More guns, less crime. Back in the day, John Lott’s stat-heavy thesis received a lot of attention. The People of the Gun went, duh. Gun control advocates went, nuh-uh. As the anti-gunners couldn’t deconstruct Lott’s facts or logic, they ignored his conclusions. They continued to insist that gun law liberalization recreates the [fictional] “Wild West,” with folks shooting shoot each other at the slightest provocation. Well what else would they say (as we learned from their recently leaked agitprop playbook). But no such thing has happened. Not when Florida restored its residents’ gun rights. And not in Illinois, where 15 county prosecutors told their long-suffering constituents they could carry a concealed weapon with a Firearms Owners Identification Card ahead of Illinois new carry laws. Arkansas is the anti-gunners’ latest trigger for the “rivers of blood” denunciation. Check this out . . .
A teacher feels “threatened” by a student and pulls the gun on the pupil just to defuse the perceived threat. Or the school employee cannot restrain him or herself and blows the kid’s brains out in front of a classroom full of terrified children. Or maybe, in self-defense, students wrestle a firearm away from the teacher who pulled it. Or there’s a meeting between school officials and the parents of a child receiving disciplinary action. Disagreement ensues. Things get intense. A packing assistant principal pulls out her heat.
I could go on with the “ors” all day long, but, mark my words, all hell will break loose in Clarksville, Ark., or one of the other places around the nation who think the best way to respond to school shootings is to arm teachers and other employees with guns after fifty-some odd hours of training.
It’s hard to believe writer Rocco Pendola didn’t stop to think for one second what might have happened at the Sandy Hook Elementary School if one of the teachers had been armed when Adam Lanza walked in the door that fateful day. By the same token, a simple Google search of “armed teacher stops spree killer” would have turned up TTAG’s post-Newtown school shooting simulation, which demonstrated the concept’s lethal efficacy.
“The things have always terrified me,” Mr. Pendola writes in How Long Before All Hell Breaks Loose With Gun-Toting Clarksville, Ark. School Teachers? [via thestreet.com]. “Sort of like cocaine. Would never touch the stuff, but like swords and knives, I never had a problem with alcohol or marijuana.” And there you have it: another unarmed “intellectual” projecting his own fear—and fears of inadequacy—onto Americans determined to protect innocent life by force of arms.
Mark my words: as Chicago gradually increases the number of law-abiding citizens practicing concealed carry, their crime rate will go down—at a faster rate than it has in decades, and faster than cities of comparable size that have already liberalized their gun laws. And someday an armed teacher will take out an aspiring spree killer. What are the odds Mr. Pendola will highlight those stories?
“pulls the gun on the pupil just to defuse the perceived threat.”
Yeah, that’s kinda what it’s there for. Why is that a problem?
I see what your saying but I think they meant two students in a fist fight maybe ??
… these are teachers saying they can’t be trusted to protect children? Have they stopped to listen to what they are saying? That they are so irresponsible that they would murder children after an argument? Maybe these people shouldn’t be allowed near children.
There are plenty of fistfights where use of deadly force is authorized.
A year from now, I wonder if anyone will drag Mr. Pendola in front
of a camera to ask him where all the rivers of blood are?
I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one.
Maybe the People of the Gun should start getting a little more
confrontational when these doom sayers’ ludicrous and inflammatory
predictions are proven false. We know the MSM has no interest in
reporting facts much less asking relevant questions. So, why not
pick up the mantle the MSM has so readily cast aside and show
these people for how naive and disingenuous they really are.
The problem with people such as Mr. Pendola is not that they are ignorant.
It is that the facts simply do not fit their basic assumptions about the world. Most adults find it extraordinarily difficult to change their basic assumptions about the world.
Many would rather die, and I mean that literally, than change their assumptions.
I first learned that this was an established fact of human nature 40 years ago at the University of Wisconsin. It is not worth trying to convice someone such as this. There are many, many, others who are simply ignorant.
Hey Rocco, the best part of you dripped down your Mama’s leg a long time ago, You Idiot!!!
As a teacher, I can’t help but laugh at the irony that many teachers, with their irrational fear of guns, can’t also understand why children might have irrational fears of things like math homework or playing on the playground swings.
Lucky for me, even working at the elementary school level, I have several open-minded co-workers who think nothing of the fact that I’m a gun owner or that I CCW. I think talking to people and dispelling myths goes hand-in-hand with being a gun owner in public education. And they already know that if anything crazy does go down (shooter in the building), I’m not making my children huddle in a corner to wait to die. We’re escaping campus grounds to the nearest church / fire or police station, and along the way, I’m picking up a (REDACTED) from the trunk of my car as I shepherd my students to safety…
As much as I get a mad on about teachers peddling their nonsense about guns to children, what really raises my blood to a full rolling boil is the “fear” of mathematics that teachers peddle to children.
When teachers complain about how “hard” it is to teach, I always throw down the challenge: Let me into your classroom during math class, and I’ll show you how “hard” your job is.
This
what, are you saying that math gives you an erection?
No guns in my school, except for the mass killer.
“Sort of like cocaine. Would never touch the stuff, but like swords and knives, I never had a problem with alcohol or marijuana.”
Oh man. I don’t even know where to start with this. A good start would be comparing the number of deaths per year from cocaine with the number of deaths per year from alcohol, I suppose.
The numbers I’ve found, which calculated that there were about 12 million cocaine users and 140 million alcohol users in the country, brought the deaths per user (not total, but per user, so taking into account the number of people that use each substance) were 70 / 100,000 alcohol users, and 8 / 100,000 cocaine users.
And if you go by total number of deaths in the country, alcohol is so so far ahead of even cocaine and heroin, that it’s not even funny. Like 30-50 times more depending on whom you believe. And don’t give me that “but alcohol is legal”…anyone who really wants to do cocaine can find some.
*disclaimer: i don’t do cocaine, and i actually don’t drink alcohol anymore, either. I do, however, consume unhealthy amounts of caffeine.
“Sort of like cocaine. Would never touch the stuff, but like swords and knives, I never had a problem with alcohol or marijuana.”
Am I to gather they mash their food to eat it. The absence of knives in the house to cause a great mess. In my highschool, years, and years ago you could have knives (pocket only) just a restriction on length. Came in handy when freeing a guy who got their clothing caught in a sander belt. Would have lost his hand if we waited for someone to go get a pair of scissors on the other side of the building.
The scissors they use these days in school have plastic blades that bend paper until it can be torn by hand.
“…Would never touch the stuff, but like swords and knives, I never had a problem with alcohol or marijuana.”
“Am I to gather they mash their food to eat it. ”
It sounds like they’re saying, they’re afraid of guns and cocaine, but swords and knives and alcohol and marijuana are OK, so no.
Don’t blame Rocco Pendola for being an idiot. He’s nothing more than a product of an “educational” system that prizes mindless conformity above all things. Students in that system are, for the most part, prisoners, and the teachers and administrators are jailers and wardens. Their purpose isn’t to teach, but to enforce compliance with their own rules. In that system, chewing a Pop Tart in the wrong way is a crime worthy of suspension. Thinking in the wrong way is a crime worthy of expulsion.
Is it really any wonder that Rocco views the universe through a warped lens? He’s been trained to submit and succumb. He’s not necessarily stupid, but he is all too comfortable with his own ignorance.
Gun have their place. And that’s anyplace there may be a threat.
Well, we can spin that around. Practice, practice, practice. I’d rather be reasonable and fair, but the game is to be unreasonable and unfair, so…
ALWAYS FOCUS ON EMOTIONAL A ND VALUE-DRIVEN ARGUMENTS ABOUT GUN VIOLENCE, NOT THE POLITICAL FOOD FIGHT IN WASHINGTON OR WONKY STATISTICS.
We protect our money, yes with guards and with guns. But somehow not our kids. Do we value money more than children?
Apparently it’s better for them to be victims than survivors.
TELL STORIES WITH IMAGES AND FEELINGS.
What were the last thoughts of the teachers who died at NewTown? They put themselves between the gunman and their kids. Did they know that with this pointless valor they guaranteed their kids would die alone, only terrified? I’ve seen what the simply being there can do when someone’s injured or dying.
What’s it like to bleed out, unable to do anything, knowing that watching your kids die is the last thing you’ll see?
Somehow, I don’t think teachers who choose to die for their kids are a threat if they have a gun. They deserve better options.
CLAIM MORAL AUTHORITY AND THE MANTLE OF FREEDOM.
It’s flat out evil to herd children into a soft target, then refuse to protect them. It’s worse when they have no choice but to be there.
I’m not OK with forcing children into unprotected kill zones allegedly on my behalf. If we’re gonna require them to be there, it’s on us to take care of them – whatever that takes.
CHALLENGE THE NRA ON YOUR TERMS, NOT THEIRS.
After being mocked and condemned by the administration and the civilian disarmament coalition in congress, wouldn’t you know they’re funding the very idea the NRA put forth – a gun stops an armed bad guy. Let’s have armed good guys in schools.
“We protect our money, yes with guards and with guns. But somehow not our kids. Do we value money more than children?”
Yes.
Kids are useful to parade around when the political class wants to tug at the heart strings, but they don’t really care about them. Their actions prove this. Their actions also prove that they care very very much about money. I know, I know, ’twas a rhetorical question! 🙂
With this I think we need a video of an active shooter perpetrating a massacre in an elementary school then cutting to it only being a day dream he’s having. Then we show him arriving at an actual school and going in to carry out his daydream. . . where upon noting that he’s armed, a teacher draws from concealment and drops him like a stone.
Then cut to the dramatic voice: “What’s more frightening? The chance that something might go wrong someday? Or the cold reality that this disturbed man was here with the sole purpose of killing as many children as possible?
Ok the dialogue needs work, but these sorts of things are unfortunately what it takes to get ignorant people headed the right way. Beneficial manipulation.
Two words that instantly spring to mind: Joel Myrick.
Again, we’re faced with the illusion of “Gun Free Zones” by this type of individual. What does he propose to do about it??????
Any person or entity that establishes a “Gun Free Zone” has both the moral and legal obligation to provide for the safety of all individuals within that zone. Therefore, if there is another spree killing I believe that a class action law suite should be brought against Rocco Pendola for influencing the school leaders to create such Zones and leaving the people within that Zone defenseless.
I have another way to make Gun Free Zones safe and effective. Place large “Gun Free Zone” signs every 3 feet, and make each one out of 3″ armor plate. Then people can cower behind them whenever a psycho decides to target easy victims. I mean, at least then the GFZ signs would serve a useful purpose.
Mark my words: as Chicago gradually increases the number of law-abiding citizens practicing concealed carry, their crime ratewill go down—at a faster rate than it has in decades, and faster than cities of comparable size that have already liberalized their gun laws. And someday an armed teacher will take out an aspiring spree killer. What are the odds Mr. Pendola will highlight thosestories?
As a lifelong resident of chiraq I don’t think the murder rate will change much since it’s mostly gang on gang but burglary and robbery will plummet.
Like every other leftist drone that has used this fear-mongering approach in the past, those who pull their strings don’t truly care about anyone’s safety, but only about discouraging anything that increases the power and autonomy of the individual. Can’t have demonstrations of the real-world effectiveness of basic American values.
How very true. I can’t think of a more cynical activity than the victim-disarmament movement. Nor a more pragmatic one.
To hear the way they put it one has to wonder why schools are hiring these high-strung violent lunatics as teachers who could “lose it” at any moment.
Maybe instead of teachers they should be cops? That way they’d be praised for losing it, killing children, and get a paid vaca out of it. Plus after 50 hours they’d be better trained than the cops out there now. How long does a qualification take? Half an hour with setup and scoring? Less probably.
This is a point well worth pushing on the other side. Whenever I hear the arguments about more training/screening for civilians or the “it’s too easy to get a gun” argument I always try to make the opposing side quantify their argument. For example, if 50 hours isn’t enough, then what is? Even though we know their answer is “nothing will be enough,” it takes the steam out of their argument for fence-sitters because their only alternative is to maintain the status quo or admit that they just want to ban guns (in the same breath as saying “nobody is taking your guns” of course). Same for the “it’s too easy” argument. I had a debate with a local lawyer that works for the Democratic Party.. a true believer if you will. When he used that line, I responded with, “Well, in Washington DC it can take up to a year to get approval to get a gun, is that long enough? What length of time or process would you consider “reasonable” being that you say you’re not trying to take away my rights? Give me a concrete idea instead of regurgitated platitudes from your task masters and then we can actually have that “National Conversation” you keep saying you want. Don’t answer that, I already know your ultimate goal is an all out ban.” Of course my words fell on def ears with him (as was expected), but the four other people in the group that were mesmerized by this guy’s politic-legal speak stopped nodding their head in agreement at every comment he made, one even (quasi-impolitely) walked away after his next predictable attack on my character.
It is the same story told everytime the antis do not like gun legislation. In insert city/state name, it will be the wild west, blood in the streets, yada yada yada. It fits the manifesto obtain in prior post, play up fears and emotions while ignoring actual experiences.
They really only have two arguements. The one above and using victims as human shield while saying if you do not agree with them then you want people to die.
I’ll wager not one of the kids pictured has been vaccinated.
LOLOL
And when they grow up healthy, strong and non-autistic, will you still be noodling the same ignorant tune?
I have yet to see any evidence that vaccinating children causes autism. However, there is great evidence that arming protectors prevents tragedy. When you call the police, what do they bring? Guns! Cut out the middle-man.
“What are the odds Mr. Pendola will highlight those stories?”
1 in 1,000,000,000,000
… or thereabouts.
But, But, But, What if, What if….
Good grief. Is that the best they can do?
I can make up fantasy scenarios all day too. How about: Obama is a muslim who wants to destroy the country? I the United States elects a black president, there will be rioting in the streets? The problem isn’t that these people are nuttier than a fruitcake, it’s that they have the means to share their incoherent rational with the rest of the world.
Two things:
1. The period known as the “Wild West” had a homicide rate far below what we have now, almost the lowest in the history of the nation: http://www.myhostedpics.com/images/JustaShooter/ushomiciderate18852012.jpg
2. What they argue is a “psychotic snap”. Well since we’re playing the “what if” game, it’s reasonable if a teacher has a beef with a student they would just bring a gun to class, ignore the rules, and shoot them, or follow them home, or do any number of the things we read about in the paper. The tool doesn’t change anything, they’re just projecting their own feelings, if they had power they would abuse it so they think everyone else would abuse that power at the smallest provocation. Sheep need a herd for protection.
Also, since when do children make our decisions? 3/4ths of the crowd for gun control are children and the other 1/4th are their moms that made them go.
I like to ask these types to show me one example of such things happening after gun-law liberalization.
So far, no takers.
Because while you can’t trust your kids teacher with a gun, you can trust them with your kid……
Sure, makes perfect sense.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; if you can’t trust your child’s teacher with a gun, because they might do something stupid, why in the heck do you trust your child with them at all? If they are a high risk of doing something stupid with a gun, then they are a high risk of doing something stupid regardless. A teacher that would pull a gun on a student because they are fed up with them is just as likely to grab the snow globe off their desk and bash the kid’s head in.
Least they can do is up date the picture. There wearing winter clothing. Its the middle of summer.
“Or the school employee cannot restrain him or herself and blows the kid’s brains out in front of a classroom full of terrified children.”
HOLY SMOKES!!! What kind of people are they hiring there?!?!
No, no. You just don’t get it. They hire only the purest and most innocent souls. But each gun behaves like the One Ring of Sauron. Merely possessing one will slowly… steadily… insidiously corrupt your soul until you find yourself standing over the body of the child you just murdered. Our nation is doomed… DOOMED… unless we cast every last gun into the heart of a giant volcano!
Well… except for the ones the police and military use, of course… because those guns are different. They’re more like… uhhh… fluffy bunny rabbits which cuddle and comfort what few children haven’t yet been slaughtered by their gun-corrupted teachers.
Hey… my narrative is at LEAST as realistic as Rocco’s…
Actually Perendinater your narrative makes far more sense. Since you admit what Rocco wont (that somehow guns must be a corrupting influence that drives one to murder) you’ve filled in the gaps missing in his version. Minus the admission of magical thinking in which somehow guns make people evil his version lacks anything resembling a reasonable argument.
I just hope that the antis never catch on.
Looking at the ‘play book’ has me thinking. Perhaps it’s from a recent re-read of ‘On Killing’ from Grossman, or perhaps it’s just something I’ve always known, but the vast majority of people have an enormous internal injunction against killing. I think this idea is too little propagated, perhaps because it’s hardly news worthy, it’s something that most people sort of automatically understand. Imagine a news story about how 300+ million people rambled around today, bumped into each other, cussed each other in traffic, argued with a co-worker, had a heated debate at the local club, disagreed with their spouse and then went to bed having killed no one. Imagine that story airing every day on every news channel with all the hype of a mass murder. What we really have is mass non-murder. It’s not about lack of means, it’s about lack of will.
A corollary to this is real, in depth reporting on who does kill and who they kill, complete with the relationship. The vast majority of murders are either those of passion (perpetrator kills lover and or lovers other lover) relatively rare, or less rarely criminal victim (perpetrator kills innocent victim either as an end of it’s own or more likely as part of a rape, robbery or kidnap) or most commonly organized criminal undertaking (perpetrator is a career criminal who kills rival career criminal).
I think reporting of the latter type is avoided for fear of appearing racist, since the leading cause of death for young black males is other young black males. However even this is inaccurate. If you don’t belong to a gang and aren’t involved in the drug trade in any way your likelihood of being murdered drops precipitously even if you are young, black and male.
Another meme with no basis is this ‘blood in the streets’ concept. First off, CCW permit holders murder basically no one, ever. They do occasionally commit homicide, but it’s statistically insignificant how many of these aren’t legally justifiable. Furthermore, if we look at who it is that those who lawfully carry typically kill, it’s a virtual rogues list of the most vile scum society has ever failed.
That leaves the rest of us, who aren’t involved in the drug trade and who aren’t members of criminal gangs. We’re so extremely unlikely to murder anyone that it’s again statistically insignificant.
I don’t think it’s enough to say that DGU’s outpace criminal gun use (even if that’s accurate) or to say that criminals don’t obey laws. I think you have to break it down by risk/reward for the low information person.
If you’re on your way to commit mass murder, the possible outcomes of which are immediate death, suicide, life in prison or the death penalty, the prohibition on certain types of weapons, unpermitted concealed carry or bringing a firearm into a ‘gun free’ zone are negligible.
If you’re comfortable with murdering your rivals for trivial reasons, frequently possessing quantities of drugs that could get you 10-20 years in prison, and are in a business where your suppliers, customers and the knowledgeable public may try to rob you with the full knowledge that you can’t report it to the police, are additional charges for unlawfully possessing or concealing a firearm really an issue for you?
It doesn’t hurt to point out that in the plea bargaining process there will be charges dropped. If you’ll plead to trafficking and take your 18 months to 2.5 years you’re likely to get the illegally concealed weapon charge dropped.
It’s also important to understand that many of the gang members who are responsible for the majority of the violence accept going to prison for various stretches as not only a foregone conclusion but also a rite of passage. In some gangs it’s almost impossible to move up the ranks without having gone to prison at least once.
For the rest of us, a single shooting is often life changing even if the facts reveal that we were right in what we did.
For the rest of us a felony conviction is a bar to employment, to the means of self preservation, and a permanent stigma that will follow us for life.
For the rest of us a stint in prison is a terrifying and destructive proposition to be avoided at all cost.
For the rest of us killing another human being is a last resort to be undertaken only when that person presents a lethal threat that cannot otherwise be avoided by reason, escape or really anything we can do short of surrendering to the mercies of the sort of violent miscreant who would put us in such a position in the first place.
We would not kill because we perceive disrespect, nor because we coveted the possessions of another. We would not kill over petty grievances nor to impress our friends or gain membership in a club. We would not engage in the sorts of activities in which the killing of witnesses is necessary nor advisable. We don’t kill people for entertainment nor to satisfy something lacking within ourselves.
“Gun control” is really nothing more than ensuring that law abiding people don’t have them and that criminals do. It’s not enough just to say it; it has to be explained because common sense is a dangerous proposition. If we wouldn’t subject ourselves and others to the worst that society has to offer we would avoid impediments to legal, affordable, and expeditious ownership of effective weapons for defensive use.
Projection: it’s all they have left except for the wailing and gnashing of teeth….
The evil, libtard (democrat) morons sure love their power (gun) grab.
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