Arm the teachers!

[@mention:36201736971392588] good commentary... but “MLE”?

MLE = Military and Law Enforcement.

Sorry, I thought it was a commonly known abbreviation.

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.

 

This is exactly the same approach you took at the time of the last mass shooting in the US where the crux of your response was to focus criticism on a member of this forum for being sarcastic about the Republicans' and the NRA's position on gun control rather than on the question of gun control itself, whilst advocating a general principle that "guns don't kill, people do". 

HH can speak for himself, but I am absolutely sure that his sarcasm was aimed specifically at the shameful position of DT, the NRA and others of the pro gun lobby in the US who continue to peddle the dangerous myth that the way to prevent tragedies such as this recent shooting is to abolish gun-free zones and increase, not decrease the number of weapons in circulation in the US. How on earth an you in good conscience focus your anger on those who criticise the gun lobby at times such as these. 

This whole question of teachers being asked to carry guns as a solution to this problem, as proposed by DT is absolutely ludicrous, and nothing but a fob to his buddies in the NRA, and the suggestion that the problem lies with mental health (or with "the sickos", as described by an NRA representative at the recent town hall debate) rather than with the proliferation of guns is scandalous. Many other countries in the western world have their fair share of mental health issues, but do not suffer the same number of mass killings. Is this because America has a monopoly on serious mental health problems? No, it is self evident that the monopoly 'enjoyed' by the USA is the easy availability of weapons, and more specifically of semi-automatic weapons that are classed as "Assault" weapons.        

A couple of questions for you.

Did you see the truly sickening speech made by Wayne LaPierre to a far right audience shortly after the shooting, where he attempted to focus blame for this type of event on "the corrupt FBI", "the existence of gun free zones", the "creeping European socialism" in American society" and the political opportunism of the Democrats. Can you honestly tell me that you endorse his views rather than feel absolutely nauseated by him? I had never heard of LaPierre before, but I could not believe that anyone could hold the views that he does. DT apparently thinks that he is "good people and a patriot". I have exercised self censorship rather than express my real opinion of LaPierre in this thread.

Did you see the town hall 'debate' involving the surviving students, a couple of Republicans including Marco Rubio and a democrat whose name I cannot recollect? Marco Rubio was roundly and deservedly jeered for his disgraceful attempted support of the NRA and its position. The other Republican on the floor to his credit (and no doubt to the ire of the NRA) at least indicated that he fully supported an immediate ban on all weapons that can be classified as "Assault Weapons". He referred to a list of some 200 weapons that could be classified as assault weapons such as the Kalashnikov and the AR-15 (both ironically manufactured under license in Florida) and that were designed specifically to kill rather than to defend, and which should immediately be banned and recalled. Can you provide a single argument for why this should not immediately happen?

The really telling moment of the debate came when Rubio was asked if he would continue to accept money from the NRA. His tame but entirely expected and utterly shameful response was - "People buy into my agenda, and I do support the second amendment".

I should also add that as much as I was sickened by the completely expected response to the recent killings by the far right and the NRA, I was both genuinely moved by, and massively impressed by the students who took part so effectively in the recent town hall debates and in interviews with the mainstream news channels.

Up until now, the whole gun control issue in the States has appeared to be very much in the grip of the NRA and its lackeys. Now, for the first time, looking at the issue from the point of view of an outsider, but one who has enjoyed visiting the US regularly over the past 25 years or so, I see at least some hope for the future. For the first time, the actions of these brave students may well force a sea change in respect of the sale of weapons that should never have been allowed to be available to civilians.        

Huge posted:

MLE = Military and Law Enforcement.

Sorry, I thought it was a commonly known abbreviation.

It makes sense and I guessed that in the context... but Google offered me Maximum Likelihood Estimation or Multicultural London English as results neither fitted!

I am glad HHS thread has attracted so much debate and a lot of it well informed and well intentioned but ultimately there’s nothing here to top Moore’s Bowling for Columbine which must be over ten year old.

As I have previously intimidated I haven’t quite blown enough smoke up my own arse yet to feel empowered to tell Americans how to live in their country.

At some point though surely the public revulsion and backlash against the NRA and Republican support for guns will bring about the necessary legislative and social change to bring about a major reduction in the number of mass shootings.

I see one of the teachers at this school was already armed but chose not to interfere.

However as we all know arming the teachers can't help because guns don't kill people.

When the alarm went off at 6.30 yesterday, the first thing I heard on Radio 4 was the suggestion of arming teachers. It was one of the most profoundly depressing things I had heard for a long time. These mass killings are so utterly dreadful that it’s beyond words. I was just astounded that rather than sugggestions of a fundamental look at the underlying issues, and considerations of better gun control and support for those suffering from mental health issues, the reaction in some quarters was to ‘arm the teachers’. The reason for the thread title itself comes from the line ‘hang the DJ’ from Panic. I’ve been to the US only once, to New York, and loved both the place and all the Americans we met. I simply cannot get my head around the gulf between the lovely people we met and the gun toting reactionaries such as the NRA. Of course I don’t have the understanding of the US that its own citizens possess, but as a rational person I simply cannot understand how anyone with an ounce of common sense can think that arming teachers is a good idea. 

I would love to see any NRA person,  preferably the CEO idiot who was on TV yesterday,   armed with a 'concealed' type handgun up against an AR15, the gun type used in the Florida schooling.   At 25 metres a hand gun with a full mag might hit a person sized target,  then again it might not.      An AR15 has an effective range of 500m. 

From my experience of many years traveling the US, the gun owner can be as pleasant and helpful as a non gun owner. The biggest surprise is when a person you have worked with invites you to meet his family for supper and shows you his gun collection in the same way I would show you my Hifi, he might even go into his backyard and demo the weapon.

A few years back Michael Moore made the film "Bowling for Columbine" in which he described the US's fascination with guns. All of the arguments made in this thread appear in the film. However one point he really made was the divergence between the US and other countries with a similar number of privately own fire arms per person. He compared two cities Albuquerque in NM and a similar sized city in Canada.  He compared the content of the evening TV news programs, the Canadian program was upbeat with lots of good news stories where as the Albuquerque  news program was mainly reporting on shooting incidents  so making shooting the norm for life. 

Somehow the US has adopted the frontier mode of life as the norm and is determined to live as if they are living on a frontier and have to defend their existence come what may. 

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Unfortunately it will seem entirely logical to many. But then when you are so far down the road towards a fully armed populace and security/law enforcement it is hard to see that more reasoned or nuanced choices will have the sort of immediate effect that politicians and a chunk of the population crave.

An armed teacher will shoot a student with a gun and lives will have been 'saved'. Result.

A key element of the US situation is the lack of access and continuity in mental health care for children and adults. Arming teachers sounds a whole lot simpler and obvious then health care reform I'm afraid.

Bruce

Also it is not easy to take someones life.. Teachers are not trained to cope with the chaos involved mind wise 'and probable outcomes.  Nor should they be. Mental health ' the list goes on .  There should be military trained personel in plain clothes for obvious reasons at at all schools. Nothing that is done will stop every situation . It is a diffucult one.

Huge respect to the kids interviewed by Kylie Morris on C4 news tonight.

G

These people going into schools to kill as many people as possible more often or not get shot dead anyway don’t they? So having teachers with guns isn’t going to stop them. There is a chance though that not as many people will get killed I suppose.  It’s virtually impossible to stop these things happening, even if they ban guns they’re everywhere in America.

Why not have an armed police officer on site to stop a gunman?

Oh, wait a minute...

steve

Hungryhalibut posted:

When the alarm went off at 6.30 yesterday, the first thing I heard on Radio 4 was the suggestion of arming teachers. It was one of the most profoundly depressing things I had heard for a long time. These mass killings are so utterly dreadful that it’s beyond words. I was just astounded that rather than sugggestions of a fundamental look at the underlying issues, and considerations of better gun control and support for those suffering from mental health issues, the reaction in some quarters was to ‘arm the teachers’. The reason for the thread title itself comes from the line ‘hang the DJ’ from Panic. I’ve been to the US only once, to New York, and loved both the place and all the Americans we met. I simply cannot get my head around the gulf between the lovely people we met and the gun toting reactionaries such as the NRA. Of course I don’t have the understanding of the US that its own citizens possess, but as a rational person I simply cannot understand how anyone with an ounce of common sense can think that arming teachers is a good idea. 

HH,

I can only read your words and not your thoughts. Anyway, thanks for the clarification.

Haim

I am sure this will all work out just fine.

Unless a disgruntled student, unarmed and with no previous access to guns, whacks granny in the back of the head, takes her gun away and starts shooting.

Hmack posted:

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.

 

This is exactly the same approach you took at the time of the last mass shooting in the US where the crux of your response was to focus criticism on a member of this forum for being sarcastic about the Republicans' and the NRA's position on gun control rather than on the question of gun control itself, whilst advocating a general principle that "guns don't kill, people do". 

HH can speak for himself, but I am absolutely sure that his sarcasm was aimed specifically at the shameful position of DT, the NRA and others of the pro gun lobby in the US who continue to peddle the dangerous myth that the way to prevent tragedies such as this recent shooting is to abolish gun-free zones and increase, not decrease the number of weapons in circulation in the US. How on earth an you in good conscience focus your anger on those who criticise the gun lobby at times such as these. 

This whole question of teachers being asked to carry guns as a solution to this problem, as proposed by DT is absolutely ludicrous, and nothing but a fob to his buddies in the NRA, and the suggestion that the problem lies with mental health (or with "the sickos", as described by an NRA representative at the recent town hall debate) rather than with the proliferation of guns is scandalous. Many other countries in the western world have their fair share of mental health issues, but do not suffer the same number of mass killings. Is this because America has a monopoly on serious mental health problems? No, it is self evident that the monopoly 'enjoyed' by the USA is the easy availability of weapons, and more specifically of semi-automatic weapons that are classed as "Assault" weapons.        

A couple of questions for you.

Did you see the truly sickening speech made by Wayne LaPierre to a far right audience shortly after the shooting, where he attempted to focus blame for this type of event on "the corrupt FBI", "the existence of gun free zones", the "creeping European socialism" in American society" and the political opportunism of the Democrats. Can you honestly tell me that you endorse his views rather than feel absolutely nauseated by him? I had never heard of LaPierre before, but I could not believe that anyone could hold the views that he does. DT apparently thinks that he is "good people and a patriot". I have exercised self censorship rather than express my real opinion of LaPierre in this thread.

Did you see the town hall 'debate' involving the surviving students, a couple of Republicans including Marco Rubio and a democrat whose name I cannot recollect? Marco Rubio was roundly and deservedly jeered for his disgraceful attempted support of the NRA and its position. The other Republican on the floor to his credit (and no doubt to the ire of the NRA) at least indicated that he fully supported an immediate ban on all weapons that can be classified as "Assault Weapons". He referred to a list of some 200 weapons that could be classified as assault weapons such as the Kalashnikov and the AR-15 (both ironically manufactured under license in Florida) and that were designed specifically to kill rather than to defend, and which should immediately be banned and recalled. Can you provide a single argument for why this should not immediately happen?

The really telling moment of the debate came when Rubio was asked if he would continue to accept money from the NRA. His tame but entirely expected and utterly shameful response was - "People buy into my agenda, and I do support the second amendment".

      

I am going to ask you to try and find the text where according to you I had advocated the principle of "people kill and not guns" because I never said such a thing. On the contrary, I clearly stated that I was against ownership of assault weapons by private persons.

I always take exception to your British wasted arrogance which is annoying and unnecessary. Would I ever have a chance to change your mind simply by being pompous and condensating? 

To answer your questions: 

I did not bother to listen to La Pierre nor Rubio because both, the NRA and the Repulican party, had completely lost their senses in the last twenty years in regard to gun laws. It is enough that once in a while I have to argue with friends NRA memebers who yammer about the Second Ammendment and the freedom to carry guns. I ask them if on the same principal I am allowed to own handgrenades and land mines and when they say that I am taking the idea too far I respond that they had already done that by advocating military grade weapons ownership for civilians.

Few points I would like to make:

It is unfortunate, or furtunate, depending on how you look at it, that attacks on schools in affluent suburbs where the parents have a bigger say and the kids are more articulate create larger waves and draw more attention.

Without wishing that on anyone, I am sure that if similar attacks took place targetting the same fancy schools in the capital which the politician's kids attend, there would be an acute urgency to rectify the current absurd gun laws.

A teenager in Florida has to reach 18 to be able to buy legally an assault rifle and then he has to wait another three years to be 21 to be able to buy his first can of beer.

I am against arming the teachers. Schools should have an armed policeman who hopefully will be brave enough to perform his duty and stop any attacker.

The biggest challenge we face is to pass a legislation that completely bans the ownership of assault weapons which will shrink the lethality of mass shootings by a huge chunk.

Have a good weekend.

There is also the question of why, since I don't know of any other country where similar attacks are conducted in times of peace against one's own fellow civilians: why in schools? Is it against teenagers or against education? All those ridiculous B-movies where boys from high school are massacred around the swimming pool, have no relation at all with what is actually happening? Just a question.

Max_B posted:

There is also the question of why, since I don't know of any other country where similar attacks are conducted in times of peace against one's own fellow civilians: why in schools? Is it against teenagers or against education? All those ridiculous B-movies where boys from high school are massacred around the swimming pool, have no relation at all with what is actually happening? Just a question.

Don't think of USA as a country, better to think of it as a large part of the dry bit of the world.     That these people have no relation at all with what is actually happening is vertiginous to the rest of the world in a scaled up version of loneliness, in that sense that we are all alone - just that some parts and some people are more so.

I really don’t understand the focus on machine guns and the trm “assault weapons”. First of all, any gun is, or can be used as, a weapon of assault, and secondly as much damage can be done, just a bit slower, with semi automatics or even simple pistols.

I do not feel competent to offer any proposal for fixing the cause where these things happen apparently so readily in the US, given that guns are so ingrained in the American psyche, and in any case with so many in circulation, that in reality they can’t be erradicated.

Instead of cure, it seems that prevention is the only solution, despite that being counter-intuitive. And for that,  the answer is actually quite simple: schools should be made into fortresses, with armed guards on permanent patrol duty outside, and airport-type security for everyone entering (and that includes teachers and students). Maybe if, as I trust is the case, Americans really do want to stop such atrocities, then if they cannot bite the bullet (pun not intended) and get rid of weapons, they really have to commit to drastic action like this to prevent. It may be expensive, but what cost the young lives so frequently taken - and it could be funded by a tax on guns and ammunition.

An outbreak of sense

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-43173753

steve

Drewy posted:

These people going into schools to kill as many people as possible more often or not get shot dead anyway don’t they? So having teachers with guns isn’t going to stop them. There is a chance though that not as many people will get killed I suppose.  It’s virtually impossible to stop these things happening, even if they ban guns they’re everywhere in America.

I too cannot see why armed teachers would be a deterrent for that reason.  They know, at some level, that they are not likely to survive the day anyway.  But I would worry that the number of deaths might actually increase as it turns into a shoot-out, with people caught in the crossfire and by rounds that miss their targets.

Haim Ronen posted:

I" am going to ask you to try and find the text where according to you I had advocated the principle of "people kill and not guns" because I never said such a thing. On the contrary, I clearly stated that I was against ownership of assault weapons by private persons."

I apologise unreservedly for insinuating that you had voiced support for the NRA or voiced the opinion that "guns don't kill - people do". I have checked the previous thread related to this issue, and in that thread you did indeed voice your very strong criticism of the NRA, and made it absolutely clear that you were totally against the free availability of assault guns and similar weapons. 

However, I do not believe as you obviously do, that my comments (aside from my incorrect assumption that your comment about HH's post indicated that you were pro NRA and anti gun control), suggest that I have a "Wasted British Arrogance" for my views on the NRA and gun control in the States.  I have both friends and relatives who live in the US, and I have visited the US on vacation on many occasions.  I completely stand by everything I said in my post on this thread with the exception of my assertion that you had previously voiced support for the NRA which was obviously just plain wrong, and which I should clearly have checked before posting.

I still believe that your response (below) about HH's post about the wisdom of arming teachers was misinterpreted and completely inappropriate: 

"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".

In fact your post was uncannily similar to a contribution on another recent thread entitled "I am glad....." which read

 "What a sad place this has become.  "I am glad..." ?

I have never seen such a large and growing selfish, self-centred group of people on this earth as I have witnessed lately.  So long as you are OK you couldn't give two hoots about your neighbor?

Many people have died today and many more injured.  Yet, the political opportunists pop up like nasty weeds with their wisdom".

The poster of the above comment (and which I had inexcusably incorrectly associated with you) did go on to express a number of controversial views such as "people kill and not guns", that "there is no correlation between the proliferation of guns and serious crime", and the laughable assertion that "the most dangerous place to live in the developed Western World is Scotland".  

You and a number of others appear to have a view that criticism of the NRA and gun control legislation in the US by those who do not live in the US constitutes arrogance, and is a criticism of the US and its people as a whole. Patently, for the most part it is not. And if you were to read and follow a number of other threads in the Padded Cell forum, you would quickly pick up on the fact that those of us on the other side of the ocean are (surprisingly) not of the opinion that everything in our down domain is perfect, and that in a number of respects we are every bit as divided as a nation in other matters as the US appears to be in respect of the issues of both gun control and a rather unsavoury prominent politician.

Once again, I apologise unreservedly for my assertion that you support the NRA and the availability for sale of assault weapons.

However, I don't apologise for my "arrogant British views" of the NRA, gun control legislation in the US or the unmentionable prominent politician in the US.     

HMACK,

Thanks for checking my previous post and of course apology is accepted.

Haim