really great role model for our children.
You have got to be kidding!
I am not religious, but,
Lord help us? Someone has to!
What would be the result when one of these boys decides to attack a teacher, grab the gun the teacher has as a "deterrent," and starts shooting? In 43 years of teaching, I have been in situations where boys have become angry and picked fights with teachers. Once, I remember it taking at least three other students and me to restrain a student who had attacked a teacher. Having any firearm in any classroom would make these situations much more dangerous.
The president's idea does not even reach the level of ridiculous.
1
A piece of chalk in one hand and a Colt 45 in the other... What could possibly go wrong?
No group of people is perfect, not cops, not priests or pastors, not teachers, not kids. Handing out guns to people who deal with crazy hormonal teenagers sounds like even more of a recipe for disaster than some of the other crazy ideas coming out of Washington.
2
Who are the good guys?
We are all a mixture of good and bad and, yes, some are better than others and some worse.
If Wayne LaPierre is trying to convince me that his NRA members are the good men then I think I will pass.
But if he is trying to convince me that he knows what a good man is then I have to insist that it is not through any personal awareness of his that he knows what good is. He and his thugs are the ones guilty for creating these events.
1
When an armed and trained police officer wouldn't go inside the building to confront the shooter who was using an AR weapon spraying hundreds of high velocity bullets how can we expect teachers to do better? We need to ban ARs and tighten gun control laws in all states. We need to show people the ugly truth about the NRA and their supporters who value their guns over the lives and rights of others. The NRA and their ilk have uttered the most disgusting and vile comments since the shooting, actually attacking the young survivors. The NRA needs to be shunned by every thinking person and business. Then I guess their only source of income will be the Russians. If Australia can do it we can! They haven't had a mass shooting since 1999 when they imposed strict gun laws following a mass shooting!
1
Why not just cut to the next logical step? Fire the teachers, hire fully armed and trained former military or police operatives (MOs) to run/protect the classrooms from gun owners, and have the MOs hand out mimeographs with the lessons and assignments. Problem solved.
1
I’m a highly educated special education teacher with 20 years of experience who truly loves her job but I have no intention of remaining in a profession that requires me to work in a militarized war zone. Instead of debating whether or not teachers should carry guns, perhaps we need to consider why teachers would continue to work under such stressful and deadly conditions.
2
In the old hit comedy “All in the Family,” Archie Bunker’s deadpan solution to deterring airplane hijackings was, as passengers are boarding, to give each one of them a gun. Got a big laugh…back then.
An Archie Bunker is now running our country, and not so funny now.
66
As I recall my experience with a Colt 45 during basic training in the US Army Air Corps 1945, it was quite difficult to hit a target that was only 25 feet away.
2
Yup.
This is in response to the article "Major Shootings Led to Tougher Gun Laws" in today's paper. We often hear of the success of other countries in reducing mass shootings in other countries, in particular, Australia. Check out the graph in http://bit.ly/2BLZgsL to see a graph that clearly shows this country's states with stricter gun laws have less mass shootings.
4
Arming teachers is a proposal that find support ONLY among the most suggestible, uninformed, disinformed, and ignorant segment of US society: Republicans.
14
Based on my Israel experience, I think arming school people with guns could work. In Israel almost any attack on civilians, either terror, or armed robberies or similar, end very fast, while bystanders simply shoot perpetrator.
"Based on my Israel experience, ..."
Where were you in Israel and did you or anyone you know actually own a gun?
"... bystanders simply shoot perpetrator."
Here is a quote from the Wash. Post that contradicts what you seem to believe:
"Israel limits gun ownership to security workers, people who transport valuables or explosives, residents of the West Bank, and hunters. People who don't fall into one of those categories cannot obtain a firearm permit. Moreover, Israel rejects 40 percent of firearm permit applicants, the highest rejection rate in the Western world. Both Switzerland and Israel require yearly (or more frequent) permit renewals to insure that the reasons are still applicable."
Israeli gun laws are much stricter than some U.S. gun advocates suggest
By Max Fisher
The Washington Post
December 28, 2012
24
@CLH
Partially correct. Security workers are numerous, as long as any shop is required to have a guard. No matter where are you, there always will be at least 3-4 armed people within 20 meters reach.
Jonathan, The only thing that works for "security" in Israel is racism. They simply harass and or kill anyone who is not white on the assumption that a European would not be a terrorist. There is no special knowledge or skill involved to include the PR that has created this myth of how secure they are.
Seriously how could secure people come up with scum like Netanyahoo who is at least as insecure and moronic as Trump!?
Even highly trained military & police shoot friendlies by accident. It's tough to shoot bad guys without hitting good guys. Arming teachers is precisely the sort of suggestion we can expect from pretentious 4-F Trump who so rarely knows what he's talking about.
5
my right to life Trumps your right to bear arms.
7
They always like to edit out the "A well regulated militia..." part of that single sentence amendment. This is because they know what it means not because they don't know how to explain it away.
It means that gun ownership can and should be regulated.
1
Guns begetting guns seems very counter intuitive.
Even as an interim fix, the armed school guard concept has just had a frailty revealed.
Perhaps Trump and family could get “a bit of bonus” if they “carried” rather than relied on those pricey Secret Service people.
3
Besides all the other reasons this wouldn't work, any gunman set on mass murder would make it his business to kill the teacher first.
Every day, I reach a new level of disgust with the Republicans who have lavished fawning praise on this soulless horror of a person, all for the love of money. Seeing him parrot these insane NRA talking points, he looked so ridiculously out of his depth, so self-conscious and intellectually weak. His obedient recitation of said points comes from his own lust for money and power. It's the same way he comes off when he talks about Russia—like a minion. The reason for the former is clear; the reason for the latter is still unknown, but not for long I suspect.
7
Dear Mr. LaPierre, no individual "FREEDOM" can ever be allowed to feed off the safety of children and other innocent people.
5
Trump is a thoughtless fool with a bully pulpit. How did we get here? Give me strength. This is the stupidest idea ever. And now we have to actually talk about it. America is really a dumb place.
6
“One can envision parents with the means to do so swiftly yanking their children out of that sort of environment.” — maybe that is the point.
2
It’s very hard for people to face gunfire. Even for many trained soldiers and police with experience in actual combat, the overwhelming instinct is to run or seek cover. The “good guy with a gun” is not the same as a “good guy or gal” with a gun. The response of that good person would likely be that of the resource safety officer at the high school. Being a normal person, he froze. The “good guy with a gun” is Hollywood fantasy. The reality is that the character the NRA offers as a solution is very rare. For decades Americans have been addressing the problem of mass shootings the NRA way. It is evident that the solutions the NRA offers don’t work. The pragmatic approach would be to try something else.
3
This editorial is a public service.
Here's a fact that Mr. Trump likely hasn't considered. In 2014, a Utah teacher who was carrying a concealed firearm accidently dropped it in the elementary school bathroom. She was injured when the bullet struck a toilet and caused it to explode. Imagine being under stress in the classroom and dropping it.
4
During the Vietnam War, people fled to Canada to avoid being killed by a foreign enemy in a war they opposed. Now, the enemy is among us and he—yes, he—is armed and shielded by the NRA.
I don’t feel safe. I teach and there is no way, absolutely no way, I will teach in an militaristic state that thinks it’s okay to weaponize a classroom.
Canada looks very inviting.
6
Most people immediately see the insanity of arming teachers. They cite all kinds of reasons — from “might not be accurate” to “might be shooter’s first target” — and they are true enough. As a career teacher myself, I am horrified at how little people value our true role, our professional expertise, what we really do, day after day, year after year. We don’t have the TIME , much less the inclination, to add packing a gun to our work.
And, by the way, don’t refer to us as “staff” — we are faculty. Staff supports us and our work.
Thank you.
7
Doc Holliday would be a handy man to have around at times but these teachers aren't Doc.
2
Doc would more than likely be one of the shooters, he was not a good guy.
Banning guns will work about as well as banning alcohol. On the other hand, nobody will suffer from banning assault weapons, or pistols. We need to keep our eye on the ball. Our gunslinger culture needs to go away. If we were really serious about saving lives, we’d ban cars. More people die because of them than because of guns. If you feel you must have a gun to defend yourself, do like Joe Biden says and “buy a shotgun”. And stop reading silly comments about gun control, like the one.
Let us count the number of advanced democracies in which many public school teachers are armed. Zero. Others don't need this lunacy. Neither do we. We have lunacy in the gun debate already. The lunacy is named the NRA.
3
Any person trained in guns, especially a retired military person, would never face off carrying a pistol against a deranged teenager carrying an AR15.
And why should our children have to see teachers armed with pistols?
And what parents would want a gun battle taking place in front of their kids?
This ides just shows how utterly stupid, tone deaf and $30-million-on-the-take-from-the-NRA our "President is.
6
and what if the armed teacher has a bad day with the principal and knows he has a weapon in his locker? Bye Bye, Mrs. Principal.
3
To the NYT's editors: Interview on video, former sharpshooters and/or trainers from places like "GunSight Academy," in AZ. Not to get their opinion as many of them are ardent 2nd amendment supporters, but have them describe, because they are experts about the devastating effects of firearms like the AR15 because of velocity etc. Also I believe, most of them will say these are not practical for home self defense. These people are the NRA's "peers," and people will listen to them because they are not seen as, "snowflakes," or "leftists."
1
You know what? I don't think the NRA and President Trump's solution to arm teachers goes far enough. I (as a Democrat) have a much better solution.
Bare with me...
The Democratic platform should insist on a radical solution to the problem of children being murdered in schools: We need Terminators (or Robocops)!
The weak Republican party is only suggesting we arm regular, weak human beings. Well, I think it's quite obvious that Terminators would be much better at protecting our children than teachers (see Terminator 2).
Effective immediately we need 1 Trillion dollars to develop the technology to communicate with the future. America is the greatest country in the world! If anyone can do it, we can! To suggest otherwise makes you a traitor.
Once contact with the future is established, we will kindly ask Skynet to send back massive numbers of Terminators. I don't care what it takes, protect the CHILDREN! When the Terminators arrive we will capture them (because they'll be looking for John Connor) and we will reprogram them to protect schools. I think for the NRA to suggest anything less than this probably indicates they're Socialists, maybe even communists.
Sincerely,
Unquestionably Patriotic American
1
More guns in schools? Here's a word that should terrify every school budget administrator: liability. It threatens the very solvency of the pubic schools system, and doubtless pitches DeVoss into a hypo-manic episode.
We the People allow this to go on when we keep voting for people who take money from the NRA. The moment these people start losing elections because of their ties to the NRA, that is the moment we will see sensible gun laws in the United States. The whole world is watching, and it thinks we in the United States are insane.
The United States is US. We get the government we deserve.
1
We need to first ban military-style assault weapons and large capacity magazines. These are the weapons of choice during many mass shootings.
5
Lovely. And now Trump has created the situation he loves most: chaos.
He has the whole country fighting with itself and the NRA, over the best way to move forward. He has no ideas, no convictions. But it matters not; he has his chaos.
Speaking for myself, I'm not too open to the latest proposals coming from this NRA-fueled Administration until:
Trump goes to speak in Camden NJ without his Security Detail, but carrying a loaded pistol.
LaPierre works in a 7-11 in West Englewood Chicago.
Barron attends a new school, where every teacher has a loaded AR-15 on his/her back.
After these demands are met, I'm all ears.
1
This is just one more way the Times is attacking Trump
Trump is taking a position that many have taken and has worked in the past.
It works in some situations but it is possible that there can be more of a problem depending on the situation but to deny it can work is being so anti gun that you can't see the other side.
If only qualified people were given a gun the chances there would be a downside is very low but because the probability what Cruz did is very negligible it probably doesn't warrant taking the chance.
In Israel things are different and there is a real need and they do have some teachers who do carry weapons so the idea is not crazy.
The gun Cruz used has no practical use and should not be offered to even people who are not unstable like Cruz is.
There have been articles recently Telling us this isn't about mental health,
That definitely is not true in this situation.
Nikolas Cruz was known as a potential killer and there are laws already in place that if used should have made it Impossible for him to get a gun.
These laws didn't work.
They didn't work because no one was willing to act.
Why do people believe having more laws will do the job when the present ones didn't.
I am convinced that every possible solution will carry with it elements that
make that solution either impractical or undesirable to some.
I do not have the answer and nether does Trump or the New York Times
Stop making this political.
It won't help.
Laws don't work without enforcement. The GOP has done everything it can to prevent spending to enforce our weak gun control laws, to prevent data being effectively shared and to allow as many loopholes as possible while paying lip service to controlling weapons. If gun control can't work, explain why it does in every other developed country and why states with stricter gun control laws have lower rates of gun deaths.
Where did I say it can't work.
My point is that we already have laws that are in place that should have stopped Cruz from getting a weapon.
Those laws didn't stop him
The question is why didn't they work and why would new laws work any better.
I believe it's not the law that makes he difference.
If they enforced the current laws Cruz would not have gotten the gun he used.
This is not about making new laws.
It's about enforcing what ever laws that is in place.
It is hard to get a gun in New York.
That isn't because of the strict gun laws.
It's because what ever law there is it is strictly enforced.
As for you question the answer to me is obvious.
You seem to be saying there a few guns because of the gun control.
Maybe it's the other way around.
You probably don't have strict gun control laws in places where people wan to have guns.
Most likely a place that has tough control is a place where the people are for the most part do not want to have guns before those gun control laws were enacted.
So even without those strict gun laws there would be less gun violence in these locations.
A case in point would be England.
I suggest that the number of guns in England would be the same as they are now even if the laws made it easier to get a gun.
So your logic you use could be wrong and therefore your conclusions based on that logic is wrong.
Dear Mr. Trump,
We know you have difficulty making reasonable, common-sense decisions and anticipating the consequences of your policies and behavior. However, before impulsively issuing one of your poorly thought-through edicts, such as arming teachers as a solution to mass shootings in our schools (spoon fed to you by the lethal NRA), please sit down and make list of the possible benefits (none) and risks (many) of your solution.
"Stable genius" that you claim to be, you really don't have to reinvent the wheel, If you still can't figure out how to reduce school shootings in our exceptional country with its staggeringly high rate of gun deaths, injuries, and suicides by guns, why not call up the leaders of nations that have done a remarkable job reducing gun deaths for decades.
Hint: The more guns readily available and the fewer the restrictions to promote the safety of citizens and children, the greater the rates of gun violence. Not rocket science.
Think about it--for a change!
2
Would it be a violation of our Second Amendment rights for our federal lawmakers to place an extremely high excise tax on the sale of high capacity ammunition? If NRA supported members of Congress - and others in Congress - refuse to deal with the reasonable control of the assault weapons themselves (as we work and hope to flip both Houses), perhaps they would consider another way to immediately take a step toward reducing the risk of mass shootings. The money raised could go to so many positive popular goals, such as offering free college tuition.
As a public school teacher I can tell you that my colleagues love their profession of sharing and caring. They read history. They study human behavior. They promote civility in their interactions with their students and colleagues. They are by nature NOT KILLERS!
I would quit my position if I thought there were numerous guns “hidden” within the building. Armed in a crisis, (“trained?”) teachers, gentle souls that they are, would be just as likely to shoot their own feet, or, God forbid, another human being in a melee. Curious students will find out where the gun is hidden and the key to the closet. This proposal to arm and pay bonuses to teachers is not only ridiculous and dangerous, it reeks of greed everywhere from the gun lobbies to the Congressional puppets who do their bidding. Think of the money flowing from federal coffers to train and arm teachers. Think of the profits from gun sales.
3
It is said that when a Senator looks in a mirror, (s)he sees a president. I suspect when President Trump looks in a mirror, he sees himself in place of Marty Robbins on the memorable cover of the LP "Gunfighter Ballads."
And when he showers, he's probably sings "Big Iron," from that album.
I have a better idea. Remove Secret Service protection from The Vulgarian and his family, remove protection of the Capitol Police from McConnell and Ryan and their minions, and let them get their own gun training and protect themselves. Maybe Mr. LaPierre of the NRA can give them a discount on semi-automatics or even provide freebies, in exchange for using pics of them with their weapons in his ads. Kind of like in-kind campaign contributions. And only those politicians who support gun-control get to wear armor to protect themselves from the collateral damage.
2
The pen is mightier than the sword. That is WHY we are teachers.
4
Whether it is armed teachers or curriculum or school calendar or testing or etc......why are TEACHERS never asked what they would like to do?
4
After the Marathon bombing, a policeman noted as a very good shooter faced one of the bombers from 10 feet away. He emptied his gun. The bomber ran away, but died when his brother drove over him.
A policeman, ready, trained, supported by dozens of officers, emptied his gun without disabling the bad guy.
Teachers? Miss McBride, my 5th grade teacher? Mrs. Strasbough, my 6th grade teacher, who I frequently called Mom by mistake? I don't think so.
My wife, principal of a K-8 school around the corner? Never!
This is lunacy. Pure lunacy.
3
What do you call it when a SWAT teams show up to a building with one active shooter and 30 other armed people running through the hallways?
A circular firing squad.
3
A teacher should not be asked to kill a student.
5
According to recent news there are less than 5 million members in the NRA. Yet these few are holding 300 million Americans hostage: their weapons of war pointed at the heads of our children.
The NRA must be banned, no matter how much they are bribing the president and the corrupt congress. Assault weapons have no place in America. They are not mentioned in the 2nd amendment.
America does NOT have more mentally ill people than other countries—the NRA just arms them better.
3
This editorial is exactly right.
2
I can't imagine any person with the power to craft legislation suggesting that Teachers should be armed. Why not arm all parents, so they can kill their own children before they leave the house ( just kidding). So that's how you plan to deal with people that suffer from mental illness, shot them dead in a classroom. Why has there been almost no talk of increased funding for mental ill? Perhaps better and free treatment for the mentally ill will not only reduce mass shootings but well help solve part of the opioid crisis and dramatically reduce the number of people suffering in prison needlessly. I guess it would be cheaper just to kill them, this whole conversation tells me a lot about the kind of country some of you want to live in, I'm delighted not to be part of it!
3
It surprises me that there hasn't been a class action lawsuit by the victims families of all of these terrorist murders using military weapons that are not only condoned but millions of dollars are contributed to legislators to block any legislation to limit access to military weapons by anyone with any mental or criminal history. The NRA should be held accountable for their actions in enabling and promoting the purchase of weapons of mass murder by anyone.
1
The NRA paid Congress has hamstrung that avenue.
I'm not trusted to make copies on my own where I teach, despite the fact that I have a Master's degree.
The President considers me trustworthy to be armed.
Go figure.
7
The fact that we are debating this moronic idea tells me that America will never solve its gun problem. What next - put toddlers in Kevlar and give them hand grenades? School shootings seldom happen in other countries because they don’t have a profusion of guns, and there isn’t a fetish about them, not because the teachers are armed for combat. No normal person leaves home battle-ready every day (or should have to do so) and, in this respect, a motivated killer will always have the advantage - possibly even at a gun show. If the NRA and their ilk take such extreme positions, I find myself pushed to the other end - repeal the second amendment and decimate the NRA. In the meantime, I can only feebly hope that the next massacre will not happen in my neighborhood.
4
This is a stupid and destructive idea, just like all of Trump's other ideas. Rather than wasting time getting upset about it, we should be spending our time and energy in supporting Democrats who are running in November and who can act as a check on Trump's ridiculous behavior.
Why isn't the NYT devoting more attention to mid-term races in key states?
3
Can never be too safe. Perhaps everyone in the White House should carry - everyone from the night-time janitor all the way up the the President himself.
Come to think about it maybe we could go into the schools and start student militias - well regulated militias of course - with only the best students.
Or maybe we could get a congress and administration who take the issue of gun violence seriously. Actually seek solutions.
I mean. What some of these guys are saying. They're kidding. Aren't they?
Or sold their souls.
2
I repeatedly hear people who voted for Trump state that they like him because he “sounds” and “talks” like them. This latest display of low level reasoning and sheer stupidity is incredulous, and leaves me with great sorrow for what our nation is becoming. Just when I thought the bar could not go any lower....
2
here in Canada Trump would never pass the RCMP mental fitness screening process for a Possession and Acquisition License granted for the few weapons allowed persuant to the Firearms Act for hunting. Our "well regulated militia" defeated President Madison's invasion of Canada in the War of 1812 without a "second amendment".
2
Well, actually it was British regulars who defeated the four invasions, but your point is nonetheless well taken.
Why don't we just abolish the second amendment altogether?
1
There is, obviously another reason the NRA wants to arm teachers. If 700,000 teachers are armed, that means the at least 700,000 more weapons will be sold and 7000,00 more people will be trained on how to use those weapons.
This is GREAT business for the NRA, and the gun manufacturing industry.
1
NRA=Terrorist
In both cases the men are changing the subject to something else. In Trumps case he is talking about a fantasy TV cowboy idea of self defense. The reality of it is the teacher on CBS yesterday who does carry a gun who said "Well that's the risk you take." in fully internalized acceptance of the idea after he had said "The worst thing possible would be to miss and hit a student." The guy has already made peace with the idea of shooting a student by using this fantasy of self defense!
Then Mr LaPierre asserts the lie that "only a good guy with a gun..." There was a "good guy" present at Parkland and his fear prevented him from entering the building to stop the shooter! I suppose you'll tell us we need more people with guns to solve that too?
We are not talking about diversionary euphemisms about imaginary people here, we are talking about access to AR15's which no civilian has a need for. The point of the M16/AR15 is that it compensates for the facts stated about accuracy by the NYPD. It compensates by throwing a lot of lead very fast to increase the odds of hitting a target in combat.
People have so accepted the gun ridden world created by the NRA they are actually saying "Harden our schools" with a straight face! Does anyone remember the news stories in the 80's about how some schools had to have so much security that it was awful and bad for the kids to have to live like that and see their schools set up like a fortress and treating them all as suspects?!
2
Jr. High math - our teacher had a really short-fuse. Get noticed daydreaming or fail to respond to a question and the next thing you got a blackboard eraser bouncing off you - thrown by the teacher. Back in the 1950's the school defended the teacher because, after all, it was the student's fault. As I read about the idea of arming teachers, I remember her all too well. Guns in the hands of teachers?
Sorry I don't buy the NRA argument that a peaceful society requires at everyone be armed. That may be the dream of arms manufacturers and by implication the NRA, but there are still lots of people out there with very short fuses.
3
I have an short fuse in some situations and I wouldn't shoot people or do any of the other things implied. And there is the problem with society in general today people seem to think it OK to pass judgment on other based on what they imagine about a single expression or reaction or interaction as if they are absolutely certain about the global judgment that have just made about someone.
Whatever happened to listening to what people had to say regardless of how angry or emotional they were in expressing it?
Innocent until proven guilty is not just a legal concept it should be your state of mind at all times. I'm sure your teacher had issues but whipping an eraser at your head for day dreaming is not a character flaw that merits comparison to wanton murder.
They sure can talk the talk. Let's see if Trump and his gun-rights guru, LaPierre, would walk the walk. Let's train some teachers in active shooter response training and marksmanship under extreme physical and mental conditions. THEN, ramdomly choose a few teachers, arm them with live ammo and put them through the paces of a live shooter training course, the same ones that law enforcement attend. BUT, instead of pop-up targets, let Trump and LaPierre stand in as "civilian dummies" since they have so much faith in using "highly trained schoolteachers packing heat". They expect our kids to spend every school day like that. Wonder if they'd be willing to put themselves "there" for just one day?
Wayne LaPierre doesn't give one whit as to personal freedoms. If he did he would realize the guns he so vociferously promotes are denying thousands upon thousands of Americans each year with the freedom to literally live.
The fact that he preaches his division is so corrosive to our democracy.
3
Why is 'teachers-with-guns" even on the table? It's pure diversion, taking space and time away from the real issue -- guns. It's the guns, stupid! Let's get back to that discussion.
1
Great idea. Just think of the benefits that teachers carrying "peacemakers" would have on classroom discipline!
So America just needs more armed guards everywhere we go. To the store there should be an armed guard in the bread section. When we buy our clothes, there should be armed guards in the dressing rooms. To the theatre there should be armed guards sitting alongside patrons watching their favorite movies. When you go visit family, your relatives should be armed and ready once you enter their yard to make sure you don't bring your friends. Yeah America needs to get smart and listen to the NRA, the government is trying to take away your freedom to have armed guards.
If it’s idiotic idea week, here’s mine: instead, teach members of armed forces and police to teach.
1
One thing on one mentions is who pays the liability insurance? What if the gun falls, goes off, and a kid or a couple of them get wounded? Is the teacher, school, and anyone associated with it sued? Who pays the court costs? And with over 700,000 teachers armed,there will be no accidents, guns stolen and used in crimes, or any other mishaps? Uh huh. You know who's grinning at these prospects? PI lawyers.
Let me see if I understand this.......there are over three MILLION certified school teachers in the U.S. Now, if we arm only about half of them, that is adding a million and a half firearms to the 300 million already in the hands of mostly amateur shooters. Doesn't that make you feel better now? Maybe we should make bullets way more expensive - say $500 each. That could cut down the number of shots fired...........
The question of letting airplane pilots carry guns was also met with a unified front of negative propaganda. And so was even having a secure door to the front cabin. Clearly, the only solution this paper and its political allies will ever agree to is the removal of all guns from the country. Since that isn't going to happen, it's best to then just move ahead. Thinking people understand that since removing all guns is a fantasy and nothing more, the progressive party just wants to use it as a political ramrod. Hey, did anyone notice how CNN never had a staged rally like the one in Florida for the thousands of victims in Chicago? I wonder why?
1
This is unbelievable.. Basically, the whole listening session and protest marches have become counter-productive. Man, this country really has a paranoia driven culture.
If this even remotely gets implemented, I'll pull my child out of school and start home schooling or move to a different country where people are a little less paranoid!
With all respect for the (almost late) USA: alas how sick has your nation grown? Arms, drugs, violence, inequality, corruption, gerrymandering, foreign policy, you name it. And yet, before being critical, almost every article in the press starts to sum up the greatness of your nation: ambassador of democracy, the rule of law, freedom, due diligence Isn't there something very "torren in the state of Denmark?". (Shakespeare)
When our schools become armed camps or in this case campuses, it’s time for this country to stand down and take a hard look at our democracy. Is this what we want to be teaching our children? We should all go out and buy weapons? Fear of each other? Franklin Roosevelt said it best.The only thing to fear is fear itself......And the NRA it seems.
The Good Guy With a Gun theory needs to be tested.
Wayne LaPierre can pretend to be the Good Guy sharpshooter teacher, reading Little House on the Prarie during rest period, and one of the sharpshooters off Trump’s White House Roof can be the Bad Guy. Volunteers from the NRA can be the unarmed kids in a mock classroom over at NRA Headquarters in Fairfax, Va.
I know what happens next. Wayne looses and his replacement demands that the kids be armed.
There are many gun free zones besides schools. Should doctors and nurses be armed? Hospitals can be very volatile and emotionally charged places. How about grocery stores? Should the person who packs your bags at the checkout be packing a gun as well? Where does it end? Many Americans feel teachers are over compensated and their benefits are too generous. I mean teaching 30-35 children of all capabilities and managing all kinds of behaviors is a walk in the park. Why not make them be the security guards as well? Get something for your tax dollars. And the white coat the doctor wears? Identification AND cover for their weapon. And the security alarm at mall store entrances to prevent shoplifting.....why not add a metal detector feature. The clerk making $10 an hour would be more than happy to have a gun under the checkout counter. If you think, no that would never happen. Think again. Snipers on the roof. Works at the White House. Why not in your neighborhood?
1
Anyone taking our president's advice on guns shouldn't be allowed to even have one
Darn! Isn't that Donald BRILLIANT!
No. That's just the klieg lights reflecting off of his hair.
Do you think Wayne LaPierre would rather be a teacher with a gun instead of earning $5 million a year from the NRA? Think he could be “trained” to suit the job description? Is the NRA going to provide supplemental shooting courses for universities? Who would foot that cost?
How much money would a teacher with a gun get from Trump and LaPierre? Would they get a bonus for NRA membership? Benefits to include free shooting year round at shooting ranges?
By the way, Mr. LaPierre’s wife, Susan, is now on the country’s National Park Foundation Board. Appointed by Ryan Zink, Secretary of the Interior. Isn’t that cozy?
1
Trump's and LaPierre's proposal to arm teachers is absolutely ludicrous.
let's start with the white house: give gun to Trump and his best, highly trained employees.
No solutions in sight until the appetite for violence itself dies in the human heart
1
It is time to repeal the second amendment.It may take 20 years and 2 billion doillars but there is no other way. Start by contributing to the Giffords Fund.
Our so-called president felt he had to say something, so he said the first thing that came into his simple mind.
Teachers Need Books, Not Guns
1
I am a newly retired teacher whose school did not have a single point of entry, anyone could enter and exit freely. This should be fixed first and multiple round magazine eliminated, and steel doors should be installed in classrooms, before we even think about arming teachers. Especially when you have a deputy who would not enter the situation in Florida, while a teacher gave his life to protect his students. I had a CCW and gave it up when I became a teacher. There's no place in the classroom for guns. In fact anyone who owns a gun should be licensed, just like you need a license to drive a car!!!
50
"First, it would deter shooters."
School shooters do not feel the kind of fear that normal people feel, therefore they will not respond to deterrence like a normal person would.
"Second, if there is a shooter, the teachers could shoot back."
The shooter has an assault rifle. The teachers will be bleeding out on the ground before they have a chance to shoot back.
This is why the military invented assault rifles in the first place. Because nobody with a handgun stands a chance. That is why assault rifles exist!
At least one student at Parkland described his being detained when he was mistaken as the shooter. How would it have ended for THAT innocent student if there were armed teachers in his school? Victims and perpetrator were all teens, and we saw the shooter blend in to walk right out of the building.
2
It bears mention that this mass shooting is the first in which the shooter actually wanted to survive and get away.
Two important considerations are missing from this well reasoned and well stated editorial.
I have heard no one point out that an armed teacher, no matter how capable at shooting under any circumstance, will still be reactive to an assault in progress. No doubt numbers of dead and wounded will occur before someone - an armed teacher or police - respond, and hopefully effectively.
Again and again, the way to protect against an armed assault is to remove the guns/rifles, etc. from the reach of those who choose to do harm - in advance.
Additionally, that person who sleeps in 1600 Pennsylvania already proposed major cuts in funding school security, So, uhhh, where does the money come to arm and train teachers?
3
A fantasy. If Trump put the preservation of lives of young people as his number one priority he could profoundly change America.It is true that he would offend his base.But the vast majority of Americans would applaud him.And if he lost the next election a small price to pay.America would be great again.Thanks to Trump. Bold move Mr.President.
1
I'm curious--if a faction of teachers does wind up being required to be armed in school, will there be exemptions or disqualifications for teachers with "heel spurs"?
I mean, in the past that has apparently been deemed to be a block to taking up arms.
3
To begin with, the notion of arming teachers in classrooms is so beyond crazy, that only Donald Trump could say it.
Living in New York City, which is the largest school district in the country, and a city that has seen its crime rate drop precipitously throughout the years, the mere thought of bringing more guns into schools is an anathema.
If anything, as president, Donald Trump should be exploring ways to cut down on the scourge of gun violence that is claiming thousands of American lives, instead of towing the line for the NRA.
Just for the record.
There is not one school shooting that has taken place that has anything to do with the 2nd Amendment, and you don't need a semi-automatic weapon to go hunting.
Guns have no place being in schools.
It's that simple.
5
I taught Special Education classes in several states, as did my wife. A panicked school is a terrible place for a few part time vigilante teachers to start shooting. Many unintended targets would be hit. Trump [as usual] is just changing the conversation to suit him - to the crazy idea of arming teachers. He wants us to debate this idea rather than focus on what the kids know. We need to get military style semi-automatic weapons, large magazines off of our streets. Universal background checks [even at gun shows] are needed as well.
3
This article says it all. The argument should end here. Fewer guns, tighter controls, not more guns with fewer controls. It's that simple.
La Pierre and Trump want more carnage. Cue cards with sympathetic bromides! Good heavens.
2
There ae many problems in this world that can't be solved. A school shooting is not one of them. If we ban all guns, we will go a long way to solving the problem. Because that is not acceptable to the NRA and its bought for president, we watch these false illusions that we are attempting to do something, even if it is absurd. Ban guns, or at least assault weapons. It has worked in New York and Connecticut and it can work anywhere.
1
Yet we still have hundreds of murders a year in NYC not counting the rest of the state. If that is the definition of gun laws working, what does the alternative look like
What an absurd thought to come out of the presidents mouth! Since we are not close to banning assault rifles yet I suggest we appease the brutish Trump and the other misguided citizens who would arm our teachers with pistols by offering, on a test basis, to arm all 535 of our legislators. That way we could take the massive security force employed here in Washington that protects them and disperse them to schools around the country where they are needed as long as assault weapons are not banned.
3
What Trump is doing is turning the conversation away from gun control to get everyone to focus on his absurd notion that arming teachers will make schools safer. He knows full well what he is doing and what he is doing is kowtowing to the NRA which gave him $30 million to get elected.
If a four year old child gets a knife in hand from a kitchen counter and starts to make slashing gestures toward parents and sibs that he has seen on a video game, what is one supposed to do?
a) arm the entire family with knives so that the child will be "deterred" from inflicting harm or
b) take the knives away and hide or lock them from access?
American society has abundantly shown that it cannot be trusted with military equipment in ordinary daily life. So take the weapons away and deal with the underlying problem without access to violent, easily attainable weapons
3
Thoughtful and intelligent editorial. What is wrong with Trump and the NRA. We are not living in the wild west. I was an English professor for thirty years, and to arm me with a pistol would be insanity. There are so many things that could and would go wrong. Ban those high-capacity magazines and assault weapons. Who needs those except the military when fighting a war. Schools are not a war zone.
Why not follow the example of Japan: ("the gun control laws and fear of hefty punishment has resulted in even some organized crime groups, or yakuza, turning to using fake firearms.")
2
As we learn more about the missed opportunities to stop the tragedy in Parkland, it continually reinforces one unavoidable and inconvenient truth: the problem must be addressed at the source. Until the number and killing capacity of guns is confronted, we can and will continue to hope that all of our detections, our police, our FBI, our neighbors will never fail to protect us while knowing ultimately that there is a chance that they will. That is the sad story of Parkland and, maybe this time, because of the shown inadequacy of working around the problem, we will finally do what needs to be done.
The fact that arming teachers is even being discussed shows how far down the rabbit hole we've gone. It would a amount to total capitulation to the greed driven dystopian vision of the NRA. We, as a nation, need to totally change our concept of the role of guns in society to have any chance of implementing policies that will reduce mass shootings and other forms of gun violence. This seems to be the goal of the Parkland school survivors and their supporters. Anyone who wants to see an end to this death spiral should be a supporter too.
2
With respect to Trump's proposal to have teachers carry guns and this opinion piece, I'm thinking back to my school days 55-60 years ago. I'm trying to imagine nuns with guns in the parochial school I attended. Can't form that image.
I was teaching at a community college when the Sandy Hook massacre occurred. A retired law officer told me in no uncertain terms she thought teachers in the classroom should be armed and expected to respond to a school shooter. If there were 20 students in my classroom plus 1 armed shooter, I explained to her that I'm confident that my competence with a gun, gives me less than a 5% chance of shooting the gunman, and a bit more than a 95% chance of hitting a student. Those odds do not take into consideration of ricocheting bullets hitting students. Most instructors I know are not more competent with a gun than I am.
Maybe something simple and directly applicable like taking assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines away from the US population might work more effectively than nuns with guns.
1
I’m a former high school teacher now a criminal lawyer doing much juvenile work. Our high schools have future scientists and decision makers seated (literally; e.g., classroom, lunchroom, auditorium, etc.) next to seriously disturbed and dangerous young people. After graduation such diversity abruptly ends and such groups will never be in contact. Indeed a high school student body, supposedly representative of society, is in stark paradox to adult reality.
Neither I nor my fellow teachers had difficulty recognizing students with acute social and/or behavior problems. We were shoulder-to-shoulder with these kids observing their obvious inability, unwillingness and adversity to learn or adjust. I’m neither diagnosing nor judging here. I got close to some of these kids and their fear and anxiety was palpable. And their presence in school made things worse for themselves and their classmates, not to mention the faculty.
Schools are for learning. Missing as a proposed solution to school shootings is an overhaul of our education system. If diverse alternatives become available at early ages children could find better suited environments -not just disturbed kids but the more vocationally inclined too. We’d end up with fewer Columbines, Sandy Hooks and Parklands. But if we do not simultaneously get rid of the guns we’re unlikely to ever scratch the surface of the problem.
2
I believe that arming teachers is absurd, would be largely ineffective and fundamentally avoids addressing the real issues. There was an armed guard at the school in Florida last week and also one in Columbine in 1999. Also, Ronal Reagan had a significant security detail (including Secret Service, uniformed police officers an military personnel. His shooter managed to get off 6 shots before he was subdued and managed to injure Reagan and 3 others. And, that was with a .22 caliber pistol -- not an assault weapon!
However, if Trump is determined to have armed guards in school -- here's an idea. ICE agents are now tracking down and deporting people who have been in this country for many years, have jobs and pay taxes, and have no criminal records. As a matter of priorit, wouldn't they be doing a better service to their community by protecting schools than going after productive members of their community and breaking apart families? So, if Trump wants to place armed guards in schools, he can start doing that next week. Reassign a segment of the ICE agents.
3
This issue is inane. Teachers are human and they also can react in fear. Arming them does NOT guarantee appropriate action or deterrence. Just look at the "security guard" who essentially froze and did not go into the school last week to encounter the shooter. No one can control the action of a teacher who has a gun. Everyone feels that a teacher will automatically be a hero and confront a perpetrator. They could easily run the other way and hide to protect themselves. Very stupid idea to arm them. The most obvious and clear issue to ban the sale of these semiautomatic weapons and especially forbid ownership by someone under 21 years old.
1
I am always dumbfounded when the USA policy makers encourage the Wild West mentality of its citizens thru gun laws. I am also a teacher and can’t imagine any teachers packing heat to work up here . Scary thought .
2
A minor point who's liable if a teacher wounds an innocent student? The teacher, the school or both?
1
Thank you for putting together thoughts and words that further reasonable discourse on this most pressing issue.
Follow the money:
$13.5 billion - Annual revenue of gun and ammunition manufacturing industry, with a $1.5 billion profit. (IBIS World)
$3.1 billion - Annual revenue of gun and ammunition stores, with a $478.4 million profit. (IBIS World)
$42.9 billion - Estimated overall economic impact of the firearms and ammo industry in the U.S. (NSSF)
The NRA and gun manufacturers trade American lives for profit.
Let's stop that.
1
I am a US Army veteran, a former helicopter door gunner, and I own guns and shoot. I am also a teacher. I would appear to be the very person President Trump talks about when he say he wants teachers with firearms experience to carry guns in the classroom.
I can tell you the idea is not merely absurd, but obscene as well. Tactical shooting in an enclosed area while surrounded by screaming, fleeing students is not something I ever even remotely trained to do. Special ops and SWAT teams train for this sort of thing, and they train constantly under realistic conditions.
I trained to teach. I am not a door gunner any more. The notion that we cannot bear to take weapons of war off of our streets and out of our schools and must therefore make people like me carry a firearm into classrooms is repulsive and perverse. The fact that otherwise rational people can seriously contemplate having my colleagues and I engage in a firefight in the hall of a place of learning and safety demonstrates how warped our priorities are.
I am not going to bring a gun into my classroom. I refuse. My students, my colleagues and I are not going to be a blood sacrifice to our inability to stop selling weapons of war to civilians. I carried weapons of war in the army. I did so proudly. I won't do in school, though. I won't do it for you, my fellow gun owners. I won't do it for the gun manufacturers. Time enough to put an end of this insanity.
7
Do not believe that the Trump/NRA notion is intended to be taken seriously. It is intended as a diversion from any serious discussion. And it will succeed.
3
President Trump and the NRA think that arming teachers would make the students safe. On the contrary, more guns in school would make it more dangerous. If you have a gun in your home, your chances of being killed by the gun increases 8 times over if you didn't have a gun. Also teacher's guns could be stolen and used against others in the school. Wayne LaPierre says, "to stop a bad guy with a gun, it takes a good guy with a gun". This is nonsense, as most bad guys with a gun are good guys with a gun, until they aren't and kill someone. Additionally, the armed guard with a gun, didn't help in this situation. Most people when confronted with their death by gunfire, take cover. Look at all the newsreel clips of armed police officers, ducking for cover during shootings. This is a natural response. Scores of them are not running in guns a'blazing, Hollywood style, like Trump and LaPierre would have you think. During the 2016 Dallas killing, when the gunman killed police officers, it didn't take a good guy with a gun to kill him, they used a remote controlled robot to blow him up. So Trump's idea is typically ridiculous, and serves only to help gun sales and profits for the gun industry.
Additionally, having teachers with guns sends a very wrong message to children - that it is ok to kill someone. This is one bit of education that should not be conveyed to children.
To stop the mass killings in the US, ban military assault rifles. Australia did it and it worked!
2
I have been a high school teacher for the last 16 years. I will ‘pack it up’ in a heartbeat if any of my colleagues are allowed to bring guns into the classroom. There’s not one teacher I know that doesn’t believe this idea to be completely insane.
3
I agree with your assessment. A nation wide effort to arm educators and teachers in public schools will not solve the challenges we face, it will exacerbate and cultivate the likelihood of more mass shootings. Trump's plan is insane. Listen to the coming generations of leaders who were the victims and witnesses of the latest atrocity and are courageously addressing this challenge. I support them. I believe they are correct... WE THE PEOPLE to need address the horrifying violence of mass shootings by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and tightening background checks.
As a long time educator and school head, I find this proposal unbelievably condescending and degrading to educators everywhere who are skilled professionals: academically qualified and certified in their academic fields and whose expertise in teaching children requires enormous skill and time in preparation for each class and each group of children they work with daily. And for this high level of skill and commitment to our nation's future, they are also underpaid, overworked and disrespected, more than any other profession in this country. To suggest that offering them the " tip" of a so-called bonus to their meager salaries only if they would also be willing to carry a dangerous weapon into classrooms filled with our children is, simply, disgusting.
2
It's wisely said that shooting at a target is very different from shooting at a person who may shoot back. And if that's a person who expects to die anyway? I think it's a very rare person who is cool enough to take well aimed shots in such a confrontation. With all due respect, and I have a lot, I don't think most cops are always that cool. Asking a teacher to be so in a room full of panicky kids is madness.
1
The good ol' US of A needs to get some advice, about how it was done, how the sparkling results were achieved, from places more developed, more advanced, further ahead on the road we are also trying to travel. I mean places such as Rio de Janeiro, Mogadishu, Karachi, Acapulco, Sana'a, Caracas. All esteemed for the highly civilized conditions which a proliferation of guns so wonderfully helped bring about. As Socrates said: the life without guns is not worth living. And Jesus added: love thy gun as thyself. It's not insanity, it's heritage.
I am a retired teacher. If I were ever in the position where I knew a shooter was on a rampage in my school my first priority would be to call 911 and get my students to safety. That might be jumping out windows or hiding in a closet. It would be a response that everyone would have been trained to do. I wouldn't have time to get a gun from whatever safe place I kept it. If the shooter suddenly appeared at my door with an assault weapon and began shooting, how would I be able to get my gun before he shot me and my students? If he had a gun that didn't fire so many shots so quickly, I might have a chance. Assault weapons should be banned. That is the weapon used in mass shootings. Banning it would cut the carnage immensely. PS. It's not just about schools, it's about all the places where these horrendous massacres have occurred; every one with an assault weapon! Chances of surviving being shot by a bullet traveling over 2000 miles an hour which eviscerates the victim's organs are much lower than being shot by any other type of gun.
1
Teachers’ primary duties in any crisis is to care for their students. They will do that because of the bonds that they have formed and the career that they have chosen. It is they who will lead their students in fleeing, hiding, and fighting during an active shooter emergency. If there is no escaping nor hiding, perhaps shooting a gun could be a last resort. This policy of having teachers become gunfighters means that they must abandon their students to hunt down and kill a killer who might be another young person and very likely being shot down in that effort. It’s a strategy meant to serve political priorities not lives.
The adult community, particularly the supposed adult politicians in congress are not able to protect our children while they are in school. So, what do they do? They posit turning over that responsibility to gun carrying teachers. Not only is this idea absurd it is an embarrassing abrogation of duty on the part of our adult/political establishment. As someone who has spent the better part of 55 years in classrooms at every level (Elementary school through university) I can assure you that this is a lousy idea and will not stem the tide of mayhem in our schools. Get rid of the assault weapons and the bad guy with a gun disappears.
1
I was in my ill-spent youth what was once known as a juvenile delinquent. Trying to imagine myself then as having to face armed teachers and hardened schools is difficult. One scenario is that I and my cohorts would have taken the situation as confirmation that what we suspected was true: that we lived in a corrupt society that included a police-state mentality. I out grew my anti-social tendencies but the premise of my scenario seems to have become a reality.
1
There is no other way to put it. Wayne LaPierre speech was obscene. And President Trump's suggestion of arming teachers (for all the reason's articulated in this Editorial) is simply insane.
In light of this horrific tragedy how can Trump and other Republican Leaders bluntly state to the American People, "we are not going to do anything to make you safer, the NRA's right to bear arms is more sacrosanct than your children's lives. Who's running America anyway?
2
Word.
Apparently the only person who can stop a shooter with a gun is not another person with a gun, especially if that person is armed with a handgun and is going up against a shooter with a semi-automatic high velocity military assault weapon. president dumptrump's idea that we should arm teachers would require them to have comparable weapons to the military assault rifles shooters use and turn our schools into war zones. As Anthony Bourdain has pointed out, trained police officers hit their targets less than 20% of the time. Since only 30% of Americans own guns and 3% of Americans own half the guns in the country, let's disarm America and take the military toys away from the boys.
We need to focus on the ballot. We need to reestablish America as a safe and sane (remember fireworks?) place to live, as well as turning out any politicians with racist and xenophobic leanings. If Fox News and Facebook think that we are a nation of conspiracy theorists who can be manipulated by corporate super PACs and oligarchical billionaires, we have a little surprise coming for them and the Republican party.
We need many heroes...
The US has a dysfunctional government. For long periods no action is possible because of political deadlock, then a brief window opens and new rules are made, some of them to reverse actions taken during the previous window, then the window closes and the deadlock returns, and on it goes, punctuated by jarring supreme court decisions made by judges appointed based on their political views, throwing more dysfunction into the mix.
There appears to be no fix for this, so it just a matter of time until the fatal issue or combination of issues presents, triggering a melt down of the population, and the world loses confidence in the US, its leadership, its debt, its currency.
Perhaps guns will be the trigger, perhaps race, perhaps religion, perhaps Trump.
These days, the second amendment really means "The right to sell arms shall not be infringed." School teachers are a huge untapped market for gun manufacturers. And the NRA is the sales force for gun makers. In any case, if Trump's idea goes forward, teachers, armed or not, will become the natural initial targets of rampaging gunmen, who will always have the advantage of surprise. Unless teachers shoot first and ask questions later, someone who looks like a student can always fire the first shot (or, with an AR 15) shots. Should teachers have AR15s mounted on their desks, pointed at the classroom door?
So the police sometimes miss their targets. Does that mean you disarm them from attempting to use that force in preventing a civilian from deadly force used against them?
Give our school kids the same protection as celebrities and sports fans. Armed security.
Oh, please, teachers by day could be hunters on the weekends and be pretty proficient with the use of a hand gun. I know my son's History teacher is.
The proposal is voluntary. No one is forcing a teacher who doesn't want to train or participate in the program to do so.
There was a similar hue and cry about arming pilots after 9/11. Exactly how many accidents or planned shootings have happened at 35,000 feet?
There was an armed police officer at the Parkland school who did nothing. The element of surprise is a powerful weapon. If a shooter is surprised by an armed teacher or staff member and is taken out, lives could be saved.
I thought this was the purpose of the debate?
1
I grew up going to grade school in the fifty's, and high school in the sixty's. I don't EVER remember anyone coming into a school with a weapon to shoot people. What changed? The NRA changed. It went from a gun responsibilty and education organization to a strong political organization to stir up the right. I'm a gun owning advocate, but I believe we should have insurance (like our autos), be licensed (like our autos) and have some controls (like the speed limit). No rights are trampled. Only those who are responsible will own them. (like our autos). Years ago I remember my father talking about the Sullivan law in New York state. Get caught with an unlicensed gun- go to jail, do not pass go. That's what we need on a Federal level.
2
What if, as suggested in the article, a teacher starts shooting and inadvertently wounds or, God forbid, kills a student? It's one thing for a teacher to take a bullet. It's another for a student to take a teacher's bullet.
Even if the teacher did stop the shooter, and saved other kids' lives, there would be lawsuits. So that better be figured into the cost/benefit analysis along with bonuses for faculty shooters.
How about having Trump shadow one student for one entire day in a public high school? No press, no extras, sit in the seats, follow the schedule, lunch in the lunch room, all of it. Maybe some students (how about Emma, David, Cameron...) would create a cheat sheet of things to pay attention. Then have repeat the listening session, followed by writing an action plan with the students and teachers.
1
The good guy/bad guy scenario was debunked in Florida last week when the good guy, Armed school resource Officer Scott Peterson, failed use his weapon and take action to save lives.
We also must remember that the President, full of braggadocio and self assured with this ridiculous solution, suddenly got bone spurs when it came to defending our country when called to help out in Viet Nam.
Just another false solution by Trump and the NRA to distract from real gun control measures. As a former teacher, I can’t think of anything more laughable or pathetic than suggesting that teachers be armed. It is the antithesis of the purpose of a teacher. Teachers are already overworked, under-paid, and stressed out. To this we are going to add the responsibility and stress of carrying a gun? Teachers are not security guards or police officers. Nor should they be pawns in a political game with life and death consequences. The NRA’s motive, as a marketing arm of the gun industry, is gun sales. The motive of members of America’s gun culture is a quasi-religious claim on something they call “freedom” – a motive inflamed by NRA’s demagoguery. For these groups, the lives of school children are less of a priority than profit or irrational abstractions like “freedom.” In fact, for them, the sacrifice of those lives is the price of freedom, including the freedom to pursue corporate profit.
This is just the beginning of the damage control campaign. Expect more half-measures and nonproductive “solutions” to the carnage from Trump and the NRA.
2
Bravo. Arming teachers is a ridiculous idea, especially when attackers are using weapons designed for the battlefield and any teacher, even one comfortable with guns, would be seriously outgunned. Emergency room doctors have written in to publications and sent messages to TV news describing the difference between when a regular handgun does and what an AR-15 does. They say the wounds they've seen on kids from school massacres have been beyond all hope of salvation. The bullets from an AR-15 don't just punch a hole . . . they shred internal organs so there's nothing left for a surgeon to repair. And they can destroy arteries inches away from the bullet's path. Weapons like that shouldn't be off the battlefield. We should force our politicians to sit through lectures and slide shows from the ER doctors who deal with gunshot wounds and learn for themselves what they're supporting when they continue to support having our country flooded with more and more AR-15s. Maybe if they had to face what they're enthusiastically voting for, they'd be shamed into sense.
1
I was a school teacher and principal for nearly 25 years, and I continue to consult to schools and parents. Arming teachers is, by a very wide margin, the most idiotic idea I have ever heard about schools.
There is literally NOTHING about the idea that makes sense, and teachers are way past smart enough to know it. While I don't doubt that the NRA can find handfuls of teachers who support it, I have never met a single one. The idea of giving teachers guns evinces as much understanding of teachers as suggesting that Wayne LaPierre replace all his guns with Barbie dolls would demonstrate about Wayne LaPierre.
Of course, this is not actually a serious proposal. It is a deliberate distraction from the discussion we need to be having: the obvious need to control access to weapons of war, if not all guns. Instead, now we're all talking about teachers and guns instead. Next year we'll be talking about why we shouldn't arm students themselves.
Score another one for the NRA. They may be extremists, but here they are setting our discussion agenda yet again. It will stop only when we have voted out their sycophants and bagmen in the Congress for failing to see what is plain to any thinking person.
1
As a Canadian living and working in the States, I'm no fan of guns of any type and they would ideally be all banned.
But the reality is that there are already 310 million guns in existence in the US. So even with a complete ban going forward, bad guys will be able to access guns easily. Just like people access opiods and drugs fairly easily.
My kids are young and are going to school. Would I rather have some teachers have guns or not? I'd rather them have guns. First, it would deter shooters. Second, if there is a shooter, the teachers could shoot back. Even if they don't hit the shooter, it would distract him and slow him down. Cops take forever to arrive.
Like I said, not ideal, but I wish people don't bash the idea just because Trump says it, as is often the case.
6
many of these active shooter cases are perpetrated by suicidal people - they want to be shot dead. It's called "suicide by police." Having guns in the school won't deter them at all - it might even be a selling point.
1
Except the problem isn't guns.
The problem is AR15's.
As a fellow Canadian and a teacher, I would suggest you read the article again (if, in fact, you have already done so, though I somehow doubt). I can assure you that putting guns in schools will make them more, not less, dangerous.
As I recall, following 9/11 properly trained and certified airline pilots were authorized to carry guns in cockpits. How has that worked out?
Along with tight security screening, sterile concourses, and other measures - maybe a solution for our schools - haven't we eliminated airline hijackings, despite the ease with which weapons can be purchased?
Are our school children less valuable than our airline passengers?
1
Again you suggest we choose to give up our freedom so that maroons like your self can own a gun. We did not eliminate hijackings they had died out by themselves until Bin Laden. Since 9/11 the security checks are mostly a psychological protection as we see on a regular basis checks prove that people get guns and other dangerous items on to planes all the time. But they sure do have a huge collection of trinkets and shampoo to sell each year.
Get a clue, you are not self reliant, you are not independent we are all in this together and none of us lives in a bubble where we are relying only on ourselves independent of anyone else. If that were the case this would not affect you at all.
Another point, I have not yet come across as a criticism of this idea is in many of these attacks the attacker is carry at least one AR-15, multiple magazines with extra ammo, and additional semiautomatic pistols. How is a teacher armed with a single pistol who lacks training in crisis intervention supposed to neutralize the shooter? Even if there are multiple teachers with pistols taking on this attacker how are they supposed to coordinate an effective strategy to take down the attacker? There is no realistic way to train teachers to handle arms in these types of situations. Trump's tweet based proposal is a juvenile fantasy.
5
While pointless to note to true believers, one of the additions to rationale gun laws is the change to eliminate 15 bullet cartridges. Let's take it back to 1787, single bullets only.
If you wish to increase the number of security guards at schools, Let's start with every member of the NRA donating enough funds to pay for them, without drawing a single dime down from school budgets; and the NRA paying for the long term liability, as inevitably one of the wannabes will shoot some 9th grader.
12
"Let's take it back to 1787, single bullets only."
You raise an interesting question. The 2nd Amendment only refers to "Arms", so, in an originalist interpretation of the US Constitution, that must mean 18th century arms.
2
The obvious retorts to Trump's comments show once again the man speaks, or tweets without thinking thereby bringing shame on himself but far more importantly on his office. This is how a social order unravels from the top down. Putin must be smiling.
11
700K pistols at about $500-$700 each, spare magazines, millions of rounds of ammunition for practice, and to carry. what a bonus to the guns and ammo makers and dealers.
10
You can’t be “a little bit pregnant.” You also can’t end gun violence without making gun possession illegal. Just ask the rest of the world. The firearms industry does not want you to consider that simple but obvious logic. No guns, no gory! Repeal the Second Amendment; simple, straightforward, effective! No one who is intent to discharge a firearm can be stopped. Period. There are no cited statistics about incidents of “good gun” protection in modern times. If there were, the NRA would be running national commercials. This country is dramatically different from the society of the framers of the Constitution namely: slavery was legal, the native peoples were the enemy, and women weren’t equal. State “militias” are now National Guard units. Armed vigilante groups are lawless mobs. Hunting is a sport not a necessity. There is no argument for private citizen gun possession. Period. “Bad guys having guns” would require a stronger police response (although that didn’t seem to help in Florida recently). Teachers are incapable of providing paramilitary protection for children and nurturing. The Las Vegas shooter was not known to be mentally ill (so much for that “filter”). Trump’s psychotic babble about this is merely to get re-elected. He is incapable of normal human compassion or empathy. Wayne LaPierre is a tool of the gun industry with no concern about life or safety. There is only one solution here: repeal the Second Amendment. Anything else is shooting blanks!
13
Your basic argument is simplistic rather than as elegantly uncomplicated as you seem to think. Yes, if guns were not deadly weapons, nobody could be killed with them and so too if they did not exist. No weapon can do harm if nobody has them. In real life we deal with risks all the time, we have since we began to make weapons and to use fire and even powerful machines of all kinds.
There really are too many guns in our country about which we know not if they exist nor who might have them. That is the biggest problem that prevents reasonable gun control of any kind. The control of all dangerous devices in the hands of people can result in no intentional harm or malicious harm or reckless harm as they choose. If you trust those people, you probably trust them not to hurt you.
Guns are deadly weapons but you feel fear or calm about them depending upon the people who have them.
Hollow theoretical argument! Give us some “good” gun stories. Cars can kill too but nobody thinks they should be banned.Perhaps we should not be our brother’s keeper, but neither should assume the “right” to the power of God! The solution is straightforward not simplistic.
If a paid and trained person did not take action during the Florida shooting, how do we expect Teachers(even those who are trained) to counter punch or shoot a demented killer? I know that this is a sample of one but the NRA's call for "good" shooters getting rid of "bad" shooter has no precedence even in this day and age when there is a gun available for every person in the US. Those western democratic countries where mass shooting has occurred, have installed stricter gun laws which have a great track record of no more mass shooting. NRA's answer is: put more guns on the street!!
5
700,000 teachers with Glocks. So many new customers for the gun companies and members for the NRA.
Once the teachers are all armed, the NRA will then try to arm all of the students.
9
I agree. Where does the arming end? With 5-year-olds owning pistols?
Some gun lovers I know trot out the tired argument that a deranged individual also could easily use a knife or a bomb, rather than an AR-15, to attack school children. Does that then mean schools should also train certain teachers to be bomb disposal experts, or the principal be proficient with a sword and shield?
6
Arming certain teachers who are qualified with a handgun is an idea whose time has come, and I speak as an educator who retired after 26 years in the system and whose experience was mainly in what was euphemistically called "zone schools"which accepted students unable to qualify for the "magnet schools!"That does not mean every teacher should come to class with a .38 revolver, but that certain faculty members, preferably with military experience should be chosen. Daresay that if the "professional school shooter"suspected there was school personnel with concealed carry, he might have thought twice before carrying out his mad fantasy!Like Dylan Roof, Cruz is a coward at heart, and the fear that someone in the school might shoot back could have deterred him.Hunch that even Times newspaper journos sense that Trump's idea is catching on with parents and ,I believe, with teachers and students. Nothing worse than lack of security!1 more point: Sheriff Scott Israel's criticism of his deputy's failure to confront shooter strikes me as a "faux fuyant,"a red herring designed to distract us from his own failure to act after receiving almost 40, complaints re Cruz and his awareness of the shooter's cruel Facebook interventions.Buck stops here, Sheriff Israel, with you and your staff!
5
"Daresay that if the "professional school shooter"suspected there was school personnel with concealed carry, he might have thought twice before carrying out his mad fantasy"...
I that were the case, we need arm no one. Simply say, that anyone in society may have a concealed weapon. But, do they or, don't they? Liar's poker.
These suggestions are patently insane.
2
No, it is about the stupidist thought to ever come from the president's mouth, and that is saying something. Stop arming people and stop the NRA and Hollywood propaganda that killing is okay.
2
When we have supposedly well trained police officers take no action and hide in fear when gunman are murdering innocent children what chance do you think a poorly trained teacher has when confronted with a maniac toting an a fully loaded assault weapon?
Sadly we are wasting our breath when trying to show how futile it to our delusional president and his NRA bought-and-paid-for GOP enablers who think in every teacher there is an inner Rambo waiting to bust out.
All of which should be a wakeup call for everyone who wants to put a stop to this inane thinking.
So, do not stay home this November.
Vote to bring back some measure of sanity to our government and begin to purge our government of our insane lawmakers who place their fidelity not in common sense and the safety of you and me, but in the magical belief that more guns makes us “safe.”
6
And make sure you vote against McConnell and his ilk. Send a message to Trump that the $30M he received in campaign funds from N R A is not only blood money but unpatriotic!
We shouldn't even dignify Trump's off hand comments by calling them a 'proposal.' As with most things Trump, it was designed to throw off any serious conversation.
Next we'll have Betsy DeVos contracting with Halliburton to design a new "hardened" school. In addition to metal detectors it will have fewer windows and replace them with rifle slits.
The new "hard" school will be ringed with razor wire and have sandbag emplacement where hallways intersect to increase the firing range from that position. They can build rifle towers over the sports fields and next to the fire extenwixhers have a glass dispenser for stun grenades.
And since assailants might come in with their trusty AR-15, we can't have our teachers under gunned, so we can turn the classroom supply closet into a rifle rack. Parents can fund raise to buy extra ammo. At school events we can auction off trips to the local firing range.
And as absolutely crazy as all this sounds, mark my words, there are wing nuts out there who will think this is a good idea.
8
It is odd that Mr. LaPierre, CEO of an organization handsomely sponsored from the toxic pipeline of Russian money, would call into question any presumed eradication of "all individual freedoms." Mr. LaPierre has also impugned the American patriotism of "socialists" who support the sensible regulation of firearms. This man, apparently, lacks a good penchant for irony.
4
I found fascinating hypocrisy in fact that current CPAC meeting is a gun free zone....aka “soft target” with mandatory metal detectors at entrances, while they invited NRA spokeswoman and EVP to spew terrorizing falsehoods to justify turing our schools into armed encampments. I’m left to assume the conservatives and libertarians who attend CPAC don’t trust each other to have guns in close spaces
6
Please NYT. Start talking about the elephant in the room. Consistently and truthfully. Arming teachers is absurd. It is the only solution offered by our so-called representatives who are beholden to the NRA. Our elected officials rely on the bribes from the NRA to ensure that they get re-elected. They don't care how many american teenagers are massacred -- so long as they get re-elected.
6
Trump's idea to arm teachers with guns is idiotic. But of course, no surprise. Let's turn out the vote in November. Change is on the way.
5
You miss the point. The NRA is drooling over the profit to be made by arming 700,000 teachers, undoubtedly at government expense. That is the tip of the iceberg as they also will be paid to train them. NRA and the corprations that fund it will make a fortune. Far more important that several thousand kids lives.
3
“It’s hard to begin to count the number of ways this is a bad idea,” said Chris Magnus, police chief of Tucson.
Hey Trump, you buying guns for all the teachers in Barron’s school ?
3
Even if this plan of arming teachers had any positive value whatsoever (it doesn't), there are other questions...
Would the teachers receive:
• combat pay?
• liability insurance coverage in case of a mistake?
• immunity from prosecution for any mistakes?
• death benefits similar to what's given to armed forces personnel?
• ongoing paid intensive combat training?
• lifetime VA-type assistance with inevitable PTSD or other injuries?
I was once involved in planning for response to on-campus active shooters, and until you've participated you have no idea how complex that planning is, trying to imagine and plan for innumerable scenarios, to then have the possibility of sudden mayhem in the back of your mind every minute of every day, while one is directly responsible for the safety of 200 students and staff in a building. I would guess the worry alone took years off my life.
Gun apologists should say outright that it is more important to flood our country with weapons of war than to create a safe and decent life for the people, that needless deaths and maimings of innocent people is the price we must pay for their toy preferences.
NRA mantra is it's not guns that kill people but people who kill people, but it IS the kind of guns that kill people, even if it's only the number in excess of what a six-shooter could manage (in MSD HS being 11 "excess" deaths and 14 "excess" injured on top of what would have been done by a six-shooter. Aussies know what to do.
4
Just send your children to school in Canada, or England, or France, or Begium, or German, or Switzerland, or...... where they can attend without the fear of being attacked by someone with an AR-15 and enjoy the carefree environment that most of these lawmakers enjoyed 30+ years ago.
This madness seems proudly American made.
5
Agree! Perfect last sentence.
Per NY Times- "The only armed sheriff’s deputy at a Florida high school where 17 people were killed took cover outside rather than charging into the building when the massacre began, the Broward County sheriff said on Thursday. The sheriff also acknowledged that his office received 23 calls related to the suspect going back a decade, including one last year that said he was collecting knives and guns, but may not have adequately followed up."
A TRAINED deputy took cover OUTSIDE when the massacre began!!! Yet we expect kindergarten teachers to be responsible for our children's safety against an armed attack along with making sure they're getting a quality education. Should teachers be required to put their lives on the line for their students? Many would, but not all have the capacity to commit to such a heroic act. In honesty I don't know if I could be so brave and selfless. Yet instead of ridding us of this gun cancer that is poisoning our nation our solution is not more restrictions, stronger background checks, longer waiting periods for a more thorough investigation of the applicant, limiting magazines, bullet size. Washington wrings its hands and does NOTHING to stem the easy access to these weapons of death.
Everyone with a gun is a "good guy with a gun" until he commits a crime. My husband's coworker was demonstrably disturbed but had guns. One coworker considered wearing a bullet proof vest for when this man went "postal". Is this the country we want to live in? Is it?
5
What happens when a teacher loses his or her cool at an unruly class and opens fire on them?
Or when pupils overpower their teacher, grab his or her gun, and open fire on other pupils with it?
I suppose the solution will be to arm the pupils too.
2
Why are we even debating this absurd idea?
2
trump gave the NRA a boost, at the same "listening" meeting when he needed to refer to his "empathy" notes. Guns for Teachers, go get 'em! Free advertising for gun manufactures free advertising for gun sellers! Free advertising for the NRA! Just what we need! Grow the proliferation of guns! That's the answer! How simple is that!
1
But what about movie theaters, concerts pep rallies. churches, malls...?These mass shootings happen everywhere. The problem is too easy access to guns. Period.
4
Question for Mr. LaPierre:
If the US already has more guns than any other country, WHY isn't it the safest country?
4
Perhaps the president should practice what he preaches; the administration could give up their Secret Service detail, and instead arm themselves! PROBLEM SOLVED! Taxpayer money saved! You’re welcome.
2
Here is my program to reduce gun violence in the United States.
1. Complete ban of assault rifles and accessories, such as bump stocks. Nobody needs to assault Bambi.
2. Maximum clip size: 9 rounds. If you can't hit something with 9 shots, you shouldn't be holding a gun.
3. No armor-piercing bullets. Bambi doesn't wear body armor.
4. Guns stored securely: locked gun cabinet or trigger locks.
5. Full background check any time the ownership of a gun is transferred (whether by sale or gift).
6. Ammunition purchase in person with photo identification, maximum 100 rounds per purchase and per month.
6. Gun ownership (or possession) prohibited for anyone convicted of a violent crime, making violent threats, or with a domestic violence order.
5. Civil liability for owner of a gun for damages caused, regardless of whether it was used with or without permission. Our clever insurance industry can figure out how to write insurance.
6. Concealed weapons prohibited, except for sworn peace officers.
7. Local buy-back program and turn-in amnesty for illegal weapons; 90% federally funded. Illegal weapons destroyed.
The weapons available when the 2nd Amendment was adopted, i.e., round balls, muzzle-loaded muskets, and black powder, will be grandfathered in and not subject to regulation. Most handguns and long guns will also remain legal.
I estimate this program will take a long time to reduce gun violence significantly because there are so many guns out there.
3
Arming and training teachers is NUTS. If Trump were managing Risk Management for any company with this proposal; he would be fired !!!
The high and unacceptable incidence of gun related deaths in the US is a scourge and cancer in America.
There are four core problems:
(1) The Second Amendment
(2) The NRA
(3) There are an estimated 357 million firearms !!! An estimated 31% of households, or one in three Americans, own guns.
(4) The NRA enables gun violence by financially supporting Republicans in both houses. The fact remains that NOTHING has been done on the issue of gun related violence.
The solutions:
(1) The Second Amendment must be repealed.
The new law should be called: “The Innocents’ Law.”
(2) The charter of the NRA must be cancelled because it is a National Security and National Health risk adversely impacting all Americans.
Bring peace to America.
2
So the editors of the NYT's who work in a hardened, secure environment are going to dictate how public schools should be secure. That means only democratic initiatives such as gun control (gun confiscation) and repeal of the 2nd amendment will be approved by the editors. Come on...Schools need to become hardened targets, allowing those teachers who want to be trained to act a first line of defense is an entirely reasonable approach as is placing trained armed security (that does their job) in the schools.
1
I would be laughing if this bizarre idea weren't so...well...bizarre. When I was in school, I sang with the school choir. One day, at rehearsal, the teacher (who was also the choir director) found me facing down, looking at my music, rather than facing him. He jumped down from his podium, threw down his baton and came at me with his clenched hands, ready to strangle me (which he, thankfully, chose not to do at the last moment). Let's see...had he had a gun, perhaps he would have just pulled his piece and shot me, threat that I was. Would that have been considered a justified shooting? Surely, I was disrespectful, not facing him, and a threat to his ego, to him. I'll bet that, had he had a gun in his hand that day, I'd be dead. So, Trump and the NRA are preaching that we should arm teachers to prevent the future "sicko" from attacking our young. Well, Trump...NRA...what do you do when that "sicko" is the teacher? How naïve can you be to recommend such idiocy and call it a solution to our gun control problem?
1
We need to do all this so that some people can have "sport"
1
Please just start military training in preschool. i am pretty sure that would be effective.
This time, there was a good guy with a gun. He waited outside. What's your next idea, Mr. Pierre?
1
Some of the mass shooters have worn armor, such as in Aurora and Sutherland Springs. What then? The teacher will become a sitting duck.
2
The next teenage shooter will enjoy the convenience of grabbing a gun straight from his teacher -- no purchase required.
131
That is an interesting (and chilling) observation! When are we going to start seeing stories of some student overpowering their armed teacher and using their gun in a mass shooting. There was a report on NPR's _Morning Edition_ just this morning of a Texas school district that allows its teachers to be armed, if they choose.
I wonder how Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch will try to spin that one!
" Let the Teachers Teach." Amen. We can hardly wait to see the unions created to promote education adopt this noble slogan
and
weed out those who have no place in the classrooms even if they have a piece of paper claiming otherwise.
1