David Reidman: Some Cops Can’t Shoot, So Let’s Keep America’s Teachers Disarmed

By
Dan Zimmerman
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92

 

For those of you who don’t want to click over to Twitter (it’s still Twitter to me) to read Larry Correia’s full retort to this civilian disarmament talking point, here’s what he wrote . . .

This ain’t the own this moron thinks it is.

How well is an armed teacher gonna do? Better. Because they are highly motivated at the time to not die.

This is more a commentary on modern LE training and tactics than on the viability of CCW. Especially when you consider the hundreds of examples of regular citizens shooting and prevailing in real life incidents. In this case IIRC the cops breached the wall with an armored car a couple hours after the attack.

Apples and oranges compared to a random person who was standing there while the event unfolded. But it isn’t like anti-gun vultures got time for nuance. They’ve got blood to dance in.

That’s a pretty spot-on takedown. We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the claim that cops fired 150 rounds and only 8 hit the Pulse Nightclub shooter, but it sounds plausible, so let’s stipulate that. Would that surprise you at all given what we know about law enforcement firearm proficiency and performance in other situations?

Correia is correct. The response to the Pulse shooting took a long time, but it was worse than he remembers. It took three hours for cops to finally enter the club. In the grand tradition of spectacular law enforcement response failures such as those at Parkland and Uvalde, police ignored post-Columbine protocols and set up a perimeter rather than going in right away to stop the killer and save as many lives as possible.

As for how well an armed teacher might do in an active shooter situation, 1) who the hell cares and 2) as Correia points out, given the number of defensive gun uses in this country every year (anyone remember Eli Dicken?) and a teacher’s incentive to protect her own life and those of her students, we’ll take those odds.

Never mind the fact that no school with armed teachers has every been attacked. That’s probably just a coincidence, though.

In the end, “data scientist” David Reidman who maintains the K-12 School Shooting Database seems to be arguing that because cops are sometimes cowardly (certainly not all) and can be terrible marksmen, arming teachers is therefore a bad idea, they should be kept disarmed, and deprived of the most effective way to counter a prospective killer.

We don’t know where you need to go to school to reach conclusions like that from whatever data you’re science-ing, but Reidman should be asking for a refund.

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92 COMMENTS

  1. I have to admit that if I rolled up on a mass shooting at a gay bar I would give the gunman a while to vent their spleen before I got around to doing anything. Can’t stand sodomites.

      • What he said is pathetic and disgusting. But how was that different when libertarians liberals and the left, supported the police standing down and doing nothing. During the riots???

        “we allowed them room to destroy”

      • I assume you are talking to me? As an officer I have ZERO legal obligation to protect anyone. There are some I will stick my neck out for and some that I write a report for. Any of the leter crowd I will not do a thing extra for.

        • I left that part out because I figured that would be your response. And I’d let you say it.
          I carry a gun wherever I go. If they’re going to wand me? Or I have to walk through a metal detector, then I don’t go in.

          So no clubs for me.

        • As a Christian I have issues with certain groups and their lifestyles but your attitude is really unfortunate.

        • So…. To protect and to serve, but only the ones I want to? Everyone is entitled to their opinion but if that’s modern day law enforcement, I want no part of you.

      • Pathetic and disgusting? You must be part of this new cultural revolution. Kweer is kweer, and we don’t need them grooming our children. Tell me again, WTF do 6 to 10 year old children need to read pornographic gay material? When we get up to post-pubescent children, the conversation changes, some. But, one more time: WTF are we allowing kweers into our schools to groom children?

    • To protect and to serve is just a catchy motto with no foundation in law. I won’t give CPR to a toothless meth head either despite being a trained medic. If you want the police to behave a certain way make what you want into a law that I must follow and I’ll do it.

    • “I have to admit that if I rolled up on a mass shooting at a gay bar…”

      You sound like someone very familiar with the gay bar scene and what happens there.

      Did some fruitcake laugh at the size of your microscopic junk once? 😉

      • So far in my life no fruit cake has ever been able to get a look at my junk to be able to comment on it. I know exactly what goes on in gay bars. A whole lot of substance abuse because gay culture is a boat floating in an ocean of drug and alcohol abuse. We average 40 to 60 DWI arrest per weekend from our local gay bars and about half of those pick up a felony drug possession charge once we arrest them and inventory their vehicle. They are defective people that need to be euthanized or institutionalized, I can’t stand any of them and believe the world would be a better place without them.

    • “We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the claim that cops fired 150 rounds and only 8 hit the Pulse Nightclub shooter”

      Given 150 rounds fired by police and only 8 hitting the shooter, it seems some of them maybe had the idea of …

      “I have to admit that if I rolled up on a mass shooting at a gay bar I would give the gunman a while to vent their spleen before I got around to doing anything.”

  2. Well, I think the author should realize the same thing happens in the military during combat and there is the same reason why firing squads have at least one rifle shooting blanks. Many people no matter what their role cannot shoot another human being. On the other hand, there are plenty who can, and it doesn’t matter who you are or what your profession is. Not all cops or military are as exhaustively trained as you might think and some police departments are still in a fairly primitive state and today don’t even get the support when they do the right thing. Hundreds of good people with firearms prevent violence and crimes daily and you never hear about it. The bottom line is those who can, will and those you can’t, will not. Teachers should be trained and taught how to shoot if they have the proper mentality to use a firearm in defense of themselves or others. No one really knows until you are in a situation where you have to choose.

    • dprato – you’ve left out an important bit of data in your response. The military believes in volume of fire. They use suppressive fire, specifically, which isn’t really intended to hit anything – the goal is to make the enemy keep their heads down while your side maneuvers. Police, on the other hand, are kinda expected to hit their target, and to NOT HIT innocent bystanders.

      I agree with the rest of your post, but you gotta put some of those statistics into perspective. The statistics don’t really make cops look any better, here.

  3. One of the people who died in the Parkland shooting was a teacher/coach who had both the time and presence of mind to try and shield some students with his own body. I don’t doubt for one second the outcome would have been completely different had he been allowed to conceal carry.

    • Absolutely! Unfortunate that he wasn’t armed and also unfortunate that his family can’t sue the fuck out of the school board and Sheriff’s Dept.

    • Two weeks prior to that school attack the admin of that joint had held talks with the developers and primcipals of Ohio’s FASTER Saves Lives programme. The school eedjits decided they were not interested in that programme. Yes, had they implemented that programme at Parklend the dirtbag shooter would not have attacked… in the ttwo thousand school districts across the nation where FASTER or equivalent has been inplace, there has been NOT ONE gun involved incident of any kind. And I am firmly confnced Aaron Feiss the teacher mentioned above, would have egerly vlunteered for the programme, taken it, and passed the qualifications, all of them, with flying colours. His final actions during the shooting PROVE beyond any question that he WOULD have gone to bat for HIS students….. a ery big hearted man lies cold and dead because of this incident.

    • I read about this hero in the book, Why Meadow Died, and have always wondered how many in society would exhibit that kind of courage. Recently, I read an article about him that claimed he was a CCW holder but was prohibited from bringing his legal firearm onto school grounds, a dedicated “gun free zone”………….at least until the killer showed up. The rampage shooter was a disturbed young man who had multiple disciplinary problems in school, some violent, and around two dozen contacts with law enforcement. No arrests. He was also reported to the FBI for making online threats about shooting up a school. Then there is Deputy NoGuts who hid outside while kids were being murdered. A gun didn’t kill those kids, government did.

  4. I vaguely recall something about a study showing that the CCW carrier was a much better shot, to the tune of ‘number of hits vs fired’ being 70% or better, while the cops were somewhere below 10%. I’ll have to dig a bit and see if I can find it. Hint: I believe the researcher said it was primarily due to the CCW folks getting in at least 5 to 10 times the range time in that the cops did.

    • I remember a study put out by the buckeye firearms association in ohio a few years back. I will try and find a link.
      It basically said civilian c c w carriers were better trained than your average police officer. Because civilians went out of their way to look for training.

      While the police looked at training on the weekends as “work”, and they didn’t want to work on their days off.

      • I am a retired L.E. officer and the most dangerous part of my job was range qualification day. My old dept had a qualification requirement every three months. It was pathetic how bad it was. Some officers had to do remedial training just to meet bare qualification requirements. There was about 10% of officers that actually practiced on personal time, mostly because they were hunters as a hobby. The issue with the others was that they were never raised or grew up around firearms, hell there were officers never held a gun until they were hired. Most of these officers grew up in large cities. Range gun safety was horrendous. I like being retired.

    • Young friend of mine, 15 at the time, was in the local Poilce Explorers unit, working directly with Portland Oregin Police Bureau. They got eposed to a lot of cop life, were all interested in learning more and all cinsidering ersuing later employment/service as a poice officer. One day when his Post were at the Bureau facility, it happened to be range qualification day for a group of PPB officers. After they shot, Explorers watching, the group leader asked if any of the Ex0loreres woud also loke to tri they hand at the qualification test. So they armed up took the line and began their timed qualification shoot. None of the young men had handled the make/model side arm in use. No “breakin” period, All shot cold, the handgun new to them. When it was all over, the highest score of the entire day, including all the officers, was my friend’s. He outshot every one of the duty cops.
      Shortly after he egan to read i the newspapers about the rot and compromise deeply embedded in PPB especially during the mostly peaceful” riots, and the POB role in the nightly battles downtown. He decided he did NOT want to become involved with suc a weak and corrupt organisation as the PPB. Las tie I saw him he was driving a chip truck for a local pulp mill. Not much poitics involved there. Load up, set the tarp and adjust the tag axles, drive two hours drop, dump, recouplem drive ack deadhead. Home every night payday is secind and fourth friday every month. Chance of getting shot or mugged: as near zero as any other possible job, with pay comensurate to what e’d be gettig at PPB Sleeps well at night low tension gig

    • A publicized case in Los Angles had a group of cops shooting at a suspect seated in a pick up truck. With over 100 rounds fired minimum (no figures on the upper end) the cops managed to hit their target once with a hit to the hand. Of course, lots of parked cars (fortunately, no peeps seated in any of the parked cars which seems to be a habit of folks in certain neighborhoods) and lot of buildings sporting bullet holes — oh, and the truck did have some bullet holes too. So that equals a hit ration of 1% or less. This is in a situation where the object of the fusillade was not shooting back. Who knows what the hit ration would have been had he been returning fire. A deputy sheriff in my print shop getting some printing done for a sheriff-sponsored anti-drug program was chatting with me about an M-1 carbine someone had gifted him. He was stating how much fun it was to shoot but that ammo was so expensive. This was way back in the days of yesteryear where a brick of .22s at Big Five was $10.00 and a box of 9 mm was in the $2.50 to $3.00 range. I suggested that he get a copy of Shotgun News where there were ads for bulk lots of .30 carbine. He replied that he would have to buy 500 rounds which he would never use as he wasn’t into guns — as he stood there with a department issued Sig on his hip. I wish I had died, gone to heaven where St. Peter gifted me an M-1 carbine. Even that many years ago they were commanding respectable prices. You can imagine what this deputy’s shooting scores must be like. He was like the guys in the Marine Reserve unit I belonged to who hated to go to the range to qualify. Hated to go to the range? It was my dream weekend. As an NCO I didn’t have to pull butts. I got free almost all the ammo I wanted to shoot. Free use of a rifle which the I&I staff had to clean as we got back to the reserve center too late to clean rifles. AND I got paid to have a good time. I always looked forward to qualification weekends. Shooting up a couple hundred rounds of free .30-06; a rifle I didn’t have to clean, targets pulled and marked for me, and paid to do it on top of all the freebies. Let’s do this every quarter! And there were guys who bitched about having to go to the range. I don’t know why they were in the Marine Corps Reserve. You know, every Marine a rifleman. AND you get paid to shoot! How could life be any better? So, I suspect there are a lot of cops like Deputy Gun Hater who hates to go to the range. Hates shooting a noisy, dirty gun. Hates having to police up the brass and does lousy at it to boot. Naturally the noise of gunfire scares them and they don’t want to do their job and engage someone who might shoot back. Much better to beat up on drunks who are already handcuffed and throw a felony resisting charge on them instead of just a simple DUI. Don’t get me wrong. We need cops for the show of force but they waste a lot of their time on stuff that should be outside the scope of their duties, like busting a guy who is selling cigarettes one stick at a time and it takes six of them to do it. Good to know crime is at such a low ebb in NYC.

      • Tion,

        Took an M1 Garand to a few high power rifle shoots, and they were using surplus .30-06 mil ball. Warm up targets at 100 yards looked like a mouse had chewed holes all over the entire target.

        Told them no thanks, and switched back to hand loads.

        Groups promptly went back down to ‘mostly’ centered, but at that point, it wasn’t the gun or the ammo, it was mostly the operator looking through the peep sight!

      • That publicized case came at a time when a rogue cop (Christopher Dorner) was on the loose killing people, and the whole city was totally freaked out. In this instance, two cops were standing guard at the mouth of a street leading to a cul-de-sac armed with Ar-15s, when the paper lady drove into the neighborhood at 5 a.m. Even though the paper lady (and her mother who was a passenger) was driving a vehicle that DID NOT match the description of the perp’s vehicle, the officers standing guard got so scared they opened up- on these poor ladies. They perforated the truck, several (high end) cars parked in the cul-de-sac, and the houses behind those cars. Mother got a graze wound to her hand.

  5. Most LEOs no longer have to qualify with their handguns. Many countries gave up on even issuing handguns to their various Law Enforcement Officers, but instead issue Carbines. Assuming that a teacher would agree to school carry, and knowing the amount of time, money, and effort required to qualify to school carry, it is easy to see that they would be so much more inclined to practice than so many of the current crop of LEOs who see a firearm as another thing they have to carry, and hope they never have to use it. As LEOs now mainly use pistols, one has to wonder how many LEOs have even function tested to see if their magazines work properly. Yes – I did buy a magazine that required some TLC to run properly from the first round, and I do clean magazines after I use them.

  6. He makes a good argument for every school to have a gun range on-campus.

    It can be used to teach safe gun handling for the students, and the PTA can raise funds to provide ammo for teacher training rounds…

  8. It took cowardly cops three hours and 150 rounds to hit the Pulse shooter 8 times.

    It took the officers in Nashville 16 minutes to get three rounds into the shooter (and the cop who fired was only on scene for like 3 minutes before firing)

    If you arm teachers, you will find both of these outcomes play out again. Sometimes you will have cowardly teachers who worry about saving their own lives and not others and sometimes you will have people sprinting toward danger to protect strangers.

    In some situations we will not be able to beat the three hours mark, but in some situations we will be able to make 3 minutes seem long. that will save far more students than continuing to do nothing.

    • In most cases, the teacher would not have to sprint anywhere. They’d just need to get the students out of the line of fire and take a position behind cover with a clear shot at the door that any threat needs to come through.

    • It took Elisjsha Dicken less than 2 minutes to kill the Indiana mall shooter (AR-15), and he did it from 20 yards away. With a handgun. While training can be a component of ones ability to act in certain situations. More often than not it has to do with strength of resolve and a willingness to act when needed.

        • “And he also trained with shooting long range with his pistol.”

          According to Dicken; he had no formal training, no military or police training, his grand father taught him how to shoot and he did not practice “shooting long range”, and he did use ‘firing ranges’ (established formally or not is not known) for his shooting. That’s all we know about ‘training’ for Dicken and that came from him.

        • .40cal,

          I have also never spent a day in an “official” LEO or military training program. I have no idea if the ranges I frequent are “official” (according to WHOM?, exactly??) or not. I do know I’ve spent more time, more money, and more ammunition, on “training” than the several LEOs, and many ex-military, I know. Anecdotal, of course, but . . . in my experience, civilian shooters that are “serious shooters” (the ones you see at the range EVERY time you go, that always show up at local competitions, etc.) can shoot rings around most cops, and any except very elite military.

          There are, of course, exceptions. One of my bestest buddies is a retired Army Ranger, and he was (in)famous for his ability to shoot his 1911, with EITHER hand, with deadly accuracy . . . staggering drunk. (NOT, NOT, NOT, endorsing that practice!!!!!). But he could put 8 rounds in the 10-ring, dead-@$$ drunk, with either hand, at 20 yards. EVERY. FREAKIN’. TIME. That is what is known as ‘muscle memory’. Scary little bastard could also bench press 275 without a strain. Some military just train to higher standards than we mortals.

      • “It took Elisjsha Dicken less than 2 minutes to kill the Indiana mall shooter (AR-15), and he did it from 20 yards away.”

        1. He did it in 15 seconds, after getting people out of harms way as much as he could.
        2. It was 40 yards, not 20 yards

    • As a college student teacher I carried everyday. And no. It was not a Full size handgun. What most people who support arming teachers don’t understand is. The weapon will be limited in size and capacity.

      Any armed teacher will not be open carrying their gun like a cop would. That is not going to happen. It will be CCW only.

      No school administrator would ever support open carry in a school by a teacher.

      I hand a beretta 21A. In 22LR. That was all I had. And I trained to hit a target at 25 yards. I’m currently testing a Keltek p32 and a charter arms revolver in 32Mag.
      Because both are lighter and smaller.

      The murderous lesbi@n shooter in Nashville wrote that she chose that school. Because others she considered had better defenses she observed.

      What where those defenses were that deterred her??? We don’t know because they won’t release the manifesto.

      • And yes I was breaking the rules while I carried a gun on campus. And so were the people who walked on to school grounds, while carrying guns and started shooting teachers and students.

        • There are currently teachers in CA who carry despite the “rules” because lives are more important. They do it very carefully.
          I can say this now because even if I was traced it could not be connected to anyone specific who is still in that practice.

    • Well, reasonable minds can differ. I think any teacher who volunteers to be an armed student protector will have a different mindset than the cops who are on the job only because the pay is very good for their skill set and are looking forward to retiring to FL as soon as they have 20 in. I think the gym teacher who shielded his students with his body would have willingly and actively engaged the shooter even to the extent of losing his own life. You may disagree but neither of us will know the actual truth. I do think also that knowledge that some teachers at the school were armed and ready to use their firearms would have obviated the attack on the school.

      • The BIG deference between a LE and a teacher in a shooting situation. Is and will be, a teacher will never be seconded-guest when it occurs. In shooting situations LEs are more often than not Damned if they do and Damned if they don’t.

  10. I love showing folks the data for officer involved shootings versus concealed carry shootings. Also, guess which one can have weapon and domestic violence charges and still carry? WE have to have good records to have a license to pew, unlike… certain professions.

  11. Data scientists are often skilled at statistical comparison.

    They’re also often dogshit at being able to tell if the things they’re comparing are actually similar.

    • Lies, Damn Lies,and Statistics. I spent 5 years training people how to collect, correlate, define and present data while working in government. I also taught them how to manipulate that same data to support the preconceived needs, of those wanting said data. If necessary, to get a particular project approved or denied.

      • I can’t speak to government projects in this instance but I’ve seen plenty of high-end stats work done on things where the result is meaningless because the two things being compared simply aren’t something that can be compared in the manner that was done.

        Pointing this out doesn’t produce rage, it produces blanks stares. The people doing it are mostly totally oblivious that they’re comparing things that are really very different and so the comparison itself is faulty no matter how much math you use to do it. Wonks are often impractical and/or sheltered people.

        Testing the relative risk of oranges to get citrus blight in Florida vs the relative risk of ball bearings to rust in Michigan makes no sense but you can generate a lot of data comparing the effectiveness of various molecules in curing the blight that doesn’t tell you fuck all about increasing the rust resistance of the bearings but sure does make your potential blight treatments look like shitty rust prevention options. Unless of course you have a “blue pill moment”.

        This often is found in areas where selling something is at stake and keeping something relatively quiet assists in those sales.

        For instance: It doesn’t help Bacardi if the population knows that even what .gov classes as “light to moderate drinking” increases the risk of half a dozen cancers by 140-234% and that just one more drink boosts that to 243%.

        Or, put another way, a single drink is the equivalent to smoking a pack a day and three drinks a day is equivalent to a two pack a day habit. It sounds really bad when you say it that way.

        Such things don’t sell beer or spirits. In fact, they might make the booze industry more like the tobacco industry. Which isn’t something the alcohol industry wants, nor does .gov which is taxing the shit out of that rental piss people buy.

        Muddying things further, this is more about optics than anything else. The absolute risks these things present are a lot lower than most people would think. As I’ve pointed out before, the biggest cancer risk people commonly see is obesity. By a lot too. Obesity and drinking both have the same issue though, they’re so common that they create a load of statistical noise that’s hard to cut through while keeping people’s attention. Smoking was always rare enough that people could see the downsides to it, even in the late 1800’s.

        But “polite society” doesn’t say certain things and marketing works hard to keep you from saying other things.

  12. I used to shoot at a range that was often frequented by LPOs and LPO candidates. It was prudent and safer to leave the shooting line when they, especially the LPO candidates, went to the shooting stations. I saw numerous poor weapons handling incidents.

    • I watched a local swat team try to zero in their new equipment: $5,000 rifles and scopes with a similar price tag shooting Federal match .308. After expending 100 rounds they gave up and never did get on paper. I fell heir to 100 pieces of once-fired, Federal .308 match brass which they dumped in the brass bucket at our local club range. I also presided over a DCM match for the county sheriff’s swat team so they could qualify to buy an M-1 back when the DCM was selling them dirt cheap. The only one who got any rounds on the paper was the swat team leader who had set up the match so they could all buy M-1s. This was not a regular DCM match shot at 200, 300 and 600 yards, it was some minimal number of rounds fired slow fire, prone at 100 yards. No score was necessary, just shooting the required number of center fire rounds. No time limit except that imposed by me when I finally got tired of them fooling around and closed the range for the day.

      • OL,
        That blew some dust out of an old brain cell…

        I guy I went to school with had joined a police department and after a few years, became a member of the local drug task force team. His wife bought him a new rifle and scope combo for his birthday, (no, I don’t remember the specifics,) and he needed to sight it in. Brought it up to the small range my dad had on about 20 acres of land that he used mostly for the muzzle loading club. (BTW, Dads’ hobby was building muzzle loaders. Not the cave man looking Dixie Gun works stuff either. Tiger maple, wire inlays, hand engraved and fashioned patch boxes, the works. They were pieces of ART, and could shoot VERY well, too!)

        Anyway, I don’t think he’d even tried to bore sight it, and seemed to think that with a few shots, he’d dial it in. (Snicker.)

        I’d also tied some 1′ x 1′ 1/2 foot yellow balloons out by the 100 yard mark just for fun. He couldn’t hit any of the balloons, so I grabbed a little single shot iron sighted Anschutz .22 that dad had bought to give to the grand kids. It was pretty damn accurate if you fed it the right ammo.

        I was standing on the firing line, and started popping balloons, getting maybe three rounds off for two balloons…

        He was getting really po’d and yelled at me to knock it off….(Snicker some more..)

        It was slowly getting dusky and he started really swearing and grabbed a box of shells out of his bag and put a couple in the rifle. BLAM! Red streak on the way down range! F’n TRACERS!

        Not worried because the backstop was nice and wet from the rains the day before, but we started coaching him where the rounds were going, and he managed to at least get the scope on the paper before we lost the light.

        Gad, I’d completely forgotten about that!!

  13. The dynamics of the Pulse Nightclub fiasco are nothing like the dynamics of a teacher suddenly thrust into a spree-killer event.

    In the Pulse Nightclub fiasco, the spree killer had hours to choose the best defensible position and prepare any defenses. A spree killer who begins roaming the halls and classrooms of a school has no such advantages since an armed teacher could be anywhere and suddenly start a counterattack that the spree killer may not even see coming.

    If my child is in school when a spree killer attacks, I would choose armed teachers over armed police response every single time–without a second thought.

  16. People make more of this than is necessary. The idea is ‘arming teachers’ just seems ridiculous to me. This is the very kind of nonsense that makes bureaucracy cost so much money and give so little benefit. The fix for this is to get rid of the gun free zones. With that gone, teachers with a license to carry concealed would be all that is needed.

    You don’t need to arm them. Just quit disarming them.

  19. This article may be correct and then again, it may be nonsense. Who did they come up with the SWAT officers fired 150 rounds?

  21. Armed teachers? Have you any bloody idea as to how bizzare this sounds to anybody outside of America. Do you really think that anybody going to shoot up a school is going to be put off by an ARMED TEAChER? Not a chance.
    Get effin real for a cha nge. There is in any practical sense very little defence aginast a CLEVER [and do not mistake mental issues for a lack of intelligence or a sense of self preservation on the DETERMINED person from shooting up a school part of the shooter]

    All this does is to make teachers NUMBER ONE TARGET – I hope they realise that.

    If the training of the average US Police Officer is anything to go by whtathehell is the training of a teacherlikely to be and unlike would be Police Offiers you just cannot get rid ot teachers who cannot ‘pass’ the grade as PROFESSIONAL Gun Handlers,

    • Guns are tools. Nothing more. Regardless of who carries them. There is too much proof that anyone can be good with one with enough practice. Just like any other tool. The only “PROFESSIONAL Gun Handlers” are manufacturers and smiths.

    • “Do you really think that anybody going to shoot up a school is going to be put off by an ARMED TEAChER?”

      Yes. Proof: Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry Guns haven’t seen school shootings during school hours

      https://crimeresearch.org/2019/05/major-new-research-on-school-safety-schools-that-allow-teachers-to-carry-guns-havent-seen-school-shootings-during-school-hours/

      Proof: the Nashville shooter bypassed schools that were closer to her and chose the Covenant school because the others had better security.

      Proof: most shootings occur in gun-free zones.

    • Albert, I don’t give a flying f…what the “civilized(sic) world” thinks. We do what we have to do to protect our kids. Funny, but NONE of the schools that have an armed presence all the time be they police or teachers have ever had an incident of a “mass shooting”. Not any shooting of any kind. For your edification, it is NOT revealed who the armed teachers are as they are carrying CONCEALED.
      Don’t you worry about their training. Many police here and in Europe are not any where near expert with firearms.
      Now do us a favor, mind your own business. Seems Europe has a serious problem with people committing crimes with knives.

    • @Albert L J Hall

      “Armed teachers? Have you any bloody idea as to how bizzare this sounds to anybody outside of America.”

      it doesn’t matter what someone else from another country thinks its bizzare that a teacher would want to protect their self and students from a violent mentally ill person trying to kill them. That someone would want the means to save their life or the life or another is ‘bizzare’? Do you have any idea of how completely insane you sound with that?

      “Do you really think that anybody going to shoot up a school is going to be put off by an ARMED TEAChER?”

      Why yes, yes we do because it has happened. And in the general population of the United States repelling/stopping the bad guy happens thousands of times daily across the country too, not specifically for a mass shooting type incident even though that has happened, but against general crime, and even other active shooter events sometimes.

      “There is in any practical sense very little defence aginast a CLEVER [and do not mistake mental issues for a lack of intelligence or a sense of self preservation on the DETERMINED person from shooting up a school part of the shooter]”

      100% false

      “All this does is to make teachers NUMBER ONE TARGET – I hope they realise that.”

      No, gun free zones make teachers, school staff, students, and people a target – which is why over 95% of mass shootings (which includes school shootings) take place in gun free zones (which schools are also) because the killers know its not likely they will encounter a viable resistance because no one is suppose to have a gun in a gun free zone and the killer is simply free to ignore that. Gun free zones are basically a law enforced guarantee of defenseless prey for killers.

      “you just cannot get rid ot teachers who cannot ‘pass’ the grade as PROFESSIONAL Gun Handlers,”

      No one is asking teachers to be “PROFESSIONAL Gun Handlers”. Are you seriously that ignorant on the subject. Its completely voluntary, no teacher is forced to do it and the choice is up to them individually.

    • Albert Jerking off In the Hall,

      You might want to check with the Israelis about armed teachers stopping people shooting up schools.

      There is another article here on TTAG about the Israelis advising all that can, be armed this weekend for the High Holidays…

      Unless, of course, they are not part of the crowd that is “outside of America..”

    • Prince Albert, the Bloody Wanking Poofter,

      We don’t know, and WE DON’T CARE, you effeminate little pussbag!!! We kicked your asses out, back in the late 1700s. These days, if we’re not AFFIRMATIVELY subsidizing your “woke” bullshit, we’re at least tolerating it. What you Euroweenies consider acceptable, or not, means less than diddly squat. GET. OVER. YOURSELVES!!!!! You FAILED – categorically, and objectively. You have literally NOTHING to “teach” us – we passed y’all up, so long ago and by so much, we aren’t even on the same lap, anymore.

      YOU. ARE. FAILED. LOSERS. Sucks to be you, dunnit??

  22. “We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the claim that cops fired 150 rounds and only 8 hit the Pulse Nightclub shooter,”

    According to CBS News — the shooter fired 189 rounds with a rifle and 22 rounds with a 9mm handgun – this is 211 rounds fired by the shooter. There were 14 law enforcement officers who fired more than 180 rounds over a period of four hours, they hit the shooter seven times. (its indicated, by the CBS article and other sources, that all rounds fired by law enforcement were close range engagement)

    Not all rounds fired by police were fired at the shooter. The shooter had barricaded himself in a bathroom, but there was a survivor in the bathroom too. This survivor peeked out of the bathroom door, police open fired on the survivor when he didn’t show his hands, they fired four rounds at the survivor and did not hit the survivor who was later escorted out to safety.

    Police engaged the shooter five times … inclusive, before he barricaded himself in the bathroom and after the three hours he barricaded himself in the bathroom. (there are several wounded victims trapped in the bathroom with the shooter)

    One source, WFTV-Orlando (channel 9) says law enforcement told them that law enforcement fired 202 rounds total (which is over 180 rounds)

    So over a period of four hours, in a close range engagement firing over 180 rounds (202 rounds), in engaging the shooter five times, exclusive of the four rounds fired by law enforcement at the survivor which also did not hit their survivor target, police fired – taking into account the report by WFTV-Orlando … 202 (fired by LE) – 4 (fired at survivor) = 198 rounds fired by 14 officers at the shooter —- the shooter was hit 7 times but one more round was fired at the shooter by police after he was down (this round also missed, even though the shooter was down, basically a stationary target out in the open by now at close range and the round misses because only seven hit the shooter and had this round hit then the shooter would have been hit eight times and not seven so another miss).

    So police fired 198 rounds at the shooter (this does not include the four rounds police fired at the survivor), seven actually hit the shooter. 198 – 7 = 191 rounds fired did not hit the shooter — at close range engagement.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pulse-nightclub-shooting-none-of-the-pulse-shooting-victims-were-struck-by-officer-fire-review-finds/

    https://www.ajc.com/news/national/law-enforcement-source-202-rounds-fired-during-pulse-nightclub-shooting-orlando/YwGGmCyUQCFKUIKfOAGzBM/#:~:text=Gunman%20Omar%20Mateen%2C%2029%2C%20opened%20fire%20at%20a,nightclub%20massacre%20Sunday%2C%20a%20law%20enforcement%20source%20said.

    But, in some more research …. while waiting for police to arrive and eventually make entry the shooter had time to kill 49 and injure more than 50. There were several wounded victims trapped in the bathroom with the shooter and police would not enter the bathroom instead stayed outside the bathroom.

    Yeah, this was a time when armed victims would have had a much better chance of stopping the shooter sooner and faster. And in fact in every mass shooting (which includes school shootings), except maybe that one off long range situation in las vegas, a victim facing the threat imminently (which, for the anti-gun idiots including dacian and miner49er, means right then right there very danger close in that moment in time) always has a much better chance if they had been armed than waiting for police to arrive.

    So the anti-gun logic of disarm teachers and citizens still does not hold water for mass/school shootings or in every day life, does not make sense, when its a proven fact in 100% of police responses 100% of the time police are not there in that imminent moment when the, or any group or single, victim faces the imminent threat. And when police do show up they are more likely to not be very good shots even at close range.

  23. “We can’t vouch for the accuracy of the claim that cops fired 150 rounds and only 8 hit the Pulse Nightclub shooter, but it sounds plausible, so let’s stipulate that.”

    I posted an analysis on this with the references but its in moderation limbo right now. But in short: The police fired 202 rounds over four hours — four of the rounds were fired at a survivor which they did not hit, seven of the rounds hit the shooter and when the shooter was down one more round was fired at the shooter and it missed (7 + 1 = 8 which is probably where the 8 rounds comes from in the claim that 8 hit the shooter but in reality only 7 hit the shooter) — all rounds fired by police were fired (very) close range. So police, for their rounds fired, its 202 – 4 – 7 = 191 rounds that did not hit the shooter at close range.

    • It is interesting that correcting things like that was the very reason why the NRA came into existence in the first place. If the left didn’t have such hatred for the NRA, things might actually be better. It’s the definition of shooting yourself in the foot.

  24. Maybe people who are victims of mass/school shootings in ‘gun free zones’ should start suing the U.S. Government and states for allowing a mass/school shooter into a ‘gun free zone’ and not having the police protection there on the spot to face that imminent deadly force danger-close-at-that-moment-right-then-right-there threat for them. After all, isn’t that what these anti-gun states and government entities and anti-gun people say to wait for? If a ‘gun free zone’ actually worked no one would die in mass/school shootings.

    Get a clue you anti-gun morons – when that threat is imminent danger-close-at-that-moment-right-then-right-there, no matter a mass/school shooting or other crime, ‘gun free zone’ or not, the police are not going to be there in that moment and your best chance is a firearm because you are your own first responder, period. Yet you anti-gun morons want to make as many as possible as defenseless as possible, and then when these injuries and deaths happen you dance in the blood and call for even more to be made as defenseless as possible.

    It is a 100% fact that 100% of the time, when that imminent danger-close-at-that-moment-right-then-right-there threat is faced by a victim or victims that the police are not going to be there in that very moment in time. If you don’t like guns, I get it because you can choose to like or not like what you want… but you anti-gun morons do not have even 1 molecule of right or justification to tell me or others we can not defend ourselves and family and others with firearms no matter the firearm we choose to do it with. Unless you anti-gun morons are willing to be there your self and face that imminent danger-close-at-that-moment-right-then-right-there threat in that moment to save us then STFU and crawl back under your rock.

  25. Well that’s 10 minutes of my life I won’t get back.
    ChrisT in KY and uncommon_sense were the only sources of light.
    Some cops can shoot well in a conflict situation some can’t.
    Response time of armed persons at the scene is measured in seconds.
    SO FAR evil attackers avoid schools with armed staff.

    • If you had something more important to do during those 10 minutes, why are you commenting on an internet discussion forum?

  27. It is all a matter of priorities, WE don’t want any school children to be murdered, THEY want enough murder that they are given control of everything.

    • POTG can make generalized statements too and the 13 year old in the video is an excellent example that even a 13 year old can act responsibly with a gun and therefore what is the your problem with 18 year olds?

  28. D. Reidman is making a generalized statement with far too few examples.
    Just because “some” cops can’t shoot according to his liking does not mean that “all” cops can’t and certainly doesn’t have a thing to do with the shooting abilities of our citizens. And, the bad guy doesn’t who can or can’t shoot good.
    This sort of pseudo logic is red assing. Just because some can’t doesn’t mean all can’t.

    I suppose D. Reidman advocates that teachers throw black board erasers and books at the bad guy.

  30. I wish the teacher in that classroom at Uvalde had a firearm. Some chance is better than no chance at all. And although maybe, because its possible and neither I nor anyone else can predict what the future may hold, the teacher maybe would not have been successful in repelling/stopping the killer – like anti-gun claims its impossible for an ordinary armed citizen to stop these killers, which is 100% false because it has been done. The facts of literally thousands of defensive gun uses every day across the United States for ordinary crime happening with the same violent mentally ill killer mentality, and hundreds of mass shooters stopped/repelled over time, and literally hundreds of ‘active shooters’ (not mass shootings) stopped/repelled every day across the United States, by ordinary firearm armed law abiding citizens employing DGU, show that there was available a 96% success rate possible if even the teacher or some others had still been killed or wounded during the teachers defense. Instead, we get the Uvalde law enforcement response cause ‘wait for the cops to protect you’ mentality, and they could not even open an unlocked door (yes, it turns out the door was not locked like they claimed) and there was nothing to stop the killer for over an hour despite 300 plus law enforcement officers on scene.

    And yes, its not all shooters either. There are plenty of attacks with other items every day across the united states in public and in schools. For overall (and all) violent crime events annually, actual firearms use by the criminal is 2% of the times, and the rest is using other weapons (e.g. knives, clubs, hand/feet, chemicals, etc….) and that 2% is less, on a per capita basis, than any gun ban or extreme gun control country in the world has for firearms use by criminals.

    There has never been even one police response to an active shooter in a mass shooting (which includes school shootings) which protected a victim or victims from that threat when it was imminent danger-close-at-that-moment-right-then-right-there at the victims(s). The only thing, the only chance, a victim(s) have when that happens is to be be able to bring to bear deadly force with a firearm to have a chance.

    Anti-gun people and policies denying that life saving chance to these teachers and school staff, and by extension denying students that life saving defense chance, is condemning them to death and facilitating murder.

    Yes, let teachers and school staff be armed with firearms.

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