Arm the teachers!

Firearm deaths and Injuries in US Schools by Decade

By Chris55 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/...x.php?curid=66520877

It does seem to be getting worse, with the current decade being on track to result in about 15 school shooting deaths per year (on average). Put this in perspective, though. There are more than 30,000 firearm deaths in the US every year. Relatively, the ones in schools are an extremely small number, although they do feel much more regrettable than many of the others which we only briefly or never hear about.

There are 50 million students in school in the US. On average therefore, a student can go to school for over a million years (~50 students shot and injured or killed each year) before being shot in a school shooting. And they would go 3 million years before being killed. The average person in the US gets killed by guns at the rate of once each 11,000 years (325M people killed at a rate of 30,000 per year). It seems to be about 250X more risky outside of schools. This accords with what I'd expect, in spite of the media's saturation coverage.

An availability bias is at play here, where we wring our hands over school shootings due to saturation media coverage and therefore some contemplate idiotic measures such as armed teachers. Many, many more lives would be saved through having fewer guns in the hands of everyone.

The real tragedy here is that the media and the other hysterical reactions are completely terrifying the children for no good reason.

There are already 70 million armed americans who cite self-defence as a reason to own their gun. They kill about 2,000 bad guys per year. So that's 1 every 35,000 years. By far, statistically speaking, the person most likely to be shot by your gun is yourself, followed by your family and friends. It is extremely unlikely you'll ever use it for self-defence. And even more unlikely that a teacher would use a gun for defence at a school.

The good news is that even in the US, if you don't own a gun, don't hang out with guns, don't hunt, and don't indulge in armed or violent crime, then you are still extremely unlikely to be shot.

In my mind getting teachers armed will never help solve the issue: its the old story - it starts with carrying a knife to "defend" yourself ... but the other guy has a gun.  You buy a revolver ... but the other guy has a semi-automatic.  You buy a 9mm (I may be using the wrong term there) ... but the other guy has a shotgun.

All arming teachers will do is cause escalation.  And statistically probably make them more likely to be shot by their own gun than shot by a marauding "mad man".

Its the same argument that most police officers would make about (routine) arming of UK police.

Bad food is still a much bigger killer than weapons.

Hungryhalibut, with such a provocative thread title and obvious subtle unstated overtones could you please, for the record, confirm who you implicating as stating this as the solution to school shootings (person or group)?  Just looking for a little context please.

No, please don't.  We wouldn't want this thread to become a proxy for a subject that is currently banned on the forum. Thank you.

Just watched a sickening speech by Wayne LaPierre who is the CEO of the NRA.

In his speech he feigns outrage at the recent focus of criticism of the NRA, and instead blames "the Corrupt FBI", "the existence of gun free zones in schools" and the proliferation of evil creeping "Socialistic" (his word) views put forward by the corrupt mainstream media in the USA for mass shootings over the years. 

He also found time in his speech to criticise the mainstream media for attaching labels such as Racist and misogynistic to certain right wing conservatives.

Well, I guess he has to do something to justify his reported $1m salary from the NRA.

A truly horrible and nauseating person.   

The only point I am trying to present in the above is that details matter.  

From one side all you will ever hear is that guns are the (only) problem.  Remove them and the problem is solved.  Simple, isn't it?  From the other side you have a more realistic response in that this is folly to imply such a simplistic response to a very complicated problem will solve anything.  Furthermore, to pull out one point suggested as a possible solution and misquote it on top of it is troublesome.

I would gladly lay out some obvious solutions that go hand in hand with a multifaceted approach but for brevity will only focus on this deceptive thread title of "Arm the Teachers.  I can think of no credible source that attributes this statement to anyone except by those who willfully twist the truth for the hungry ears of a certain political persuasion who lap this deceptive reporting up like a drug. 

What WAS suggested from the top was that one possible idea could be that teachers who have a proclivity for guns could perhaps volunteer to be part of a small group of teachers or staff that can carry/conceal.  It was also made very clear that this might be perhaps only 20% of teachers/staff (NOT EVERYONE) and they would be responsible people (background checks etc.), have a high level of training and it wouldn't be known who was part of this.  The ideal person for this would likely be someone who has experience previously in law enforcement or the service etc.  This is clearly far from a blanket statement of "arming teachers."

To me, this is a reasonable idea to at least put on the table and discuss alongside a multitude of other proposals put on the table.

For those opposed to this idea (alongside other proposed changes) I would ask how effective it is to jump in front of bullets themselves to save students?  The reason this is being proposed is that most shootings like this are over in maybe 3-5 minutes.  If first responders take 5-8 minutes to arrive everyone just becomes sitting ducks.

Again, this is not the only solution on its own but maybe one of the quickest to implement.  Other solutions are vital as well but might be harder to implement given how partisan and dysfunctional our society seems to have become.

Florestan

I thank you for your post. I guess my problem is that I don't see any of the more nuanced or complex options happening alongside the sort of proposal you describe above, which I personally feel is abhorrent and counter productive-but maybe sits easier with a more armed society. The role of the NRA as a political force is also one that feels really uncomfortable and plain bizarre 'over here'. Once again it may feel natural to you.

Prevention is better than 'First Response', but prevention looks to me to require a big societal change.

By the way I'll apologise in advance of ducking out of this thread now. I don't want it to be another of 'those' threads and I'm happy enough with my contributions to date. Please don't be offended if I don't reply again.

Bruce

Hmack posted:

Just watched a sickening speech by Wayne LaPierre who is the CEO of the NRA.

In his speech he feigns outrage at the recent focus of criticism of the NRA, and instead blames "the Corrupt FBI", "the existence of gun free zones in schools" and the proliferation of evil creeping "Socialistic" (his word) views put forward by the corrupt mainstream media in the USA for mass shootings over the years. 

He also found time in his speech to criticise the mainstream media for attaching labels such as Racist and misogynistic to certain right wing conservatives.

Well, I guess he has to do something to justify his reported $1m salary from the NRA.

A truly horrible and nauseating person.   

 

The man is cowardly, self-interested scum, and his organisation are scum.  If these people had a shred of decency they would disband themselves.

Richard Dane posted:

Derek Wright posted:

We had a teacher with "anger management" issues, 99.9% of the time he was a good teacher but if a pupil strayed he would be doing a "chinese burn", or throwing the blackboard cleaner (a block of wood with chalk dust impregnated felt attached to it - left a mark on the target to indicate the accuracy of the aim) or attempting to strangle the pupil.

We had a maths teacher who was a crack shot with chalk, but every now and then he would up the ante by deploying the wooden blackboard cleaner. It hurt like hell, and heaven help you if you blubbed.  

Oh, and a headmaster whose favourite ploy was the death grip, where he'd go to shake your hand and once he had your hand in his, he would gradually crush it so you would end up writhing around on your knees begging for mercy.

Happy days.

Mine was one of those old chalk board rubbers - or should we say erasers in polite company? Deadly aim from someone who was a priest!

Strange place the US. I work with a guy who drives a Dodge RAM 6 whatever litre beast who owns enough personal weaponry  to supply a medium sized army - including assault rifles, a vintage Winchester and a Colt 45. And I used to worry about my BSA air rifle. All very sad indeed.

Florestan posted:

From one side all you will ever hear is that guns are the (only) problem.  Remove them and the problem is solved.  Simple, isn't it?  From the other side you have a more realistic response in that this is folly to imply such a simplistic response to a very complicated problem will solve anything.  

I think you are presenting the two sides very skewed here (and I’m only basing this on what I read in the press in U.K) but the anti-gun lobby don’t think banning guns will solve all problems, and your “other side” don’t seem to recognise that *some* of the problem is the easy availability of gun.

The ‘mentally ill’ from earlier in the week are now ‘sickos’ apparently.

G

Florestan posted:

The only point I am trying to present in the above is that details matter.  

From one side all you will ever hear is that guns are the (only) problem.  Remove them and the problem is solved.  Simple, isn't it?  From the other side you have a more realistic response in that this is folly to imply such a simplistic response to a very complicated problem will solve anything.  Furthermore, to pull out one point suggested as a possible solution and misquote it on top of it is troublesome.

I would gladly lay out some obvious solutions that go hand in hand with a multifaceted approach but for brevity will only focus on this deceptive thread title of "Arm the Teachers.  I can think of no credible source that attributes this statement to anyone except by those who willfully twist the truth for the hungry ears of a certain political persuasion who lap this deceptive reporting up like a drug. 

What WAS suggested from the top was that one possible idea could be that teachers who have a proclivity for guns could perhaps volunteer to be part of a small group of teachers or staff that can carry/conceal.  It was also made very clear that this might be perhaps only 20% of teachers/staff (NOT EVERYONE) and they would be responsible people (background checks etc.), have a high level of training and it wouldn't be known who was part of this.  The ideal person for this would likely be someone who has experience previously in law enforcement or the service etc.  This is clearly far from a blanket statement of "arming teachers."

To me, this is a reasonable idea to at least put on the table and discuss alongside a multitude of other proposals put on the table.

For those opposed to this idea (alongside other proposed changes) I would ask how effective it is to jump in front of bullets themselves to save students?  The reason this is being proposed is that most shootings like this are over in maybe 3-5 minutes.  If first responders take 5-8 minutes to arrive everyone just becomes sitting ducks.

Again, this is not the only solution on its own but maybe one of the quickest to implement.  Other solutions are vital as well but might be harder to implement given how partisan and dysfunctional our society seems to have become.

That's not at all how the proposal has been presented by the UK media, which seems to have boiled it down to an inflammatory sound-bite. Thank you for explaining it, Florestan.  

MDS posted:

That's not at all how the proposal has been presented by the UK media, which seems to have boiled it down to an inflammatory sound-bite. Thank you for explaining it, Florestan.  

The U.K. media is offering that clarity now... which appears to have come since the initial reports of what Trump said.

Despite the clarity, I’m still not sure if it’s a real solution to the problem... surely it would just mean any teacher (well any adult) in a school becomes the primary target.  My issue over escalation still applies.

Since the thread has in parts deviated to the habits of school masters from a gone-bye age, the exchanges have brought back memories of some of mine employing the technique of lifting not the ear of the pupil but the sideburn. This technique was beautifully parodied by Monty Python's Life Of Brian where the centurion (Cleese) forced Brian to self-correct his own clumsy Latin wall-slogan purporting to say 'Romans Go Home'. Hugely funny but also pertinent for those of us who had been educated where such techniques were used.  

Eloise posted:

MDS posted:

That's not at all how the proposal has been presented by the UK media, which seems to have boiled it down to an inflammatory sound-bite. Thank you for explaining it, Florestan.  

The U.K. media is offering that clarity now... which appears to have come since the initial reports of what Trump said.

Despite the clarity, I’m still not sure if it’s a real solution to the problem... surely it would just mean any teacher (well any adult) in a school becomes the primary target.  My issue over escalation still applies.

Neither am I, Eloise,  but I do get irritated at the media sometimes. Too often it seems to think about what its audience wants to hear and tailors its headlines to massage that prejudice. I expect more of the media. I want to understand more about the issue from more than one perspective so that I can make up my own mind.  

Richard Dane posted:

Derek Wright posted:

We had a teacher with "anger management" issues, 99.9% of the time he was a good teacher but if a pupil strayed he would be doing a "chinese burn", or throwing the blackboard cleaner (a block of wood with chalk dust impregnated felt attached to it - left a mark on the target to indicate the accuracy of the aim) or attempting to strangle the pupil.

We had a maths teacher who was a crack shot with chalk, but every now and then he would up the ante by deploying the wooden blackboard cleaner. It hurt like hell, and heaven help you if you blubbed.  

Oh, and a headmaster whose favourite ploy was the death grip, where he'd go to shake your hand and once he had your hand in his, he would gradually crush it so you would end up writhing around on your knees begging for mercy.

Happy days.

Was called 'shake hands' by any chance?

The old school I attended was proper old school, with many of the older members of staff having past history with the British Army. 

They had some very interesting solutions to troublesome pupils.

One time I was made to go outside and stand facing the classroom on a ground floor window with my nose pressing against.  It was very cold mid winter time and my nose stuck.   Was difficult explaining to my mum why I was missing some skin when I got home.

Hungryhalibut posted:

What a wonderful idea. It will really make things better. Why hasn’t someone thought of it earlier?

This is a perfect example of how f@cked up our culture has evolved. What's next? If teachers have guns shouldn't the students also have guns?

I'm a gun owner and believe in the second amendment but clearly we need to get serious about background checks and expand the courts' ability to temporarily force individuals to surrender their weapons. (Similar to personal protection orders but having the protected party == society.)

As a joke it's a funny idea, but I've heard people say this seriously. The reality is that teachers in the US have enough problems. They are already tasked with raising our children and blamed when they do it any less well than the parents who don't involve themselves. Let's not add the burden of life and death to what is already a completely underappreciated job. The good teachers care about children and wouldn't be able to live with themselves if they had to take the life of even one that was a shooter, let alone make a mistake and kill a kid that wasn't involved. The bad ones I wouldn't want to arm at all, they're already sleeping with our kids. What would our litigious society do every single time a faculty member so much as unholstered a weapon in front of our children? Our policemen, another completely underappreciated group, can go through years of investigation, public humiliation and second guessing over what in the moment is a split second reaction.

Weapons in the US are ubiquitous. It's easy as pie for kids to get their hands on weapons even when parents are careful, so an unstable kid can do a world of harm, in or out of school.

We'll end up with school marshals and when the bullets start flying, hopefully they'll be in the right place at the right time and not high on the weed they sell our kids during the 99.9999% downtime that is their jobs.

Hungryhalibut posted:

What a wonderful idea. It will really make things better. Why hasn’t someone thought of it earlier?

Haim Ronen posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

What a wonderful idea. It will really make things better. Why hasn’t someone thought of it earlier?

What a wonderful idea to start such a topic laced with sarcasm and know it all attitude while on the other side of the ocean families of school students and teachers are grieving for their loss and the nation is trying to figure out the best and quickest way to prevent such attacks from occurring again.

 

I'd like to think you're right about the nation trying to figure something out. I fear that it actually just a lot of individual people trying to figure out how to use this to advance their personal agenda/beliefs/interest/fears.

Haim Ronen posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

What a wonderful idea. It will really make things better. Why hasn’t someone thought of it earlier?

What a wonderful idea to start such a topic laced with sarcasm and know it all attitude while on the other side of the ocean families of school students and teachers are grieving for their loss and the nation is trying to figure out the best and quickest way to prevent such attacks from occurring again.

 

I have to agree here in that any debate is better than no debate and as part of a wider discussion the more radical views are of course going to come out. The slightly sneering nature of the opening post is unhelpful and adds nothing to the discussion.  Why just pick one view that will of course 99% never come to be and to make fun of it when there are much more positive things happening like the student demo?

It seems that the armed police officer on duty outside the school stayed outside and did not confront the gunman, and following suspension has now resigned. So the teachers can do the job that the police are too scared or inept to do. Like others I find the actions of the students hugely positive but when those in charge have their heads up the arse of the NRA, what hope is there?

Since the repeated incidents being addressed here are a feature of current American society, I'll address this response from the orientation of that society.

It is clear that the number of guns, and their availability to the general populace has increased since the Second World War.  Along with this increasing availability is a commensurate increase in firearms related deaths.  In latter years, this increase has been super-proportional to the increase in the availability of firearms.  This must be attributed to social change.

It is also a given that, a state of constant social change is inevitable, in any non-totalitarian society.

The question remains as, in respect of the question of the legal position of firearms legislation and the societal attitude to guns, what direction future social change in American society will take.

The following is personal opinion and not intended as a social comment on American society.

I see five possibilities (OK one is so remote a possibility as to be practically inconceivable!)

1  Do nothing or make insignificant intervention in the formulation of law and the current student reaction fails (as have previous 'ground level' movements that have attempted social reform).  The current trend will continue as there is no driver for change in another direction: the trend of an increasing rate of firearms related deaths will continue.

2  Social pressure arising from the increasing rate of firearms related deaths eventually leads to partial legal restriction of firearms.  After a short period when the rate of rate of firearms related deaths shows a small but significant reduction, this initiative will subsequently largely fail (due to it's incomplete nature) giving rise to a counter movement based on the "guns prevent gun violence" philosophy.  The previous situation will then be restored, hence the increasing rate of firearms related deaths will also be restored once the driver for change is removed.

3  Social pressure arising from the increasing rate of firearms related deaths eventually leads to severe legal restriction of firearms, including repeal of the Second Amendment.  After a dramatic backlash against the police trying to enforce the law and a few ghettos of gun fanatics being stormed by special forces, the situation eventually calms down, leaving guns only in the hands of MLE and career criminals.  Once the criminals know that law abiding citizens aren't armed and they don't need to shoot first, actual shootings will largely be confined to conflict between these two groups and within the latter group.  After a major upheaval, this will slowly stabilise American society,

4  Social pressure arising from the increasing rate of firearms related deaths and one of the 'ground level' social movements takes hold and progressively leads to the social vilification of gun ownership.  This will finally stabilise American society, leaving guns only in the hands of MLE and career criminals.  Once the criminals know that law abiding citizens aren't armed and they don't need to shoot first, actual shootings will largely be confined to conflict between these two groups and within the latter group.

5  American society adopts an idealised Eastern style Society Centric approach, where the each individual person considers the needs of the greater society above their own needs.  The problem simply disappears.

I see these as being set in order of likelihood, 1 being the most likely, 5 being the least likely)