Colorado to arm teachers in classrooms

Put it this way.

Who here can think of any teacher that they met in their youth that they would not trust with a gun, be it due to incompetence, personality issues, mental issues or whatever.

Now i assume that if you are cleared to mould the youth of today into tomorrows adults, then the state cant really argue against you protecting them with a gun.

I can certainly think of a handful of teachers i would not have trusted to possess a weapon even if tehy had all the best intentions in the world.

all i can say is that if we had this law and i was your teacher, the worms eating your corpse would have died of anorexia many years ago
 
^
Point proven

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The USA is a very militaristic society. A LOT of people have professional experience with firearms from time in the military or simply the popularity of firearms in that country. Several people in this thread have mocked the idea of sending people on a three-day course to learn how to shoot. The bill doesn't do that. The bill allows teachers with an existing concealed carry permit to bring their guns to school if the school consents and the concealed carry permit holder does an additional three-day course on using their use and non-use in schools. Concealed Carry permit requirements in Colorado include extensive background checks, drug and alcohol checks, registration with the FBI, assessment of whether you are capable with the weapon through demonstration of extended experience or honourable discharge from armed forces, police force, etc. as well as completion of hand gun training classes.

This should be at least criticised based on what it actually is rather than a cursory BBC story sending people off on thinking that random teachers are going to be doing a three day course and then waving around a pistol.

The biggest downsides to this are (a) that the likeliest threat in a classroom is an older child who has smuggled in a gun and that a teacher might have to face the awful prospect of shooting a child and (b) that fear could lead to the use of a gun where things could have stopped short of a fatality otherwise. (E.g. a child assaulting a teacher and the teacher reacting with lethal force rather than otherwise). And these are real concerns, but they don't necessarily outweigh the possibilities that the gun WOULD help. For example in scenario (a) where a child has brought in a gun and seems intent on shooting others, the horrible outcome of a teacher shooting a child might still be better than the child being able to shoot with impunity. And this has happened. And has happened in Colorado. 50% of the people in Colorado are in favour of this bill with 45% against.

It takes considerable time for armed police to get to a school that isn't in a big city. It takes a few minutes for someone with an automatic weapon to kill multiple children. In the Columbine High School incident, two students with pipe bombs and automatic weapons killed fifteen people. A well-trained teacher with a gun might not have been able to do anything (because typically the weapon will be locked in a drawer), but there's a good chance they would have been able to. I repeat - we're talking about people with considerable firearms training here. If this were the case back then, people who died may very likely be alive today.

So maybe this is a good idea and maybe it's a bad one. But it's not a simple case of "OMG! Three day course and anybody can walk around the school with a gun in their belt how stupid!" and anti-gun proponents shouldn't treat it as such if they want to argue honestly.
 
Who here can think of any teacher that they met in their youth that they would not trust with a gun, be it due to incompetence, personality issues, mental issues or whatever.

Most of the teachers I recall, actually I think yes. I mean you're basically asking "which of you can think of a teacher that they would trust not to wilfully kill a pupil". Unless the circumstances are already very dire, guns wont be drawn anyway so even if you're shifting to try and argue that teachers might kill children accidentally (which is possible), it's in circumstances where there is likely already violence and risk of death. And if you're arguing that teachers will deliberately try to kill children, well they don't need guns for that and they don't need concealed carry permits, either!

Now i assume that if you are cleared to mould the youth of today into tomorrows adults, then the state cant really argue against you protecting them with a gun.

You assume incorrectly. See my post above. Also, given the absence of any apostrophes, I don't think firearms were the problem with your teachers.

I can certainly think of a handful of teachers i would not have trusted to possess a weapon even if tehy had all the best intentions in the world.

And why do you assume that these teachers would (a) be the ones carrying a gun and (b) that the state experts would be worse at weeding out such people than your personal opinions?
 
Entirely different culture around guns over there, frankly I don't agree with this but with guns being so common place over there it's sadly not surprising.
 
It is not logical to arm a teacher after 3 days of training.

It is not logical to search out volunteers to do this job over trained professionals. By doing it this way you are putting guns in the hands of people who fancy themselves to be the next guy to shoot down the nutcase. You dont want these sort of volunteers.

If a school is that dangerous, then there should be armed professionals dedicated to the job. Equipping teachers is just stupid because some kids are just stupid enough to be tempted to try and take it.

Considering even a half decent first aid course takes at least two days that realistically means they'll have about 8 hours of training on how to use a weapon and the tactics on how to deal with an armed assailant.

Nice...

Edit: oh, and h4rm0ny spoils the thread with sense :(
 
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So now if a nutcase goes into a school in Colorado the first thing they will do if they see a teacher is threaten them, or any children with them, they will just shoot the teacher in case they have a gun. Now the nutcase potentially has two guns.
 
So now if a nutcase goes into a school in Colorado the first thing they will do if they see a teacher is threaten them, or any children with them, they will just shoot the teacher in case they have a gun. Now the nutcase potentially has two guns.

You are in a corridor. There are five classroom doors (1 - 5)
>>5
You are in a classroom. There are exits to the East. Schoolteacher is here.
>>Shoot Schoolteacher with gun.
You fire the gun. It makes a loud banging sound. Teacher is now bleeding.
>>Wait.
Teacher from classroom #4 enters and shoots you.

You picked the wrong teacher. Play again?


Or you know, we could just re-run the scenario like you advocate where the nutcase with the gun invades the school and doesn't shoot anyone because they know the teachers are unarmed. Because, you know, if a nutcase enters a school with a gun, it's the presence of other guns that will make them shoot people.

Look, the question isn't whether anything - including this bill - is perfect and without risk. It is which is the least risk. And by and large, teachers care for their pupils. And some teachers - especially in the USA - have the training and experience to help protect those children and are on hand in a way that the police simply cannot be. And it is established fact that there are threats to school children in the USA. And ultimately any teacher that wishes to bring a gun to school has to be both extensively vetted by the state AND have the confidence of their school to be granted that privilege. This isn't a law about making teachers bring weapons to school. It isn't a law saying that they should or allowing them to do so against the desires of the school board or other administrators. I doubt it could even go against the wishes of the majority of parents given how involved American parents are with PTA. It's a proposed law that effectively says to schools: "Hey, if you have a teacher you trust to do this and want to do this, you can. But we have to approve them as well."

I think some people think this is most likely in inner city schools, but actually it's more likely to occur in more remote schools. An inner city school in Colorado might have a police response time of a few minutes. One out in the sticks could be fifteen minutes or more!

I'm not going to dispute with anyone that they have to agree with this. It IS a risk. Obviously. But so is everything and it shouldn't be dismissed as dumb America.
 
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I mean you're basically asking "which of you can think of a teacher that they would trust not to wilfully kill a pupil".

Firstly, that is not what i am saying. The teacher can be the best teacher in the world that would never pull a gun on a student

You assume incorrectly. See my post above. Also, given the absence of any apostrophes, I don't think firearms were the problem with your teachers.

English is my second language and i feel that my teachers did a great job in educating me, i may never be an English teacher but i can at least say i have been a researcher :). If you think its okay to belittle my education because you dont like my opinion on guns, then that is more a reflection of your education than mine.


And why do you assume that these teachers would (a) be the ones carrying a gun and (b) that the state experts would be worse at weeding out such people than your personal opinions?

A) because the only pre-requisites for a teacher to be trained for this role is to 'volunteer' and pass a written mental/physical assessment during the training... of which is only three days in total

B) the experts seem to think three days training is enough to put guns in classrooms. Seems to me that this is one of the only places in the world that find this acceptable. Seems to me that my opinions match those of experts in every other state and country?

Do you think three days of training is acceptable?
 
Edit: oh, and h4rm0ny spoils the thread with sense :(

Whoops. Um... Please - lets continue with American bashing! They are, after all, the only civilization in the history of mankind to go from Barbarism to Decadence, without at any stage passing through Culture. :D
 
Most of the teachers I recall, actually I think yes. I mean you're basically asking "which of you can think of a teacher that they would trust not to wilfully kill a pupil". Unless the circumstances are already very dire, guns wont be drawn anyway so even if you're shifting to try and argue that teachers might kill children accidentally (which is possible), it's in circumstances where there is likely already violence and risk of death. And if you're arguing that teachers will deliberately try to kill children, well they don't need guns for that and they don't need concealed carry permits, either!



You assume incorrectly. See my post above. Also, given the absence of any apostrophes, I don't think firearms were the problem with your teachers.



And why do you assume that these teachers would (a) be the ones carrying a gun and (b) that the state experts would be worse at weeding out such people than your personal opinions?

Experts?

Come one, you could (don't know if you still can) literally go to a weapons convention and buy a rather cheap semi-auto rifle with free bullets...

Whoops. Um... Please - lets continue with American bashing! They are, after all, the only civilization in the history of mankind to go from Barbarism to Decadence, without at any stage passing through Culture. :D

Uh, we're literally talking about a country born out of the European Enlightenment, while perhaps it was still barbaric to our sense of things, it wasn't at all uncultured or indeed without decadence.
 
I'm not sure why people have issues with responsible people being armed and allowing them to potentially be able to prevent a school shooting. You cannot logically argue this is a bad thing

It would be a matter of months until a student got their hands on a teacher's firearm, there is no doubt in my mind of that.

It's also very easy to argue against the idea that more guns everywhere makes a place safer; America has guns everywhere and isn't very safe.
 
It would be a matter of months until a student got their hands on a teacher's firearm, there is no doubt in my mind of that.

Why do you think that? They just need to store them responsibly.

As pointed out already there are plenty of schools in the UK where teachers have access to firearms.
 
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