Right from the start I wondered why the Obama Administration wouldn’t want to put cops in every school in America—other than the fact the idea was proposed by NRA Veep Wayne LaPierre after the Sandy Hook slaughter. More money for the unions. Bigger government. It all makes sense. And now The Washington Post reports that Vice President Biden’s civilian disarmament commission is receptive to the idea. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.)—she of the “let’s put the National Guard in schools” proposal— said the Veep “appeared receptive” to the cop-in-every-school proposal. “If a school district wants to have a community policing presence, I think it’s important that they have it,” Boxer told the Post. “If they want uniformed officers, they can do it. If they want plainclothed officers, they can do it.” Is this Boxer jockeying for limelight or part of an assault weapons ban climbdown? Watch this space.

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77 COMMENTS

  1. ROAR.

    Marijuana arrests way up? Check.

    No effect at all on tragic statistical anomalies? Check.

    Snake oil and sugar pills for the masses? CHECK!

    • You also forgot to add that it’s another step along the path to just the kind of police state and fascism that the clowns on this board are supposedly so vehemently against.

      When you and your kids have to present your papers to jackbooted high school dropouts every time you want to take a dump just remember that not agreeing to reasonable firearms restrictions sent us down this sad road. I honestly can’t believe that in my lifetime I will see armed guards at a school – it’s just beyond pathetic that the country has come to this.

      England doesn’t even have an armed police force, let alone storm troopers in their schools, but of course they know nothing about how to run a country there, do they? At least according to the “Armed intelligentsia” – LOL, what a joke.

      • Not true, entire sections of the UK ar patroled by armed police. The Violent crime rates for the UK are 300% higher than the US

      • Here we go again. So it is our fault that schools are “no guns zones” and teachers and faculty can not defend themselves and their students? How exactly will more firearm restrictions – reasonable or not, depending on point of view – protect anybody from next crazy guy who kills his mother and steals her rifle to murder as many people as he can before he suicides? I will not even repeat how the violent crime rises in England. But if it is so great in GB, why don’t you move there and stop trying to rob us of our rights.

      • There you go again with your “reasonable” restrictions. Call it what it is: RESTRICTIVE restrictions.

        Now… that’s better, huh?

      • From my readings lately, i have found there are actually 7 or 8 other people in this country that think like hmmmmmm. Never woulda thought.

      • It’s funny, I was agreeing with everything up until you let your irrational inner gun-grabber gremlin out of its cage and somehow equated the fact that we NOT give up our rights to the rise of the oncoming fascist police states. Because retaining freedom leads to fascism…what?

        This one’s going in my compendium of dumbest things antis have ever said, and it’s a dang long list already.

      • hmmmm… First, you’re not allowed to refer to England in the UK as shorthand for “The UK” or “Britain.” You’ll receive a Violation of PC fine. Second, Britain has a class-conflict problem that makes South-Central vs. Brentwood look tame. Third, the no-guns days have been gone for some years, and The City of London led the way with their little gun wagons. Oh, and fourth, the UK is even broker than us due to their attempt to buy off the reluctant-to-work classes.

      • Apparently you’ve never been to England. I have, and most of the cops there WERE Armed, I told one I was a US gun owner and though only SWAT teams there had guns, he laughed and said there are more armed cops now than ever and it started shortly after they figured out the ban didn’t work. There were cops in my schools at all times, I went to school in the 80’s & 90’s. The idea of people being around to protect children is not new! The UK has a MUCH higher violent crime rate than the US does.

      • ” it’s just beyond pathetic that the country has come to this.”

        Awww. Tears of a liberal, what a great start to the weekend!

      • If Englad is such a great place, and knows so much about running a country…why aren’t we still a colony? 🙂

  2. It’s odd how an idea that received such public scorn when espoused by the NRA is now gaining more and more traction when others (including Sandy Hook parents) say it.

      • No, it wont happen. They will either show the people it was the great hippie leaders (Bill Clinton) idea or Obama will take full credit.

      • They won’t admit it, but I’m sure the NRA will be sure to take credit. They aren’t afraid of taking sole credit for court case victories primarily worked on by the SAF lol.

      • Sometimes the messenger drowns out the message.

        Personally, I think the SAF should have been picked to deliver the armed-responders-in-schools message, then the NRA could have followed a day later with “yeah, what they said, and BTW FOAD on disarmament”.

        The NRA is by turns the most effective and the most demonized force in gun politics. If we don’t recognize that and work around it, we’ll continue to see stuff like the PR debacle post LaPierre press conference.

        • Debacle maybe in your mind. NRA lifer here and I think Wayne did just fine. He delivered the one-liner that the American people need to guide them on an issue: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun”. Golf clap.

        • AlphaGeek, I agree with Joke & Dagger. I thought that LaPierre was both correct and effective. I understand that some detractors might prefer somebody who’s glib and telegenic. But if you ask me, glib and telegenic is why we’re in the soup now. And yes, I’m talking about Obama, Clinton and the rest of that gang of telegenic thieves.

        • Ralph, JD,

          I do agree that, ultimately, the message made it out to the people who needed to hear it, and in many cases had independently reached the same conclusion themselves. The NRA and WLP do deserve credit for that, and I’m relieved to see that is the case. However, I shouldn’t have to feel relieved. I should be feeling a little smug that my pro-2A org is reliably kicking ass.

          I criticize because I care, and because “it turned out ok” is NEVER preferable to hitting a home run. I look at the press conference and the aftermath and think “if this turned out ok, imagine how much better it could have been if the NRA weren’t the face of eeeevil and they had a better frontman than WLP.”

      • That’s because they weren’t right. It’s a terrible idea for all the reason mentioned above and more.

        Which is why it will happen. Just like the Patriot Act and the creation of the Department of Homeland “Security”.

        And for the same reason, too; panicky politicians who just want to “do something” even if it’s a freedom-stomping mutant abortion of a turd kind of “something”.

    • rhetorical question: “Should politicians, workplaces, govt. offices, celeberties, and banks, be more worthy of protection than your children?”

      See, emotional argument.

      Even those guys who use emotions to their advantage cannot fight this one.

      The attack on the NRA was a knee jerk reaction but parents especially mothers want their children protected. The only disagreement is that if teachers should be armed.

      BTW, there are more communities that are looking and already securing their schools as of January 1st before DC does anything. In addition, many schools that are being newly built or being designed are also being redone to include better security measures including bullet proof doors.

      • “Should politicians, workplaces, govt. offices, celeberties, and banks, be more worthy of protection than your children?”

        They already are, whether we like it or not. Obama just reversed the 1994 EO and authorized lifetime Secret Service protection for former presidents (the EO covers W and Obama, nobody before but everyone after). The order also provides SS protection for children of the ex-prexys until the kids turn 16.

    • Cops in schools? It’s a statist’s wet dream.

      Between walking the halls and looking out for bad guys what’s a resource officer to do? Well, I’m sure there will be lots of opportunities to report back to headquarters about political incorrectness and other behavioral misdeeds. Don’t want the kiddies getting out of line…

        • Yes, it’s true that in this case the synonym for “visible deterrent” may be “high-priority target”. And I’m OK with that. It comes with the territory, and anyone who doesn’t get that shouldn’t take the job.

          Or, y’know, the jackhole intending to commit violence may want to avoid taking on the guy wearing a IIIA vest and carrying a gun. Just a thought.

  3. I think we need to get to removing gun free zone labels and allowing conceal carry by staff. I also support the idea of specialized training for teachers and faculty who choose to conceal carry in school. In a one day course they can learn a lot about retention and conflict resolution in the unique environment that a school provides.

    I believe the elimination of gun free zones to be the best end game. While putting police officers in schools will be a rediculously costly affair, it is at least a step in the right direction of normalizing guns in schools.

    I do fear, however, while any future mass shootings will be detered or stopped short in schools that they will simply target other “high capacity gun free zones” such as malls and theaters.

    • True, but at least in a mall or a movie theater we can be armed. When I am teaching, as it stands right now, I am pretty much defenseless.

      • Is the Promenade at Howard Hughes Center a gun-free zone? I mean, you know, the criminals used knives.

        http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=169124028

        Robbers Assault Some Hostages At Los Angeles Store

        LOS ANGELES (AP) — Robbers stabbed a clothing store employee and sexually assaulted another during an hours-long hostage drama that ended early Friday with a police SWAT team surging into the shop and rescuing 14 workers.

        No robbers were found. Police were seeking at least two men and also were trying to determine whether a vehicle found abandoned in neighboring Culver City was the getaway vehicle.

    • The only normalization it’ll do is “The government can have guns. It’s ok, because they’re the government. They’re better than us.” Let teachers carry. I’ve heard too much bull about “Well, what if the teacher snapped?” and “what if the kids got ahold of the gun?”

      If there were actual grounds for those to be concerns, then it would happen a shitload more in the general public than it does.

      • “what if the kids got ahold of the gun?”

        The high school I attended has had a police officer on campus for at least ten years. Several years ago some students jumped him and took his gun. A lot of good he did.

        One or two officers isn’t going to make a difference in a large, or even small, school. Only the threat of an unknown number of opposing guns will stop these mass killings. Not everyone needs to be armed, but those that want to should be enabled.

        LaPierre said it best, “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

        • The plural of anecdote is not data.

          One example of a cop losing a gun-retention struggle is not evidence that LEOs on campus are ineffective as a deterrent to a mass murderer, or as armed response to any violent incursion.

  5. I retired from a public school district. When I started we did not have cops on campus. What we had at the high school level was: Armed gang members coming on campus from out of town to settle a score with a student. Somebody snitched and they were intercepted on the parking lot before they got to the building.

    We had men coming onto campus and dealing drugs. We had other men on campus hanging out in, yes in, the girls restrooms.

    We had gang fights on campus. Lunch was so rough at one High school that the Micky D’s on the corner closed during the schools lunch period.

    We had 2 students get into an argument and the resulting fight ended in a stabbing death. Yes, people can kill without guns.

    I can go on for hours. I found a prestaged box of 12 gauge shells after a tip by a student. The student who staged them was found and after an investigation he never returned to campus.

    It was amazing to me the number of these incidents that occurred and never made the news or were known to the public.

    After we got a cop on each high school campus the incidents dropped a good 90%. I’ll let you decide if it was a good idea to put cops on campus.

    • I’ll also point out that it’s not an either/or between cops and CCW. People want to “solve” the problem and move on, but it’s not as simple as funding one full-time LEO per campus.

      It’s emotionally more acceptable to the gun-frightened population, right now, to bring a “trained” authority figure onto campus to introduce armed response. I need look no further than the teachers in my family to validate that one.

      As that becomes normalized, and as we continue to make progress on CCW, then I think we can make inroads on CCW for non-LEOs. It’s already an option under Federal law, as long as it’s authorized by the school district. Repealing GFSZ would be great, but it seems unlikely to happen — and, as noted, there’s a workaround already.

      Sorry, I know I should be pushing the Overton Window as far as I can in the direction we want, but this is my realistic assessment of what I think is actually achievable in 2013.

      • Nice. And the one retired cop can transition to his supplementary role as CCW Trainer & Consultant. It seems so straightforward that people tend to gawk slack-jawed and think “could it really be that easy?” Yes it could.

        • Thanks. I didn’t want to over-complicate my points, so I’ll add here that simple economics may dictate the outcome.

          It is less efficient to pay someone to only perform security duties, than it is to have security duties covered by staff who perform functions which provide tangible value day-to-day. Teachers, office staff, IT, administration.

          As a society I personally think we should fund a single designated armed responder per public school, provided by the local police or sheriff’s department. Beyond that security should be further bolstered by enabling a second tier of armed response, namely CCW by school staff who volunteer to do so.

          I am explicitly making a value decision that the risk is worth the cost of a single full-time LEO, but beyond that the most cost-effective means of addressing the risk is enabling a self-selecting segment of the school staff to act effectively as defenders of life.

        • Alpha, have you been a school lately? Maybe 1 in 100 teachers would carry. Throw in the whiny teachers unions. Your teacher carrying in a public school fantasy is amusing. Local, certified resource officers.

        • JD, half my family are teachers. I know what we are up against. I also know that there is no perfect security, and though this may sound cold blooded, I will absolutely support a solution in which only a few are active defenders even though that means in a Newtown scenario that some unarmed victims will die while therunning towards the gunfire.

          That’s because the alternatives, hoping for enough armed patrols to cover all sectors or for all teachers to carry? Ain’t gonna happen.

  6. What, level 35 holster, free cell phone for perp to call relatives before commencing firing. At least its a start, Randy

  7. Getting the kids indoctrinated into the belief that uniform = good guy/no uniform = bad guy?
    Expansion of TSA to grope in more areas?

    Governments aren’t known for actions that honestly improve a situation, but they are known for finding subtle ways to increase their own power and control.

    Let the teachers choose (or not) to be armed, and allow citizens to help.

  8. The leftists woke up this morning and suddenly realized that police in every school promotes authoritarian expansion and and conditions kids to be around and be subservient to representatives of absolute authority. Now suddenly it’s a good idea. This has nothing to do with keeping kids safe.

    I support armed CITIZENS in every school. Get some VETERANS in the schools. Communities have plenty of qualified non-police who would be willing to step up, and they’re much better shots in general.

    • My Congressman supports having an armed deterrent in schools, but he thinks this is more of a state issue than a federal one. I happen to agree with him.

      There is nothing in federal law that says states can’t allow teachers to be armed if they want to be. The Gun-Free School Zones Act isn’t quite as expansive as some imply.

      If we start pushing this at the state level rather than the federal one, different states will likely adopt different solutions. While some states may choose to have uniformed police, others my choose to let teachers and administrators be armed.

      The important thing is to let states choose instead of the federal government.

    • Exactly. There are 1000’s of veterans in need of a job. No need for an actual LEO. Besides the veteran is likely better trained and a much better shot anyway. Retired or former cops would do as well. Even volunteer parents. I’d do it one day a week at my kids school.

      Also, I noticed the change in tone once the CT parents started begging that the LEO on temp duty stay because they’re afraid and concerned.

    • Agree. Permitting a dignified retreat will reduce the bitterness. They will still remember the beating and focus on something else for a time.

  10. WLP message suggestion to put cops in schools (or simply provide more realistic protection for school kids) struck more of a cord with Joe and Jane soccer parents and Main Street working Americans than the elitists, mass media, leftists, and gun-grabbers want to believe. I think that is one reason for their screaming hysterical uproar to his speech.

    Immediately after the speech, communities, parents, and non-dependent Americans including teachers began discussing the reality they live with daily on Main Street America recognizing and highlighting the divide between the elitist kids who have armed protection and the 99% who don’t at school. To fight this growing demand (while their own kids were protected) would be very bad politics for the Left.

    There will be some good things coming out of this CT tragedy: more new gun owners, more CC permit holders, more demand to protect school kids and a growing recognition that Gun Free Zones are magnets for gun violence, and grass roots pro-gun safety/security cooperation within local communities. Teachers, an important demographic, now want to learn about, own, and carry guns and as they do so they will learn that guns are tools that can be used for good or evil.

    I think many in the mass media and politics have given themselves a black eye with their elitist reaction and behaviors from calling for bans, regulating ammo, and to law abiding outing gun owners in New York.

    • +1. It’s been fascinating to see how strong the pro-2A pushback has been in online discussion of these stories. If this had happened 10 years ago, it would have been a very different narrative from the commoners.

      I find it particularly telling that a very significant number of the folks publicly challenging the media line on disarmament are women. All of those independent single women (that so many conservatives love to hate) have found that the best way to prevent rape or assault, when you’re smaller and weaker, is to have a gun.

      If the 2A community wants to make inroads into the liberal/Democratic voting base, single women are the “target market”. The problem is that gun rights advocates are so frequently entangled with conservative/GOP issue advocacy that the prospective 2A supporters never hear the message.

      • Thanks for your reply. The pro2A push back has been surprising and in a good way. I think the big mass medias are still emotionally back in the glory days when they were the almost exclusive gatekeeper of the news before the Internet and cable TV.

        I don’t think women en mass embracing gun ownership was something expected or foreseen by the elitists and social engineers decades ago. Guns are a deterrent and they do help reduce rape attempts, street assaults, and home intrusions. Guns are often nothing new to own among many conservative women.

        IMO, single men whom like myself are ghosting — turning one’s back and not supporting modern society, government, and women by going on the marriage strike, etc — are also reviled by the social conservative and progressives alike.

        I think that many of those single women might not be so independent since they support creating a quasi-socialist police-nanny state far more than men. Those women, far more than men, still often want and need welfare support from their ex-b/f ex-husbands and/or the government to help raise their kids and pay for schooling etc. In effect, they are still dependent on others at least financially.

        You’re correct that many or most 2A advocates are very embedded with conservative issues and politics. I guess it has simply evolved that way over time since historically until recently most democrats and liberals grew to disdain guns. Americans have polarized the past 40+ years. Gun ownership is spreading, diversifying, and changing for the better…I think.

      • AG,

        I wrote a long reply. It has gone into cyber limbo. Tried a second time and it won’t yet publish. I think I need to start writing short comments at this site since I’m wasting my time if my comments won’t publish.

        • The moderation bot seems to be in overdrive today. Drop the editorial staff a note and they should be able to promote it out of the moderation queue.

      • I’m a fiscal conservative and don’t have the slightest hate for single women. I’ll leave the set-piece jokes aside and simply say that the future belongs to those who see the virtues in promoting self-responsible behavior in both men and women. With that attitude what divides us will fade away and what naturally brings us together will remain. What more could one ask for?

  12. Mission creep will make us regret this one.

    I’ll keep my kids in private school with private guards with guns and no policing power.

  13. “Is this Boxer jockeying for limelight or part of an assault weapons ban climbdown?”

    Neither. Well, probably yes to part one, no to part two. Putting police in schools is a gigantically expensive government solution, so of course they’ll go right for it. Especially if it makes them look like they’re Doing Something.

    And besides, they’re not putting guns in the hands of the dangerous and unstable masses, they’re putting more of them in the hands of the government, where they (don’t) belong.

  14. Obama Administration Planning to Put Police in Schools?

    Good. They can use the education. Then maybe they’d be able to tell one address from another and learn that dogs are good and shooting them is bad.

  16. This is more of a smoke screen Obama doesn’t want real solutions he wants to ban guns. SO in the end he may give lip service but no he wont go with NRA and gun owners in putting security in schools.

  17. the rhetoric used in this is probably apt for the Apple generation of folks. Others innovate first and present something tangible and useful. Apple follows suit and the general public goes wild saying it’s the latest, greatest, and best.

  18. This isn’t one or the other. We are going to get the armed guards at great expense and gun bans anyway.

  19. It seems to me the hangover produced by “Fast and Furious” dodging, trial balloons of “we don’t need no stinkin’ constitution” and the waffling of big cities unwilling to handle their own problems….are going to leave millions more accepting the fact that the major gun question is actually “which one should we buy, honey?” “All Your Guns are Belong to US” isn’t flying in my pretty little suburb. The notion is spreading, I think, that When Guns are Controlled Only Our Controllers will Have Guns.

  20. Home-school.

    Do not send your precious children to crowded CorpGov Indoctrination Camps in the POLIS (Greek for City-State.)

    POLIs
    POLIce
    POLItics
    POLIcy
    POLLs

    Police-State, City-State. What’s the difference?

    “When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” ~Thomas Jefferson

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