[stinkeypete]

Raimus, as I explained- until you have months of experience in a school, you simply can not understand the environment because each school has a different environment and each is extraordinarily complex.

Here are several simple reasons I object to anyone other than well trained and seasoned professional police, hired by the district, being armed in a school:

* Legal requirements. Teachers have state, local, and federal obligation which (at least in Wisconsin and my district) would put the job of teaching and the job of providing a safe and effective armed response in direct conflict. The teacher takes the heat no matter what they do.

* Liability. What happens when a teacher shoots a child holding a gun? What happens when a teacher shoots a child holding a toy gun? What happens when a teacher shoots a child holding a stapler? What happens when a teacher shoots a child holding a gun but also shoots a child in the crowded hall behind?

- Teachers have close personal relationships with many of the students in the building. What sort of trauma will the teacher endure from shooting an armed child? From shooting an armed child? From finding themselves unable to pull the trigger and shoot a child? From being put in the position to protect but being unable to do so? What sort of guaranteed insurance and support do teachers have? You can bet it won’t be close to what the police union has negotiated for their members. Anyone here shot a child and want to talk about that?

*Practicality. I can find a number of negligent discharges by teachers inside schools. The teacher that drops her gun in the bathroom, blows the toilet to bits, injures self with shrapnel, swat team called, school day wasted.

You have to be there. Kids get in to everything. They are curious, devious, have not learned social norms, have poor judgement, are ignorant of consequences. In my previous post I mentioned the complex mission of the schools: these are some of the reasons kids are in school- to learn to behave. We are not born knowing how to behave. In my school, if you did not want something borrowed or stolen, you leave it at home. Kids are like misconceptions, they will get in to everything. A kid will get their hands on a teacher’s gun. I guarantee it. It will happen. Then what happens to the teacher?

You have to go to a class. You do not like the teacher and don’t trust them. The teacher is armed and you are not. A bunch of the CC people are going to wonder why one person gets a gun and the other doesn’t. A bunch of kids will wonder the same thing. It erodes trust in teachers, the school system, and society.

A community based police officer assigned to the school does not rush from classroom to classroom every 50 minutes with armloads of papers, school supplies, their laptop. They don’t spend every spare minute grading papers or calling parents or preparing the next lesson, filling out IEP papers, recording grades, reporting grades, writing tests, grading tests, talking to students about academics, home life, sports, mental illness... they have other duties.

For me, I love you guys. This is different than the silly discussion “what handgun do I carry to protect myself from bears”. In the bear discussion, there have been 14 fatalities from bears in the lower 48 since 1900 so getting it wrong doesn’t matter. The person most likely to be injured is the person carrying the “bear gun”. Having a gun doesn’t draw bears to oneself. The bear is not surrounded by a school full of children.

Like the “bear gun” debate, most of the participants have never seen a bear or even been within a hundred miles of a bear. Those who live in bear country know that the solution to the problem is not having a handgun; the gun is the last resort in many preparations to not getting eaten by a bear. The solution is to have partners on lookout.

I feel that this whole “everyone needs to carry a gun is the solution” is a marketing ploy made up by people who make money out of the deal. How many of you think 6 rounds is not enough? How many of you (excluding police and military) have ever shot someone that didn’t already have holes in them with the 7th shot? We can have fun playing cowboy or army guy or gangster or secret agent or cop or Camp Perry marksman and it’s fun.

I don’t think it’s fun playing “What I would do in a school shooting.”
It’s not fun, it’s dead kids.

Idiots preparing all wrong for it would be funny except it’s still about hurting kids. Not funny.

So yeah, if you guys want to shoot at steel plates from sitting on a stupid wooden horse, I’ll climb up with you. Fun. If you want to shoot at steel plates shaped like silly animals, I’ll join you. You know me, meet me at target pistol league this winter, or out hunting pheasants, or squirrels or deer or rabbits. I’m in. I even have a good pup. If someone shows me the idpa thing, I reckon it might be fun. If you feel better caring a gun in you pants all the time, just don’t shoot yourself in the burrito, don’t let anyone steal your gun, have a nice day and count me out. That just doesn’t sound like fun to me.

If you bring guns in to schools, fun time is over.