Shooting at high school in Parkland, Fla.

[Mayhem]

I'm glad the proposal about arming teachers in schools is voluntary, because it won't force anyone who doesn't want to do it, from having to do it. However I can still see some further problems along the line...

1) Shooters going to schools will thus target teachers first, to both eliminate the counter threat, and to obtain more weapons/ammo.

2) While the teachers should know most of the other teachers in the school, the cops are not, and thus if they see someone with a gun, they may well shoot first, ask questions later (and there are enough news reports of that!).

3) Assume you are the actual shooter, and the police point a gun at you, what's to stop you from claiming you are a teacher and looking for the shooter, allow the police to claim your weapon and then escorted out the school? And then... well, to freedom... until the police realise down the line that was the shooter and then begins the person hunt (I use person as a non gender reference here, but it's almost always "man").

4) Given the way police has been in the last few years, are you really going to want to be a black teacher holding a firearm?!

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I'm wondering how that last part is supposed to work. If you're 20 years old and perfectly legal to own guns, you walk into Dick's... they tell you "No, sir, I can't sell you any guns"? How is that not discrimination? How is it much different from saying, "We refuse to sell guns to African Americans" or "We refuse to sell guns to men with mullets"?

Not much different from two 18 old kids from Alabama going to Mississippi and not being allowed to get married (the minimum age there is 21!).

Or really, being allowed to swear in public, but then getting it censored if you post the same content on a privately owned forum or chat board... their house, their rules.

[plastroncafe]

All of those are good reasons for why we should be attempting a multi-faceted approach to this problem.
Yes, responsible gun owners actually being responsible for both their weapons and their Community is one facet, but we still have to address the latent entitlement held by the people perpetrating the violence in the first place.

But unfortunately something like that takes a lot more work and effort on everyone's part, and so that's probably the main reason why the sort of violence will continue.

[joe-eyeball]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

I'm glad the proposal about arming teachers in schools is voluntary, because it won't force anyone who doesn't want to do it, from having to do it. However I can still see some further problems along the line...

1) Shooters going to schools will thus target teachers first, to both eliminate the counter threat, and to obtain more weapons/ammo.

I’m going to say this is probably an unlikely scenario because by doing this could severely limit the perpetrators desire to do maximum damage in that wasting time searching for armed teachers could limit how many people they target. Plus do criminals go to local police stations to kill the cops that could prevent them from committing their crimes?

Originally Posted by Mayhem

2) While the teachers should know most of the other teachers in the school, the cops are not, and thus if they see someone with a gun, they may well shoot first, ask questions later (and there are enough news reports of that!).

Again this one may be unlikely as many of these programs of arming teachers requires extensive training and working with the police so it’s also unlikely that this scenario would occur. I’ll admit collateral damage is always a possibility but statistics don’t support that it’s a high likelihood. There are districts in Ohio that are arming teachers and the teacher that volunteer are vetted and go through extensive background checks as well as monthly training with current and former police personnel.

Originally Posted by Mayhem

3) Assume you are the actual shooter, and the police point a gun at you, what's to stop you from claiming you are a teacher and looking for the shooter, allow the police to claim your weapon and then escorted out the school? And then... well, to freedom... until the police realise down the line that was the shooter and then begins the person hunt (I use person as a non gender reference here, but it's almost always "man").

Again probably not likely as the school would be on lockdown and their would be plenty of witnesses to point the finger in the right direction. Also, the overwhelming majority of these spree killers go out in a blaze of glory and aren’t likely to think that quickly on their feet to get out of there in that manner. Anyway this scenario you describe would stop the shooter from killing any further at that point in time. In nearly all of these “mass shootings” the killer is either shot by others or kills themselves when met with equal force!

Originally Posted by Mayhem

4) Given the way police has been in the last few years, are you really going to want to be a black teacher holding a firearm?!

You may have a point here!!!

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Mayhem

Not much different from two 18 old kids from Alabama going to Mississippi and not being allowed to get married (the minimum age there is 21!).

That is batshit insane.

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Maybe so. And you don't deserve that, by the way... you're generally a pretty straight-up guy in all of the exchanges we've had.

Thanks. I try to keep things cool and straightforward these days. I've been in the big online arguments before. They just waste everyones time and emotional energy. Make people pissy at each other too. After a while, I wondered what the point was. I get caught up in one from time to time, but eh, I'm human. Even then I usually start thinking it's a waste of time after a couple posts and wonder what I'm doing blowing so much time on it.

You've been pretty straight up yourself in the past too, even when we disagreed, which is why the tone of the last post surprised me. I wondered for a minute of there was beef there, when it had been acquired and what I'd said.

Well, it was "off-topic" to me. I posed what is a solution -- any solution -- to an in progress shooting, and you're sitting there rattling off ways one particular one won't work. Which I've seen everywhere... ad nauseum.

It was more an attempt to explain myself, because I realized I just kind of came in here after not posting in it for a bit, dropped an article with what might have been construed as snark and didn't even bother to actually give my thoughts on the whole thing, which I thought might have been part of what annoyed you, like I was just being dismissive of the whole thing out of hand.

No, but I would hope it would mean we should immediately divert all energies to constructive talks about actually viable options rather than diverting 100% of all energies to talking about why certain ones won't work and just beating that drum over and over again in any outlet. Which is what is happening.

That's fair, but it's difficult to really come up with viable solutions. I think keeping at least a cop on hand isn't necessarily a bad one. Or assigning a car to a route that keeps it within three or so minutes of a school for immediate response. Maybe both. That and the panic room idea. Everything else is long term stuff to reduce mass shootings over time or things that would create all new problems. School shootings are one of those things that doesn't have an easy solution.

Maybe another thing regards tips? Sometimes these guys seem to be on the radar, but they haven't really done anything yet, so it seems police can't really go after them. The police really seem to have a blind spot to the internet and internet threats - see the responses to death threats online and how they don't take any of it seriously unless something happens - and it's long overdue to be solved. They, and lawmakers, have been slow to catch up or do anything about the modern day. But then I think, even if they do take them seriously, what could they do? The person hasn't done anything yet and even if they show a present danger, confiscating guns so they can't do something like this would cause an uproar, I think, even if there's clear evidence they were going to shoot someplace up. So what could they do, other than keep a detail on serious risks?

I'm rambling now, I admit. Which show's it's complicated.

I'm a dad. I have a horse in this race.

Yeah, the fact that kids are involved is definitely what makes this one emotionally charged for everyone. Parents especially. Regular folks too. No one likes to see someone's walked into a school and gunned down kids. I think everyone would like solutions, long term and for in the midst of shootings. No one is really coming at the problem with bad faith, except maybe some legislators.

You're not wrong. And while I'm more than willing to concede the point on armed teachers in schools in favor of any better ideas that come along... I really don't see a problem with teachers who are OK with packing, are trained, have a concealed license, being allowed to do so in classrooms. For every hypothetical "w-w-w-well, what if a student takes their gun?" "w-w-w-what if the teacher goes crazy and kills students?" "w-w-w-what if the teacher overreacts and kills students?"... which are crazy scenarios, by the way... there, again, is the 100% certainty that a gunman running roughshod in a school has 100% free reign to shoot whoever they want, however much they want for about 20+ minutes. Without anything new in place, that is.

I'd agree that, in some cases, it might be crazy (though I do think fear with some teachers are legitimate, because there are some bad ones, but it's the least likely to happen regularly). I think the issues end up just being sheer negligence. There have been several teachers in the few states that allow teachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom who have either shot themselves or had it accidentally discharge; no injured kids, thankfully. One accidentally left theirs in a bathroom, loaded, where grade schoolers found it.

But my chief problems are how it really alters the environment of the school itself in a bad way, which is why I'd support police being around more - and made to know that yeah, you gotta go in, you knew exactly what you were signing on for - as a better solution. Even that's far from perfect, but admittedly that's sort of my hang-ups with the way police are these days talking. I feel this is why they're trained, this is why they exist, it's their jobs and they should do it better or be put in better positions to respond.

Every school is different architecturally. Just off the top of my head... some kind of thin space between walls behind reinforced whatever? To where everyone in the classroom can cram in there like sardines, completely uncomfortably (and probably unsurvivably for anything longer than 20-30 minutes... but that's really all the time they need to buy) but still completely safe?

I'd think that's the best bet. It would probably require some serious renovating, given classroom sizes and the like. But that's more for architects to figure out.

On a more careful look at this I tend to think these stores are only looking at their bottom line. They have to run IDs when someone buys. They know who is buying what. Are 18-20 year-olds REALLY buying that many guns at Dick's, across the board, vs. other age groups? No? So it won't hurt our bottom line much? AND we get to ride the current political/media current? Awesome. Let's do it.

I've seen at least 3 posts on FB today about people saying, "I wasn't shopping at Dick's before, but now I will! Way to go, Dick's!" or some variation of this. Maybe this is actually pretty savvy. And guess what? The little guy gun stores who have been muscled out by the bigger fish like this for a while now? Compare it to the mom and pop convenience stores selling household sundries before Wal-Mart comes in. Win-win. Win for Dick's, win for actual gun stores.

You might be right on that. I think it's probably a combination of factors. Maybe they really do feel bad about what happened - human beings and all, no one likes seeing kids get killed - but they also realize it's a good PR opportunity. They get to salve their conscience and drum up some good will like you said.

Not much different from two 18 old kids from Alabama going to Mississippi and not being allowed to get married (the minimum age there is 21!).

Wait, seriously? Why?

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Because- drunken spurious weddings, maybe? It happens more often than some people might think.

[plastroncafe]

Submitted to the conversation, because I found it interesting:

Radiolab Presents: More Perfect - The Gun Show

The shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018, reignited an increasingly familiar debate about guns in this country. Today, we’re re-releasing a More Perfect episode that aired just after the Las Vegas shooting last year that attempts to make sense of our country’s fraught relationship with the Second Amendment.

For nearly 200 years of our nation’s history, the Second Amendment was an all-but-forgotten rule about the importance of militias. But in the 1960s and 70s, a movement emerged — led by Black Panthers and a recently-repositioned NRA — that insisted owning a firearm was the right of each and every American. So began a constitutional debate that only the Supreme Court could solve. That didn’t happen until 2008, when a Washington, D.C. security guard named Dick Heller made a compelling case.

[dl316bh]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Because- drunken spurious weddings, maybe? It happens more often than some people might think.

I didn't really think of that, but wouldn't that be more of a problem for places known to be able to marry you inside of an hour, like Vegas? Is that a legitimate issue in those states?

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Not neccessarily. People in just about any state can get drunk or whatever and suddenly decide to elope- kids who are besotted with their latest bf/gf are more susceptible to the "lets run off and get married" syndrome. They just don't realize how huge of a decision it really is until much later.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Because- drunken spurious weddings, maybe? It happens more often than some people might think.

First of all, how can they legally be worried about drunken weddings between adults ages 18-20 if they legally can't buy alcohol during those years (yes, I realize they can still probably get it)? Second, why wouldn't the state love that? It costs about $200 to get a marriage license... around $400 minimum to get divorced. That's a lot of free money paid into the courts that would go into the state's coffers.

[Refractive Reflections]

[plastroncafe]

Well that's a shame. They zoomed in too close on that image. There should be some other folks in the frame. Wasted opportunity. Alas.

[Mayhem]

Originally Posted by joe-eyeball

I’m going to say this is probably an unlikely scenario because by doing this could severely limit the perpetrators desire to do maximum damage in that wasting time searching for armed teachers could limit how many people they target.

Enter classroom, definitely shoot teacher first, then go about the rest of the pupils. Although that only sorts one possible counter threat admittedly. Which leads onto...

Originally Posted by joe-eyeball

Again probably not likely as the school would be on lockdown and their would be plenty of witnesses to point the finger in the right direction. Also, the overwhelming majority of these spree killers go out in a blaze of glory and aren’t likely to think that quickly on their feet to get out of there in that manner. Anyway this scenario you describe would stop the shooter from killing any further at that point in time. In nearly all of these “mass shootings” the killer is either shot by others or kills themselves when met with equal force!

Depends how long it takes to go into lockdown. And the thing with the Florida shooting, and one reason why I mentioned this, is that the pupils were evacuated and the shooter actually hid amongst them. He was arrested over two miles away after already visited Walmart and a McD. Imagine if you plan ahead with a complete change of clothes and a disguise. But you do have a point, this was an exception rather than the usual.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

First of all, how can they legally be worried about drunken weddings between adults ages 18-20 if they legally can't buy alcohol during those years (yes, I realize they can still probably get it)? Second, why wouldn't the state love that? It costs about $200 to get a marriage license... around $400 minimum to get divorced. That's a lot of free money paid into the courts that would go into the state's coffers.

200$??!! Where??!! Last I checked, it was 35$ in my state, might be a bit higher now, but nowhere NEAR that much. As far as "drunken weddings", teens and young adults (basically anyone under 25) are the most likely to have "quickie" weddings since they are still inexperienced and impulsive. One doesn't have to be DRUNK for that, just impulsive and short-sighted. BTW, since when has not being legal to drink ever stopped anyone? States like Louisiana have legal DRINKING at 18- and 21 to BUY. Or legal for minors under supervision of a legal guardian in their own home. (Texas has this.) So that muddies the waters already. And you don't have to spend 400$ for a divorce, either. There are do-it-yourself divorce kits for about 50$. Not kidding, we had a friend who did that.

[PApagreg]

Originally Posted by Refractive Reflections

https://comicallyincorrect.com/wp-co...on-nrd-600.jpg

When you don't have any good arguments so you just use a political cartoon to come off as intelligent. Noice

[Redeemer]

Originally Posted by PApagreg

When you don't have any good arguments so you just use a political cartoon to come off as intelligent. Noice

I thought it was actually pretty funny
and the cartoon has a point. There were laws in place and multiple warnings given. There was even a armed deputy there.

There are a large amount of the populous who want to enact stricter gun laws, but whats the point if we can't enforce the gun laws we have now? We had a law that should have prohibited this individual from buying guns, but was not enforced.

There is another large populous that wants to arm teachers, but if a trained professional can't adequately respond then how likely is a teacher able to respond?(May the two teachers who died shielding students rip )

I think we need to look at how to better enforce our current gun laws and then pass common sense gun laws such as a universal background check.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

200$??!! Where??!! Last I checked, it was 35$ in my state, might be a bit higher now, but nowhere NEAR that much.

I've been married a couple of times now, I kind of know my ****. Between the license fee and the copies and even a court marriage where you grab a commissioner it's $200.

There are do-it-yourself divorce kits for about 50$. Not kidding, we had a friend who did that.

Not in WA. To even file your divorce papers here is $350. Without any lawyer or anything.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

Sheesh. Makes me glad I don't live there. The county where we were married was 35$ flat fee. And a JOP did our ceremony- for free. (Friend of the family.) Granted, this was 18 years ago, but it is now up to around 60$, AFAIK. Still nowhere near what you paid. Might be a per-state basis. As I said, we had a friend who did a d-i-y divorce kit for 50$ from Hastings (before all of the ones here closed down.) All paperwork included, just needs notary. And signed by both, of course. There are online ones, too, so I've heard, and they cost about the same. He has been married three times now, and never paid that much for any of them.

[PApagreg]

Originally Posted by Redeemer

I thought it was actually pretty funny
and the cartoon has a point. There were laws in place and multiple warnings given. There was even a armed deputy there.

There are a large amount of the populous who want to enact stricter gun laws, but whats the point if we can't enforce the gun laws we have now? We had a law that should have prohibited this individual from buying guns, but was not enforced.

There is another large populous that wants to arm teachers, but if a trained professional can't adequately respond then how likely is a teacher able to respond?(May the two teachers who died shielding students rip )

I think we need to look at how to better enforce our current gun laws and then pass common sense gun laws such as a universal background check.

Hence why we need to enforce stricter gun laws so we can better enforce the gun laws we have now. Also again like everyone said the attacker will probably attack the teacher first and not who is to say the teacher won't adequately respond.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by PApagreg

Hence why we need to enforce stricter gun laws so we can better enforce the gun laws we have now. Also again like everyone said the attacker will probably attack the teacher first and not who is to say the teacher won't adequately respond.

Throwing more legislation to better enforce existing legislature is a horrible idea.