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That will be covered in the SNL version of the NRA "press conference". |
Funny:
Jay Rosen |
There are all kinds of support positions throughout the school that could be filled by appropriately trained persons. Throwing a cop in every school when they cost >100k per year each is pretty crazy. But maybe you can augment existing jobs with a bump in pay. For example, when my wife taught in Norfolk they had a retired cop who was an aid. There are probably an endless supply of guys like him that are old enough to retire from a primary career, but might still want to work in the community.
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My wife is a school psychologist.. and I don't want to see her suddenly having to learn how to use a gun for the first time ever... I pay taxes for others to help keep her and the kids in that school safe. This in my mind is kind of like saying we should have the mail man also pick up the garbage while going through a neighborhood. Just because they are there already, does not mean they are the right choice for that task. |
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Many of them also didn't go into the field wanting to work with computers on a daily basis, however ... Quote:
I'm going to guess that you meant "secured" here rather than "concealed". FTR, I'm not particularly advocating an arm-them-all policy, at least not at this point. I do believe it's a more effective route in case like CT than the NRA proposal this morning or most of the ideas that have been floated about. Truth is, nothing will be more effective than superior firepower capable of being brought to bear extremely quickly against that particular type of threat. Whether it's something that should be implemented begs the question that no one seems willing to discuss very much right now: the degree of the threat that actually exists. |
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I think this is what Switzerland does . Of course, they do that as an alternative to having a military at all. |
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But the argument seems to be that the approach in place isn't working, hence the examination of other options. FWIW, I'm not necessarily keen on making a provision of this type mandatory for school employees. I have long favored making it an option for any school personnel who choose to carry & are otherwise legal to do so. |
So, let's say for the sake of argument that we put a cop in every school.
What happens when the cop is the crazy son of a bitch that decides to go on a massacre? What then? Add another cop to watch the cop? Some way or another we need to prevent crazy people from getting guns or help the crazy people so that they're not so crazy. |
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You left out the most obvious -- and effective -- solution: removing the crazies from circulation in the first place. |
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I'm cool with that idea. Move all of the crazies to NJ and build a wall around the place. Works for me. |
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How about we do all three? Any one solution is not very effective. There are multiple answers that need to be used here. |
In regards to having an armed person on school grounds, Columbine had an armed guard, a sheriff's deputy, on campus.
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The problem is that 'crazies' don't come with a label on their forehead, as such its not something you can largely predict or do. (and if you mean just remove anyone with mental health issues from circulation - bear in mind that some 10% of the population will have such issues to a greater or lesser extent at some point in their life) |
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It'd help us get rid of Jon though, right?? ;) |
If we pay for all the school security guards through taxes on firearms and ammunition, then I'd be cool with it.
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A capital idea, old chum! |
Just a thought. I've not read anything about what teachers think can help in situations like this. They are closest to it and it would be interesting to get their POV.
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A number crunch from slate.com (I know they're pretty leftist right?). Possibly about 5.5 billion to have an armed person at each school.
Cop in every school: How much would Wayne LaPierre's proposal cost. |
Also pretty interesting...Columbine had an armed guard during the massacre there.
Columbine-armed guard: Colorado shooting shows that NRA's Shield program likely won't work. |
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Columbine wouldn't have been prevented by another armed guard.....or by more gun control regulations.....or by better access to mental health care. The bigger picture is starting to emerge here. |
Why don't we just copy the countries that don't have as many shootings? They do things better in this area.
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I'm a teacher. I've never been for banning guns ever. I have guns locked up in my home. I also have a 5 and 6 year old. The Connecticut thing scared the hell out of me. I don't know that I have a POV...... I'm friends with our school resource officer. He told me flat out the Monday after, more than likely he couldn't have done much. I really don't have an answer. I think it's hard to argue banning assault rifles and larger clips at this point, if you're realistic. Arming teachers? I can think of a few teachers in my school I wouldn't want armed. Not sure I'd want to be armed, it would be another thing I'd have to worry about (as in where's my gun and is it secure). |
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So that would leave out Scotland, Yemen, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Finland, Norway and France. |
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Yeah, arming teachers basically means we no longer have to worry about where the nutjobs are going to get their guns. They're already in school! |
Good speech. One last chance after Christmas.
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Even the NRA isn't saying we should "arm every teacher." It's a non-issue.
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I would take the countries with the least amount of gun violence, see what they are doing differently, and copy it the best we can. I don't know what countries fall into that category off the top of my head. I do know we aren't anywhere near the top. |
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Just looking at the list, I'd say we can eliminate western europe as a model for eliminating school shootings. The Chinese have had problems of their own lately so that leaves, maybe central america or africa. I omitted an incident in Argentina & one in (IIRC) Baku but those seem to be the regions that have had the fewest. |
We'd have to pass some crazy legislation and have the government seriously impose its will on American culture to become Denmark or whatever. Edit: Though, is that the goal now? You used to get struck down as being paranoid if you suggested that that might be the goal. I don't think any people or culture is 100% a product of their government, though it's always exciting when governments try to have that kind influence.
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Well I'm talking about reducing, not eliminating. You can't eliminate something like this completely. We've had twice as many school shootings over the last decade and a half than all other industrialized countries combined. Obviously this is a bigger problem here and we should be looking at the countries that don't have these problems on a regular basis for leadership. |
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Murdering people isn't culture. The goal is to reduce the number of murders, not destroy cultures. |
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Then reduce the number of lunatics on the street, as well as the number of known criminals roaming free (you said "murders" not "school shootings", so I'll take that expanded opportunity). |
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We have drastically reduced the number of murders in the U.S. over the last 20 years. There's lots of different societal and cultural theories for why that is, but I doubt you can point to a government law that's done it all. And you WOULD have to somehow destroy the gun culture here to make us more like Denmark or Finland or whatever the goal is. People sometimes talk as if its only gun regulations that prevent people in Western Europe from going crazy and killing each other. I don't think that's the case. I don't think it's always about laws. The gun culture is very strong in the U.S., its a very popular hobby and way of life in a way that I think people who aren't a part of that have a very difficult time understanding. If assault weapons are banned (as they have been in the past), people evolve, modify the weapons (or hide them). We're not Denmark yet in that scenario. We'd have to do a lot more to snuff out that gun culture. |
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That's fine. I'm not advocating a particular policy, I'm just saying that we should be striving to reduce the number of school shootings, murders, everything of that sort. Murder isn't culture and we shouldn't be shrugging our shoulders and saying we can't stop it because it is our culture. I've heard a couple unique idea bantered around lately. Perhaps the most interesting was a way to determine when a gun entered a particular area. Would require gun manufacturers to implement this technology into newer guns, and you'd still have the issue of older ones not having it (although you could require gun owners go in and have it done). But it embed RFID into the metal and a school for instance would be able to send out a signal that would detect when one enters a certain radius. Wouldn't stop everything, but if a gunman entered the grounds, it would signal an alarm to dispatch local police and could enable lockdown procedures before they can make it inside. |
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What exactly is gun culture? I know of hunting culture, but is there some great culture behind owning 5 high powered weapons? Is there not some way that responsible people who need a gun for hunting or home security can own it while at the same time reducing the amount of gun violence? |
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Their proposal was for volunteers to be doing it. Not paid professionals. |
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Apparently not, since most of the efforts I'm seeing mentioned will largely serve to restrict the rights of law abiding gun owners. |
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The liability seems to make armed volunteers a non-starter. |
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The problem is that the right has suggested many ways to deal with this, but the left is all for rehabilitation, cleaning the prisons out, emptying the mental health hospitals, mainstreaming everyone, etc. If the right agrees to discuss gun control, can we get the left to discuss our criminal justice system, and especially the mental health aspects of it? |
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I don't think it is the Left that is cutting mental health programs. And while I don't agree with rehabilitation in many cases, other countries do focus on it and their crime rate is significantly lower than ours. |
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This. What insurance company is going to be okay with armed volunteers wandering around schools? |
Putting an armed guard at schools will solve nothing. What is to stop the murderer from killing a bunch of kids at recess? Or parking across the street and picking them off when the bell rings? Or waiting at the first bus stop and storming the bus?
The bigger issue is identifying these individuals ahead of time and not giving people access to assault weapons that the average citizen has no need for. |
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I don't think it's the left that cuts mental health care, but it is SOME on the left that oppose compelling mental treatment, involuntary medicating, or institutionalization when necessary, on people against their will. Lanza's family had all the money in the world, it wasn't a resources issue. |
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I'm a leftist who is actually pretty sympathetic to gun rights. And I would LOVE a discussion of mental health and the criminal justice system (1) Expand public mental health resources. Stop using the criminal justice system as a dumping ground of last resort for the violent mentally ill. Do not empty the mental health hospitals. Fill them. Then build more and fill those. Do a better job of screening at schools for mental illness. (2) Reduce sentences for non-violent offenders. Use the freed prison beds to house violent offenders. Two ideas that I would imagine are pretty non-controversial that would at least start trying to solve some of these problems. |
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I touched on this earlier in more detail, but right now, the only way to fill the mental health hospitals is through the criminal justice system. That's the only way people are being forced into treatment and institutionalization, they need that record, that "proof" that they're a danger to others. It would be great if the state health & welfare agencies had more authority to do more and it wasn't left to the criminal justice system. |
I think Boehner is toast. More details in the article about using secret ballot.
House Republicans Circulate Plan to Oust Boehner from Speakership Quote:
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A little bit for both camps. I think the retired state trooper is a viable option (but probably not enough for all public schools). Bullet proof glass, one point of entry etc.
The reality is a determined person is still going to get into a school and do some damage, but these may provide enough time for teachers/administrators to protect more kids. Anyone know how the Israeli's do it. I bet they've got a state of the art system. Armed guards, locked entryways, cameras: Schools seek security after Sandy Hook - U.S. News Quote:
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Has the national attention focused on a stronger judicial system against violent crime that ensures criminals either stay locked away for life or maintain a debt to society for the rest of theirs if they are released?
Let's make criminals pay for all these defensive countermeasures. |
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When you indicate Scotland you might want to consider that actually caused further tightening up of gun laws in the UK - since which no further incidents have occurred (that was approximately 16 years ago). Dunblane school massacre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (I don't know anything about the other incidents) |
I had never heard of that massacre, so I wanted to learn more. Quick research found this article Gun crime soars by 35% | Mail Online from 2003.
Gun crime (in the UK) soars by 35% ...Criminals used handguns in 46% more offences, Home Office statistics revealed... ...Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362... ...It was the fourth consecutive year to see a rise and there were more than 2,200 more gun crimes last year than the previous peak in 1993... ...Figures showed the number of crimes involving handguns had more than doubled since the post-Dunblane massacre ban on the weapons, from 2,636 in 1997-1998 to 5,871... |
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