In the current push for more gun control in America, lots of old “data” is being tossed around. Some of it is good information, and much of it is either altogether fake or taken from poorly-designed studies. I don’t think I have to tell readers here what side of the debate most of the info falls in each category, because it’s pretty obvious. There’s one gem, however, that keeps popping up: hysteria over the supposed dangers of arming teachers.
But there’s one problem with all of this alarm: arming teachers is working so well that the question of how well it would work out hasn’t even been tested.
Normally, a lack of data isn’t anything to go on, but in this case the statistical silence speaks volumes. As TTAG pointed out pointed in 2019, there just haven’t been any shootings at schools with armed teachers and staff, while the rate of shootings in other schools had doubled. Since that study came out, there still haven’t been any shootings at schools with armed staff or teachers.
A 2019 study conducted by gun violence expert John Lott Jr. shows there wasn’t one school where a teacher was armed that had a non-suicidal gun violence incident during school hours.https://t.co/cKsdCg57z8 pic.twitter.com/3FBQd5Y747
— BreakTheMatrix (@BreakthematrixM) June 9, 2022
It’s easy to jump to the conclusion that good people with guns are frightening bad people with guns away, but it’s not that simple. Among the schools where no staff or teachers are armed, many have an armed cop or “school resource officer.” But as we sadly know, schools with cops on duty still experience school shootings, and sometimes the police on campus are too cowardly to take the shooter on and stop the killing.
This leaves us with the question as to why mass killers seem to be avoiding schools with armed teachers while they don’t seem to be terribly perturbed by the presence of uniformed people with guns. Because we don’t know the stories of people who ultimately decided to not go through with it, we can’t know the answer for sure. We can, however, make some educated guesses.
One guess comes from the same man who conducted that 2019 study, John R. Lott, Jr.
A little ways into the video, he points out that an armed guard or school resource officer sticks out like a sore thumb. If an attacker with a rifle shows up, they know that they can shoot the uniformed, open-carrying man or woman first, and then they’ll probably have some time to rack up a high body count before more people with guns show up to stop them. But, if they don’t know who has a gun, they have to give away their position and become the target themselves.
Prospective shooters may also know that cops aren’t as close to the students as the teachers, both in terms of proximity and emotional bonds. While a cop has the option of chickening out like the cop at Parkland, teachers have a lot more skin in the game and probably can’t get away without confronting the shooter.
That means an armed teacher won’t be fighting for the lives of people they don’t know well, but fighting for their own life and those of their students who they know very well. It doesn’t take much brainstorming to figure this second factor out.
It’s probably also wise to consider that correlation doesn’t mean causation. Just because the sick people who would carry out this kind of attack haven’t targeted schools with armed teachers doesn’t mean the presence of armed teachers directly has caused them (so far) not to attack. Considering that there may be other factors opens up many other possibilities, such as the culture in the area where teachers are armed.
It could very well be that the same kinds of populations that would vote for a school board that would allow teachers to protect their students are generally doing better by their kids and not turning their young men into violent killers, while the people who vote for an anti-gun school boards aren’t doing as well raising their kids. The same may apply across entire states where school boards don’t have the option at all.
I’m not saying a rural upbringing can’t still produce a troubled people, but I have to think about my own childhood. Growing up outside a small town and having agricultural chores after school (cleaning horse stalls, cutting weeds, feeding animals) plus some part-time work helping my grandfather service dairy machinery (and getting pooped on a LOT) didn’t leave me with much spare time to watch TV and learn from the Disney Channel that chasing fame is “the way.” Instead, I learned that hard, and sometimes unpleasant work is how you get good things in life.
I absolutely hated high school, but by the time it was over I had already taken classes at a community college and landed a job that paid a lot better than minimum wage. Again, I was too busy working to get into much trouble while the clout-chasing cable TV kids were getting into drugs and other trouble.
Obviously, none of these things can explain it all by themselves, but some combination of the above, along with other factors we aren’t thinking of probably add up the better safety records at schools with armed teachers. It’s probably something that deserves a deeper look by people who study these things for a living.
Good article. So much common sense.
This is also why police stations and gun stores are not being targeted.
The ‘gun free zone’ phrase is so moronic…it assumes a world with no evil.
I understand folks are leery of arming teachers being around children BUT what is the solution? Calling 911 gets cops standing around eating donuts as parents are hearing their kids get mowed down by evil.
If someone can come up with a reasonable solution, I am all ears. (Banning guns is not reasonable…)
Banning guns is not even possible.
jwm,
So is making communism actually work, but that’s never stopped them from trying, has it???
quote: The ‘gun free zone’ phrase is so moronic
Certinly is. I often refer to them as “Certified Defenseless Victim Zones”. THAT is accurate. Those schools are “gun free’ until a dirtbag like the creatures who invaded Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Uvalde, Virgina Tech, show up. Then it is too late wo WISH that place were ‘gun free”.
I refer to them as “Unarmed Victim Zones”.
Helpless Victim Zones
matt07924
“I understand folks are leery of arming teachers being around children…”
Why are people leery? Millions of people across America carry guns safely all the time around their children and everyone else’s. Why do we stop them at the school property line?
Another example of this stupidity; Before entering the school, before even jumping the fence, Ramos fired at workers outside a funeral home across the street. One of them called his wife to bring him his gun because IT’S ILLEGAL TO HAVE A GUN IN A FUNERAL HOME IN TEXAS! Nevermind schools. If guns weren’t banned in funeral homes he would have ended it outside the fence.
What idiot would be trusting enough to hand their crumbcruncher’s brain to someone but then would not trust them with A GUN.
What legitimate teacher would not defend the children placed in their care. Smart enough to keep the kiddies out of their purse/pot/greenie water container but could not control access to a handgun (WEAR IT).
Yes. Arm the staff. Teachers, admin and janitors. Get community volunteers to create a buffer zone between the school and any nutbag trying to get into the school.
There is an excellent program called Dad’s on Duty. That has worked wonders in schools to Stop the Violence at the front door.
Leave kids alone. By time they are 10, they know very well how to take care of themselves, and working instead of being enraptured by social media, video games and TV is just cruelty. Indeed, parents who make children do chores are breaking child labor laws; parents should be arrested and tried. Childhood is for playing, and being a child. Adulthood is just a drudge, and children should have nothing to do with it.
I’d like to know who pays an armed resources Officer to wander aboutbthe palce doing absolutely nothing for 99% of the time? Is anybody seriously telling us that it discourages a mass shooter? No What it does is to make the resources Officer an identifiable and easy target. There is NOTHING that will stop a determined maniac mass shooter. Who will stop the equally manic HEAVY TRUCK DRIVE or BOMBER Not a bloody teacher with a handgun that’s for sure. As for no school with an ‘armed teacher’ being hit the fact is than 99.9% of schools have not been hit anyway, armed teacher or no armed teacher, so there are NO reliable and actual statistics to go on. Add to that that the vast majority of MASS shootings [I believe that over three victims is the yardstick here] do not occur in schools.
Just an idea! Why not introduce a ‘ring-fenced’ tax the gun owners to pay for Resource Officers and Armed Teachers who in the nature of things will undoubtedly soon require danger money if I know anything about teachers.
The only answer is immediate and Dracoian legislation. It can be done without compromising what the gun freaks believe to be the American Constitutionand by restricting owner ship to a single 9mm or .38 handgun self defence [or .22 for indoor target] and a single 5-shot Bolt Action Rifle of a suitable calibre for Hunting and Target shooting. Nobody really needs anything more
red coat albert hall of shame…Here in the USA it is not the bill of needs it is The Bill of Rights.
Furthermore red coat albert hall of shame…Each and everyone of US school shootings could have been prevented if schools were not ran by bozos like you.
C’mon man…Do you actually believe bozos like you in charge of schools who welcome in violent criminals with gun-free-zone signs and have a cow over a student’s Pop Tart shaped gun, etc. are capable of anything concerning high level security? Even they know they are not capable which is why arming teachers remains repulsive to them…No matter how high the soft target body count.
Our children deserve better than that and come hell and high water armed security will be present in schools. And Gun owners will not foot the bill. After all it was not the policies of Gun Owners that supplies the soft targets…It was and always is people like you supplying the soft targets.
No. Just no. And you don’t have a say in how we run our affairs.
That same interference by an overbearing government is what got your sorry asses kicked out of America (and most of the rest of the world) in the years since.
“Who will stop the equally manic HEAVY TRUCK DRIVE or BOMBER …”
Obviously no one in your poor excuse for a country. In the US we haven’t had a heavy truck attack against a school and it’s been decades since a bombing. England, OTOH, has had recent experience with both, haven’t you? Why, yes — yes you have.
“It can be done without compromising what the gun freaks believe to be the American Constitutionand [sic] by restricting owner ship …”
Second Amendment to the US Constitution. You, as a subject of the Crown, apparently lack the intelligence to understand such a concept. That alone disqualifies you from proposing any course of action here in the free States.
herr dacian the nazi pretending to be a limey.
Yet again sniveling from the fetal position. Ho do you do it?
Please stop trying to convince everyone you are English by typing in an accent. Englishmen may say “bloody” or ” bollocks” or ” Guv”ner” but they don’t write that way. It’s very hard to watch such a bad attempt as this. And no one cares about your drivel anyway. Try harder, Dacian.
Go easy on the lil’dtard guys.
Pretending to be a British ‘subject’ is the only culture he gets.
Albert Hall, Subject. The School District pays for the salary and bennies of the school resource officers.
For your edification most civilians who routinely carry a firearm are usually more proficient with their firearm than most police as they practice far more often.
The people that seek out the job of school resource officer are not suited for police work and just want a soft job. They should never wear a uniform either because it just makes them a priority target but should wear a bullet proof vest under civilian cloths.
Clearly you don’t know what a School Resource Officer does. It is definitely NOT a cushy job.
Well according to you Albert if the teachers were armed with a .357 they could easily stop a Mack Truck.
But No, you’ve taken that away and gave them a 9mm instead.
You like dead Americans dont cha.
Albert the Subject,
Tell us you didn’t read the article, without SAYING you didn’t read the article.
“A 2019 study conducted by gun violence expert John Lott Jr. shows there wasn’t one school where a teacher was armed that had a non-suicidal gun violence incident during school hours.”
If you can’t be bothered to actually read the story? STFU, already. I did not see ONE SINGLE POST by anyone on this blog saying, “Gee, I wonder what nutless, d***less Euroweenies think about this issue??” Not one. We stopped giving a f*** about your collectivist idiocy back around 1776. Sod off, swampy.
Did you just ask who is going to pay for the 40 billion aid to Ukraine package ?
I think you did.
So, this is great, with this much money , America can put two or three armed guards in every school.
This is great.
……….. and you are in favor of the aid to Ukraine ………… right ?
Wait, I’m confused again .
It has been almost 60 years since I was in high school. Back then we did not face the murderous attacks the students today must face.
Thinking back, I can identify a good percentage of the teachers I had in high school that I would trust to “carry” to protect the school and the lives within. I believe we still have many teachers today that deserve that trust and would be an asset towards safer schools.
In twelve years of grade and high school I NEVER ONCE had any teacher I’d not totally trust today to have had a gun on their person. ALL of them were great folks, and jealous for our welfare. Many of them I’ve no doubt would have taken a bullet or four to protect any of us. Of course, in high school if any clown had walted into any of our classrooms and began shooting, he’d be doing the hotfoot back out in about fourteen nanoseconds. Dead or otherwise. Some of US may hav eperished, but HE”D certainly be working hard at his new job, pushing up daisies.
In college, however, once I got into the publically funded state institutions that changed signficantly. Particularly amongst the post grad assistants. Many of them would never stoop to even touching a gun unless they were picking it up to throw into the ocean. Icky things, tney are…… well a pox upon them AND their houses.
I can only speak to my personal experience, but that statement about the cops (I’ll read SRO) not being as close to the students as a teacher on a personal bond level or proximity. I take issue with that. I had students that are today good citizens. Some assisted me with information after I transitioned to and from the school to the streets that solved major felonies. These guys wouldn’t have given a teacher the recipe for ice tea. As for as proximity. An SRO is at least as close to the students as the next closest teacher. My sister is a teacher. Retired from Cincinnati Public Schools. Teaches in Florida now. Masters Degree in counting tree frogs in Thailand. Lived in a Buddhist monestary. No kidding. I wouldn’t trust her with a wiffle ball bat and vanilla pudding baseballs. But, our benevolent government gave her a driver’s license and she knows what’s best for your children. Sleep well tonight.
If I ever hed down to FLorida I will contact you and ask that you identify and locate her so can scrupulously avoid her. Sounds like a scary critter.
No chance she would ever get her scrawny hands on MY kdis, as they will never darken the door of a gummit funded skewl as long as I live.
You raise a good point. SROs can get close to the kids. Sadly, I’ve never seen it myself, but I do believe that an officer with a big heart and good people skills could really become part of the school.
This might be a good thing to inject into SRO training more.
Valid observation, Jennifer!
IF we are going to increase the number of SROs, they SHOULD be integrated into the school environment, get to know the kids, and PROBABLY not wear uniforms (why advertise?). And I know a lot of teachers who are adamant about not carrying guns, and I respect that. NO ONE who isn’t comfortable doing it should carry a gun. I would even suggest that the mindset necessary to be a successful, empathetic teacher may make it harder for them to adopt the attitudes necessary to be an effective carrier. Not a fan of forcing ANYONE to “bear arms” who doesn’t want to.
SROs may, or may not, be the “right” answer – more likely, the “right” answer is a mix of things, including ALLOWING teachers who are willing to, and get proper training, to carry. Hardening schools. Better reporting of KNOWN problems. It is an inherent flaw of one-dimensional Leftist/fascist thinking that they not only can’t “think outside the box”, they can’t think, period.
The fact that we NEED armed teachers is not something to be proud of, but in these screwed up times, would you really rather have your child’s school unprotected or have a well trained professional between your kids and an a-hole with a gun and a mental problem!?
Speaking anecdotally I’ll say the worst shooters and usually the worst attitudes I encounter at 3-gun and IDPA events are the cops. Almost without fail.
Maybe they feel some sort of “professional privilege” or they measure themselves only against other cops so they never practice or something.
Meh…plenty of teachers I wouldn’t trust with a gat growing up. My fat PE teacher was a coward during the race riots we had in High School. Ditto some others. My son’s high school had a stout little cop who had no problem engaging a young punk(I witnessed one engagement). I think if a teacher wants to carry let ’em.
If we’re gonna expect teachers to be armed first responders, maybe we should increase their pay also? Of course that will never happen.
And one other problem presents itself: What about teachers/staff who wouldn’t want to carry a gun even if they could. There will be more than you think.
I’d start by firing them all and rehiring the ones that can actually teach math and shit first. Then we’ll need to find replacements for 95% that were worthless and ensure that teaching is meritocratic.
Baby steps.
+100
“I’d start by firing them all and rehiring the ones that can actually teach math and shit first.”
What we need are conservatives who *want* to be public school teachers.
Why we can’t do that baffles me. If anything, we need to crowd out the Leftist Scum ™ currently entrenched there.
And why aren’t we at least 50 percent of the civil service workforce in Washington, DC?
“Underpaid” teacher? WHERE. 8m a year job requiring no particular brain power in 80% of slots, now sweat/heavy lifting.
Drive thru a local school and count the # of new SUVs in the teacher lot. There is damn few working the poverty life.
To be fair, teachers that give a shit work year-round.
They spend the summer prepping for next year, improving lesson plans, reading new textbooks cover to cover to see if they’re a good replacement, setting up new presentations and tweaking the parts of old ones that don’t work.
My parents were both professors. I never knew summer was a thing for them growing up. They’d go straight from final exams to spending 8-10 hours a day doing ^the above^ for two months and the last month of summer they were in the lab for the same amount of time. During the summers we didn’t have a “dining table” because it was covered in stuff for their classes ALL summer.
If you have teachers really taking time off like this then I promise you, you’ve found the shitty teachers. Fire them on the spot.
Some of them take summer jobs to supplement a not-great school system salary…
So what? Does that make them good teachers? Does that mean they’re prioritizing education?
No. It doesn’t.
Fire all of them and hire the good ones back. With no union, 1/6th the administrators and a ruthless meritocratic system we can easily afford to pay them quite well.
The others can go flip burgers. They’re worthless.
Most families these days are 2 income families which contributes to the cost of vehicles etc The one income teacher either has other income/inheritance savings or they are in debt up to their eyeballs.
This goes back to a discussion from last week which Geoff started, the topic being modern feminism.
Between women entering the workforce in great numbers because they were told they *had to* and the Fed’s monetary policies mixed with a Congress that hasn’t had any fiscal restraint since the end of WWII, two incomes became essentially mandatory unless you married someone making $150K+ a year, which if you’re in the childbearing ages, essentially means a woman married a “sugar daddy”. (Or, said another way you get into the argument about who’s robbing the cradle or robbing the grave depending on your point of view.)
Now you’re moving into a situation where D-I-N-K (Dual Income, No Kids) is a thing that’s growing in popularity. It’s pushed politically to “save the planet” while at the same time it’s seductive because of the ever-growing expense of actually having children.
That expense destroys middle-class aspirations, which is to say, it greatly assists in the annihilation upward mobility. This is why you see so many people in the 40-50 age group who seem to dislike their children and pay no attention to them. In a way, they do resent their children. Those children represent the opportunity cost imposed on them by .gov’s irresponsible behavior.
Those people grew up with certain things that they can no longer afford to provide for their own kids.
You can see a cultural shift in this in movies. In the 1980’s and 1990’s National Lampoon had a series of “vacation” movies centered around the antics/problems of family vacations with the kids. The last one was a shitty throw-back in 2003. Even by the early 2000’s most of the Lampoon’s movies centered on pot, booze and hookup culture.
Is that art imitating life, life imitating art, just a cultural barometer
of sorts or a bit of all three?
The positive side of this is that Conservatives still tend (though the trend lines are not good by any stretch) to hit the replacement rate while the Left is nowhere close. In a few generations that means no more Lefties at all.
Of course, the Left’s been aware of that for decades which is why they have worked so hard at making sure they have an iron grip on the schools. They don’t need kids, they have yours.
Sure. Increase pay, and also cover all costs of equipment and training. Bonuses for continuing training and top-level marksmanship. Pay them to go to the top shooting schools in the summer, too.
Also, don’t force any teacher to carry. You’re absolutely right that forcing teachers to carry isn’t a good idea. Volunteers only.
Is there anything else we can help you with?
Is there anything else we can help you with?
Can we pay extra to ensure that the shitty teachers have a “training accident”?
Just askin’. For a friend, of course.
Anon,
Wow. So MUCH stupid in such a short comment!!!
NO ONE is arguing for REQUIRING teachers to be armed. LITERALLY NO ONE. So that’s just inane word-vomit.
As far as “raising their pay”? I’ll make ya a deal, chief – agree to OBJECTIVE merit-and-performance based evaluations and pay, WITH the ability to terminate substandard teachers without years of litigation, and we’ll talk about increasing their pay. How’s that work for ya, chief??
Okay, agreed. But we evaluate the teacher’s merit and performance based on their performance, not the students’.
HA! Typical Leftist idiocy. If your students can’t read and write, how are YOU, as a teacher, “performing”???? Or is it that you are acknowledging that most teachers don’t view actually educating students as being their job???
And grades mean bupkus, so we’re talking objective testing (yeah, I know you “educators” that that, because it constantly exposes your inadequacy). If your students aren’t reading, writing, calculating, and knowing basic history to grade level, in what unicorn-infested world could you POSSIBLY be considered to be “performing”?????
The top three “educational reforms”, that would solve 90+% of our “educational problems” would be (i) abolish teacher’s unions, (ii) institute school choice, and (iii) eliminate tenure/civil service-type job protections, and allow substandard teachers to be shitcanned on 30 days’ notice. But you and your NEA/AFT buddies hate that, doncha??
First of all, I’m not a teacher or educator, so you’re wrong there. I have no dog in this race. But i know people who are, and others who’ve observed classrooms.
There are a lot of kids who simply don’t and won’t care about learning, whether the teacher is good or bad. That’s even in private school. They don’t study, or do homework. And frequently the parents don’t care either or only care when they find out their kid is failing, and want to blame someone else.
Even the best teacher in the best circumstances can only do their half of the job. That’s the real real.
A teacher’s “merit” is based on their students’ performance. If the kids aren’t learning, the teacher is doing something wrong.
Anon, we all have a “dog in the race”. We call them students, whether they are out kids or not. If the kid isn’t learning, what is wrong? It’s up to the TEACHER to find out?
Consider this. If most teachers carried holstered handguns on their person, within a very few weeks the sight of this would be so common to the students they would barely notice. As time goes on without any accidental incidents, the practice would be acceptable to almost everyone, except dedicated gun haters. But, let one cretin attack with the intent to harm, and the teachers take care of the matter quickly and efficiently, everyone would be grateful.
This debate is kinda amusing to me.
I hear that teachers are a bunch of pedo groomers knowingly pushing hard Left propaganda at kids… yet I also hear that we should arm the… Lefty groomers? Wut?
Seems to me that we have deeper and wider problems and “armed teachers” is just a simplistic talking point, a bandaid on a sucking chest wound at best.
Maybe it’s time to actually start thinking, something the vast majority of people seem to have ceased doing since… 1950 or so.
Make it illegal for government workers to form a labor union. That way they can be fired just like any other private sector employee.
I think many of the teachers who are against being armed are groomers who are “in the closet”. And it’s possible they could be worried that another teacher, who was against their activities in the classroom, just might stop them permanently.
“Make it illegal for government workers to form a labor union.”
An excellent start. I’d buy you a beverage for this if I was in Kentucky.
But it is just a start. The whole thing needs to be rebuilt from the ground up.
This should be one of the top three priorities for Conservatives. Home schooling is great and all, my wife and I assist with a pod for that, but it’s not scalable on the level required and will be even less so going forward (thank the Fed).
I don’t know if it’s the #1 priority to take back public education but it’s certainly no lower than #3. If this doesn’t occur, and pretty sharpish, everything else is for naught.
The Republicans who are obsessed with social issues to that severity are a noisy minority. Don’t let the caricatured shock jocks fool you.
The problem is that there’s ample evidence that this sort of thing, while potentially exaggerated in breadth, is actually true.
That’s what LibsofTikTok is all about, just reposting TikTok videos of teachers bragging about this sort of thing.
I’m hardly a social conservative but it’s pretty hard to deny that there’s some serious fuckery going on and a goodly number of teachers truly are, well, perverts.
The tyrants all know the truth. These shootings have all happened in gun-free zones. When they ask you how many deaths does it take for you to stop supporting the Second Amendment???
They need to know from you how children they need to be murdered? Because they will make sure to reach that number.
Another mass shooting stopped by concealed carrier before it begins
https://concealednation.org/2022/05/breaking-woman-uses-concealed-handgun-to-stop-mass-shooting-killing-the-suspect-who-had-ar-15/
This type of thing happens across the U.S. millions of times a year, not specifically mass shootings in all cases but good guys with guns stops bad guys before they can harm. Never makes the news.
Using or based upon ‘The Congressional Research Service’ definition of mass shooting as multiple firearm homicide incidents, involving 4 or more victims at one or more locations close to one another …
There are approximately, annually, several hundred mass shootings in public settings either stopped right when they start before anyone actually gets shot or before the shooting starts – by a good guy with a gun employing DGU.
As far as school shootings go;
One story out of the several incidents each year that are thwarted or prevented by teachers or other school staff, one that comes to mind that was not thwarted before it started but was stopped by a school staff member with a gun is the incident at Pearl High School, near Jackson, Miss. On Oct. 1, 1997, a 16 year old student named Luke Woodham woke up, stabbed his mother to death, then came to the school campus carrying a .30-30 lever-action rifle. Joel Myrick was the assistant principal, when he heard the shots he ran to his truck (of course the police were also called) and retrieved his pistol then started to engage Woodham by taking aim but he did not fire out of fear of hitting someone in the background. Woodham saw Mr. Myrick aiming at him whihc caused him to run from the campus and get in his car and begin to drive away. Mr. Myrick ran after him on foot, the car spun out and came to a stop. Mr. Myrick had his gun trained on Woodham when the police arrived.
With a .30-30 lever-action rifle, no 30 round magazine in an AR type rifle, Woodham killed two students, one of which was his former girlfriend, and wounded seven others before Mr. Myrick engaged him. There would have been more death and/or injury had Mr. Myrick not engaged Woodham.
Yet, despite this Mr. Myrick has a firm stance against arming school faculty members and says they don’t need to be in school in charge of protecting children. Yet, ignores that the law and society trust and moral obligation demands that children placed in care of school faculty members for the school day be protected by those school faculty members from harm while in the care of the school faculty members for a school day.
There are more than 120 ‘school shooting’ related incidents each year across the U.S. that are stopped before they begin (where a student had planned to use a firearm to shoot students/staff) by a school faculty member (not school resource officers) with a gun or by physical means such as engaging the would be shooter hands on. They are not classed as school or mass shootings because the shooting did not actually start. They sometimes make the news in the guise of something like “a student was found with a gun in his backpack” or other wording. The schools, overall, don’t report it to the media …. and try to suppress the news getting out (at which they are surprisingly successful) by handing it as a “troubled kid” mental health incident in which details are not released due to various laws because its then medically related and involves a minor so school staff involved are ‘warned’ against talking about it so they don’t.
If all the school shooting related incidents each year are aggregated, including the ones that were stopped before they began (where the student had planned to shoot students/staff), we find the MSR complained about was involved in less than 1% of all school shooting related incidents over the last 30 years but the incidents that make the news in such grand fashion are the ones in which an AR is used when the AR is overall the least likely subject firearm in school shooting related incidents.
And, regarding school violence incidents in general, over 33,000 students and school staff nationwide annually are violently attacked with knives, blunt objects, or hands and feet and ~9,000 of those die or are permanently disabled annually as a result but you rarely hear about it on the news, and they are swept under the table by use of quiet ‘settlements’ with the victims and families who must agree not to reveal the incident to get the settlements so they don’t reveal it. In other words over the last 30 years, annually, ~99.3% more students and school staff are injured or killed by use of knives, blunt objects, or hands and feet than were shot in all actual school shootings over the last 30 years. In 2021, there were over 3000 teachers/staff subjected to outright rape or other sexual assault or other violence in the nations classrooms during school hours – quiet ‘settlements’ happened and no one talks about it and only ~120 made the news.
If all the incidents each year are aggregated, including the ones that were stopped before they began (where the student had planned to shoot students/staff), we find that school faculty has stopped more than 90% of school shootings by use of some means in an immediate sense other than waiting for a ‘school resource officer’ or police to arrive (even though they were contacted and did get involved after the incident was detected by a teacher or other staff member). Teachers are not only in the most advantageous position to detect a potential school shooting, or behaviors of a troubled kid which may lead to such violence, they are also more likely to be ‘on scene’ in an immediate/imminent sense to intervene to stop it before it begins.
Yet, with all the violence in schools, overall nationwide, the media and politicians focus on the least used, and less likely to be used, implement they call the AR-15.
Yes, teachers need to be armed to protect their selves and their students.
The Penguins carried sticks and weren’t afraid to use them.
Oh yes. Been there.
Yeah, and my sideburns on one side still grow way faster than on the other… thanks Sister Noella !!
But a hockey stick is kinda hard to conceal … wait, what?
Oh, those Penguins. Sorry.
It’s really quite simple Where would you feel safer sending you child? To a school that had a large sign outside that said, “Teachers and staff in this school are armed and will use any force necessary to protect the students.” Or a school that was posted, “This school is a Gun Free Zone?
Too many teachers are lunatics who are running the asylum. They’re too busy grooming grade-schoolers, seducing middle- and high-schoolers, taking kids to drag balls, and bragging about their own aggressive sexuality to defend anyone.
Don’t arm them. Replace them and allow their replacements to arm up. That will save kids’ minds as well as their lives.
You’ll get no argument from me. My wife is a teacher. I have met many of the women she works with. I can’t imagine some of them running a classroom. I don’t know how the make it through life. I really don’t.
@Anon
“Even the best teacher in the best circumstances can only do their half of the job. That’s the real real.”
Indeed, indeed. Measuring information transfer is rather complicated. Complicated by those who refuse to accept indisputably true information simply because it wasn’t presented sweetly.
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