So should gun-owning school teachers carry their personal guns in the classroom?

Xelebes

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Oh, I don't know. There've been school shootings--meaning people being shot at a school--all across time. Do you mean "rampage"-type killings? I'd agree that the frequency of such has increased in recent decades, but I don't know how that works out, with regard to population and demographics.

Here's a blast from the past, circa 1978: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...7osAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6850,3664960

The student in this case--13 years old at the time--went into class and shot his 29 year old teacher multiple time with a .22 rifle. He never went to trial, was committed, and supposedly is now a practicing attorney

There was also a case in Winnipeg in the 1978.
 

ladyleeona

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Yet again, New York City. Less than four months ago. Lone gunman. Two dead. Nine injured. All nine shot by trained professionals.

Yeah, that's comforting. My college campus police force is woefully inept. I can't imagine a scenario where they had to discharge ANY weapon ending well. I imagine the only safe person would be the target.
 

backslashbaby

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Yeah, that's comforting. My college campus police force is woefully inept. I can't imagine a scenario where they had to discharge ANY weapon ending well. I imagine the only safe person would be the target.

Yeah, no 'security guards' for me. I want trained, experienced professionals.

Here's the story of the Empire State Building shooting that I found. Disgruntled worker murders man, is still armed and dangerous in one of the busiest, most visited spots in the world:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/24/justice/new-york-empire-state/index.html

8-9 were injured. The gunman was shot dead. And his victim is one of the 2 dead.
 

shakeysix

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My students are into the weapon sites. Some of the boys have swords. When I was teaching Beowulf one had an exact replica of the sword that killed Grendel's Dam. Or at least that was the way it was advertised. The principal refused him permission to bring it to school so I never got to check it out. Most of the girl students carry mace on their keychains. Not the sissy stuff but the kind that can travel ten feet. I;m not sure it is allowed under our school weapons policy but at least it keeps their shotguns and cross bows at home. One of my sophomore girls is getting a compound bow for Christmas. Another just ordered a flashlight from China that can set things on fire if the beam is trained on an object for more than X seconds. It cost 200$! If it isn't a scam it is one hell of a flashlight. If kids can buy this stuff, what are the madmen buying? --s6
 
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Magdalen

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Oh, I don't know. There've been school shootings--meaning people being shot at a school--all across time. Do you mean "rampage"-type killings? I'd agree that the frequency of such has increased in recent decades, but I don't know how that works out, with regard to population and demographics.

Here's a blast from the past, circa 1978: http://news.google.com/newspapers?n...7osAAAAIBAJ&sjid=PBMEAAAAIBAJ&pg=6850,3664960

The student in this case--13 years old at the time--went into class and shot his 29 year old teacher multiple time with a .22 rifle. He never went to trial, was committed, and supposedly is now a practicing attorney

There was also a case in Winnipeg in the 1978.

Before-he-was-Sir Bob Geldof made sure I would never forget how much I didn't like school (niether a herd nor shepherd be) especially on Mondays _

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don't_Like_Mondays

29 January 1979
 

ladyleeona

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By current law enforcement standards, the cops on my campus are trained professionals. And they have more jurisdiction than city cops. It's a lovely, sleep-inducing thought.

Problem with trained, experienced professionals is that they cost a lot. There's no way schools could afford that, especially when, and I know I'll probably get yelled at for this, there honestly won't be much for them to ever do (thankfully). Shooting rampages might be on the rise, but they're still rare. It's not feasible, unfortunately.

I personally like the teachers-with-tasers idea, whether it was offered tongue-in-cheek or not.
 
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Monkey

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I think having cops on campus, or, if that's too expensive, having a cop assigned to the immediate area and specifically assigned to look after the school (complete with a system in place to alert them immediately if something goes wrong) is a great idea.

I think letting teachers carry guns is a terrible idea.

Here's why:

* Homes with guns in them are far more likely to have a family member die to gun violence than homes without. Suicide is a biggie, but there are also quite a lot of accidental shootings. If that's true in the home, why not in school?

* In a home with young children, we consider it unsafe - in some cases, even reckless endangerment - to have a loaded gun sitting in a purse or unlocked desk, where a child might get a hold of it, instead of in, say, a locked safe. Allowing teachers "concealed carry" in the classroom would mean just that - loaded guns in the teacher's purse, or desk, or coat. If they weren't accessible, they wouldn't be being "carried," and they wouldn't be immediately at hand should a shooting occur.

* Teachers in high schools often face large, belligerent teenagers. Sometimes, especially if the teacher is elderly or has health problems, the teenager (who may well be a football star) is actually much more physically competent than their teacher. In such a case, what would stop a very large, angry student from taking a teacher's gun?

Those are the biggies, for me. Another is the idea of having multiple armed teachers of varying skill levels attempting to enter into a shoot-out with an attacker... more bullets flying and a variable number of shooters doesn't actually inspire a lot of confidence in me. In the Sandy Hook shooting, teachers who were able to simply LOCK THEIR DOORS were able to protect their students. To me, it would make more sense to have doors locked during classes, to have officers either on duty or nearby, and to have an immediate way of contacting said officers, than to arm the teachers. An added bonus would be limiting clip sizes.
 

Jamiekswriter

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None because the guy wasn't a spree shooter. He killed the man he intended to kill and was walking away. It was only when police went to apprehend him that he started shooting at them.

If backslashbaby has the right incident, the article says:

"Police say Johnson used a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun -- which held eight rounds -- and was carrying extra ammunition in his briefcase."

If he was only going to kill one person, why the extra ammunition?

On a related note, I saw this incident on Facebook and looked it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

"The incident began on the morning of October 1, 1997 when Luke Woodham fatally stabbed and bludgeoned his mother, Mary Woodham . . . Woodham drove his mother's car to Pearl High School. Wearing a trench coat, to hide his rifle when he entered the school, Woodham fatally shot Lydia Kaye Dew and Christina Menefee, his former girlfriend. . . Woodham went on to wound seven others before attempting to leave in his mother's car. He was subdued by assistant principal Joel Myrick, who pulled a .45-cal. pistol from his truck and ordered the gunman to the ground."
 
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kuwisdelu

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My students are into the weapon sites. Some of the boys have swords. When I was teaching Beowulf one had an exact replica of the sword that killed Grendel's Dam. Or at least that was the way it was advertised.

Please tell your students that those are not real swords, even if they're real steel, and they can break and seriously hurt people if they try to swing them around. The blade will go flying out the handle.

They can be nice decorations, though. :)
 

Atlantis

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It breaks my heart to read threads like this and to hear people seriously asking the question of teachers should be able to carry guns in their classrooms to protect their children. The idea of schools becoming like prisons with guards and fences and locked doors is so sad to me. It makes the schools seem threatening.

I used to work in child care and we had a locked door with a code and door out the front and let me tell you there were loads of times when kids would still get past them all and wander into the parking lot. Most of the time they would follow another parent and child out without them knowing.

I doubt having armed guards or teachers with guns or locked doors with pins and fences will stop these sort of things from happening again. Arming teachers is NOT the answer. America needs less guns. Not more. I read an article yesterday that claimed that there are more gun stores in American than supermarkets. Supermarkets!

One thing that has been making me cross about this whole thing is all the censorship that has been going around. Kesha's song Die Young has been pulled from the charts because of it's title, movie premiers have been post poned, and Seth McFarlane's shows have been pulled.

I don't understand how American can be so pro-gun but so anti-violence in books, films, songs and tv. It makes no sense to me. How can they be all about freedom but be so quick to censor stuff in the wake of events like these?

Guns have no place in a classroom. I could go on and on about all the things that could go wrong. A teacher snaps and brandishes a weapon at their students in a rage. A student wrestles their gun out of their hands and starts shooting up the place.

There will be more deaths. That's what happens when you bring more guns into the picture. I saw some horrible man on tv saying how he wished the principal had a gun so she could have taken the gunman's head off.

How disgusting. Blaming a dead woman for not having a gun. A woman who died in the most amazing, heroic way.

More violence is not the answer.

Get rid of the bloody guns. Put guards in at the school. Have security cams. Have a fence. Have a locked door. These options may not be perfect but they are better than having killing weapons in a classroom.
 

willietheshakes

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I don't get your math?

Well, if we assume there are about 300 million people in the US, and the highly trained members of the NYPD shot nine of them in the incident, that leaves... carry the 1... about 300 million they didn't shoot during the incident.

Hence, "saved".
 

clintl

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As a teacher, my opinion is - quite aside from this issues of proper training - that schools are just not secure enough to have guns around within the potential access of kids.

We have a police officer assigned to the school, and I think he's there just about all the time. That's probably a much better solution, even though that's not really the reason why he's there.
 

Cyia

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Please tell your students that those are not real swords, even if they're real steel, and they can break and seriously hurt people if they try to swing them around. The blade will go flying out the handle.

They can be nice decorations, though. :)


The weapons master at the Ren Faire where I worked in high school used this video as an illustration when people asked why his handmade swords cost so much more than the "real practice" swords on TV that looked just as good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e77oXjFkIs
 

Jamiekswriter

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Well, if we assume there are about 300 million people in the US, and the highly trained members of the NYPD shot nine of them in the incident, that leaves... carry the 1... about 300 million they didn't shoot during the incident.

Hence, "saved".

Probably would have been "funnier" and made more sense if you used the population of NY. But I guess you were going for hyperbole.

The better answer would have been at least 14. 6 of the bullets left in the clip and at least one extra clip in his briefcase. More if he had more than one extra clip.
 

muravyets

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If backslashbaby has the right incident, the article says:

"Police say Johnson used a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun -- which held eight rounds -- and was carrying extra ammunition in his briefcase."

If he was only going to kill one person, why the extra ammunition?
Maybe he thought he might miss the first time. I mean, it wasn't like the guy he wanted to kill was tied up in a barrel.

Speculation may be amusing, but that incident is in the past and the events are as the events were. He went to kill one person. He killed that person and walked away. When the police accosted him, he started shooting at them, and multiple officers returned fire. The end. He was not a spree killer. It was not a mass murder. Shooting him did not save any other lives.

On a related note, I saw this incident on Facebook and looked it up

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_High_School_shooting

"The incident began on the morning of October 1, 1997 when Luke Woodham fatally stabbed and bludgeoned his mother, Mary Woodham . . . Woodham drove his mother's car to Pearl High School. Wearing a trench coat, to hide his rifle when he entered the school, Woodham fatally shot Lydia Kaye Dew and Christina Menefee, his former girlfriend. . . Woodham went on to wound seven others before attempting to leave in his mother's car. He was subdued by assistant principal Joel Myrick, who pulled a .45-cal. pistol from his truck and ordered the gunman to the ground."
And?
 

kuwisdelu

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The weapons master at the Ren Faire where I worked in high school used this video as an illustration when people asked why his handmade swords cost so much more than the "real practice" swords on TV that looked just as good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e77oXjFkIs

My internet here is way too slow to look for it right now, but the one I like has the guy from Cold Steel trying to demonstrate one of his "katana" with some tameshegiri, and the blade goes flying out of the tsuka and over a nearby fence.

I'd like to be able to afford a shinken one of these days.
 

willietheshakes

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Probably would have been "funnier" and made more sense if you used the population of NY. But I guess you were going for hyperbole.

The better answer would have been at least 14. 6 of the bullets left in the clip and at least one extra clip in his briefcase. More if he had more than one extra clip.

Nah - you asked a ridiculous question, I gave a ridiculous answer.

In this situation, the police saved no one. The victim was killed, the killer was fleeing. It was only when he was stopped that he began firing again. He didn't hit anyone; the police hit nine people, and the killer.
 

Jamiekswriter

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Maybe he thought he might miss the first time. I mean, it wasn't like the guy he wanted to kill was tied up in a barrel.

Speculation may be amusing, but that incident is in the past and the events are as the events were. He went to kill one person. He killed that person and walked away. When the police accosted him, he started shooting at them, and multiple officers returned fire. The end. He was not a spree killer. It was not a mass murder. Shooting him did not save any other lives.


And?

As you said the incident is in the past. But why was he shooting at the police if he didn't mean to kill them? He could have given up. He could have ran. He chose to turn and shoot.

As for the and -- the OP's question was should gun-owning school teachers carry their personal guns in the classroom. The article I quoted showed an instance where an administrator used his gun without causing more deaths and was able to help apprehend the shooter who had killed his mother and two students. I thought it was an interesting point that the presence of the gun made the shooter stand down and give up.
 

raburrell

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Slate did an article on that today.

Conclusions:
The subject of whether more guns and concealed-carry permits could help fight mass shootings is highly controversial. An investigation by Mother Jones concluded that no more than 1.6 percent of mass shootings were ended by armed civilians. On the other hand, gun advocates argue that it’s hard to know how many more shootings would have become mass murders had civilians not been on the scene to end them early. (Following the FBI’s definition of a mass murder, Mother Jones accounted only for murders of four or more.) Furthermore, gun advocates argue that many mass murderers target “gun-free” zones, like schools, where the victims are defenseless against shooters.

The short version is that it's rare, and off-duty cops seem to have had the most success, though even that is limited. But yes, it's not entirely unheard of.
 

Haggis

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As a teacher, my opinion is - quite aside from this issues of proper training - that schools are just not secure enough to have guns around within the potential access of kids.

We have a police officer assigned to the school, and I think he's there just about all the time. That's probably a much better solution, even though that's not really the reason why he's there.
Sincere question. Why is he there?