Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

I see you have taken over my "Hot Seat" for a while there trader!

Thanks for the break!

Paul, I finally had time to read your whole post & I still feel that the system I mentioned ( State or local "School Marshals" based loosely on the federal Sky Marshal model) would be much more effective than arming school teachers & be safer for the children as well.

Devil505 wrote:I see you have taken over my "Hot Seat" for a while there trader!

Thanks for the break!

Watch it....that could easily change

Would love to here more of your thoughts k9 bara....If you're still reading this thread.
(tell us a bit more about your law enforcement duties/background if you care to share)

& what did you mean here?:...."School gonna have an armor?"....

Devil505 wrote:I disagree.

Somehow I'm not surprised.

You have to think "Outside The Box" a bit here Paul. We wouldn't be talking about one particular school, but rather a whole school district. We would also be dealing with a cadre of "School Marshals" (I'll use SM for short from now on) who would be moved from school to school on a regular basis so that the kids & even the faculty would never know which custodian/cook/maintenance man/electrician/plumber (whatever) was the actual SM's at any given time. Any gunmen would therefore never know who the actual SM was to target them immediately.

Maybe this would work well in a large district or a set of urban districts where certain staff are "anonymous" to a large student body. But again, this idea is being pitched by a rural district and likely would only be adopted by rural and perhaps some suburban districts with relatively "tight knit" student and faculty. No long term SM presence would stay secret long and any rotating SM presence would immediately be suspected as being such since the districts in question do not typically have have rotating shared staff. And even in the cases where they do, such as temp teachers, even they become well known within the districts they work.

Schools are fundamentally different than planes since there is a sizable static community. It would be like having air marshals (rotating or permanent) on flights that always had the same people day in and day out on them. There is no way to hide the secret for any useful length of time.

So I stand by at least this point of my post.

Of course, I'm not sure secrecy is important. It is in an air marshall type role, but only because the environment is closed and the attack (and thus the counter) must come from within. Blending and surprise is everything. Air marshalls have the benefit or being able to remain anonymous and secret to the general public, too, since they are only seen to limited groups of people for limited amounts of time and the passengers and flight staff aren't "chummy" to the point where the secret eventually tells itself.

But consider if it were possible for air marshalls to "jump" to a plane that has an active threat. Then secrecy wouldn't be nearly as important, only that you have enough marshals available for any given attack scenario. So to is it in the school attack.

The prime threat of concern here is mass murder by either an insider or an outsider, usually by one or possibly two people. To dissuade and cut short these types of attacks requires only that within a building there is sufficient number of armed faculty to take on the attacking force and that they are physically separated prior to an attack so as to prevent their all being killed at the beginning of an attack. Security for the students at large is provided by numbers and by dissuading attacks by making it known there are armed faculty (whereas right now, we have precisely the opposite situation; no one armed and the state making it known to one and all that is the case ). Survival in the opening moments of an attack for at least some of those armed faculty will depend on secrecy (at least if it is a faculty member or student attacking), but it should be understood that keeping that secret in this environment is not likely and that the effectiveness of overall security should not be based on keeping that secret. Armed faculty must accept they may become known and be prepared to be targeted in the event of such an attack. It is just the reality of the environment.

Let me be clear here. I'm not arguing in favor of armed faculty necessarily. I do think it is far superior to the current situation of active pronouncement and enforcement of schools as gun free zones, but I'm entirely open to other ideas. I think this SM idea is flawed if, like the air marshal service, it has as key the notion of secrecy as a fundamental to providing security for the student body. It may be fine, however, if we accept that secrecy is not practical and that security is still largely possible despite the lack of secrecy. Does it hold up as being still largely effective against the threats in consideration? Does it work in other analogous environments? Where does it fall apart? If not SM's or armed faculty, then is there another idea?

Some of the teachers I work with are, how do u say this tactfully, morons. I wouldn't want them to posess a gun much less a sharpened pencil. Maybe we should put our efforts into building a calm, relaxed society instead of one that is scared and has to have guns under every pillow and seat cushion in the house or worse at school. Also, just because u give a teacher a gun doesn't mean that they will be able to shoot another person. I see it being used against them. I lose my keys and phone once on a while - what happens when Mr. Johnson leaves his rod in his desk draw and the kids find it. This is such an idiotic idea. If teachers or districts are concerned about safety then hire a security guard who is specially trained.

pvolcko wrote:Somehow I'm not surprised.

and somehow I'm not surprised that you're not surprised Paul!

My basic point is this:

While it's obvious that there is nor "Right" answer to this problem & it will always be a matter of opinion, my opinion is that I don't regard arming teachers as a good option & was merely trying to "Think Out Loud" as to what I think would be a better option.

pvolcko wrote:Maybe this would work well in a large district or a set of urban districts where certain staff are "anonymous" to a large student body. But again, this idea is being pitched by a rural district and likely would only be adopted by rural and perhaps some suburban districts with relatively "tight knit" student and faculty.

While you make a good point here, I don't think that secrecy, which I regard as imperative for any system to be effective, would be impossible in all but the smallest school systems which are not usually the focus of these kind of "Columbine" tragedies in any case.
I would like to see this question addressed strictly on a local level anyway, with the fed government merely aiding with funding.

thought I would throw my 2 cents in. first off , banning guns is never going to happen. you have one way into the school with a metal detector for the kids to go through. 2 or 3 in large schools. of coarse if a fire or what ever emergency , other doors are controlled with magnet releases. one armed or even 2 security guards in more prone areas to stuff. also they would need a clear view of say 100 feet srt8 from the door. the schools would just have to pay the cost. most don't have the money , but you cut back somewhere to do it.

I really believe that as a whole, academia is our own worse enemy. Gun free zones? nice.... why not just put up signs that say what they really mean..."unable to protect ourselves, have at us" We actually had a public debate, (seriously, we did) at a school board meeting about our School systems security protocol. A woman who is a teacher in an other town demanded to know what our security plans were in detail She could not comprehend that she was endangering our children by publicly releasing the protocols in place, a melt down occured and she actually had supporters defending her and her right to know.

Look, I have 2 really nice Rotties, they will either lick you to death or rip your limbs from your body if they see you as a threat, I have Beware of dog signs on my property, I do not go any futher to reveal my state of redress if the situtation calls for it. That is the way it should be. That is kinda why I like the janitorial ( re: trained personnel) roaming and have everyone question...is he one of those? The element of surprise or the element of wondering who cannot be underestimated.

Oh and by the way, for those of you with Utopian ideals and wishes, fine have your wishes and delusions, but the real world is outside your door, I'm prepared, you prolly aren't and for that I'm sorry, but that is your decision not mine.

I would like to say that I agree with them allowing teachers to conceal and carry. It should not be known who is though, on the basis of just in case.

Hi trader, do this. Make a sign and put it in front of your house. Write in big words, "THIS IS A GUN FREE HOME". How safe would you feel? Would you rely on the cops to respond in a hot second?, it takes time. When something like a home invasion happens, you have seconds, not minutes to react to the situation. The police, while trying to rush to your house (if you are lucky enough to call them) will take minutes, not seconds. You are the first line of defense when it comes to your personal and family protection. Notice, the states that have enacted Conceal and Carry, their crime rates have dropped.

I carry a gun, because I can't carry a cop.

If I have to defend myself, I can get to a gun in my home in less than a minute,, in most cases, less than 10-20 seconds.
If I have to get a police officer to my home in an emergency, I'm looking at 15-20minutes at best, often longer.. And I've called them under an emergency situation before, and it was 20 minutes.. NOT GOOD!!

With proper training and personality tests I think arming the faculty is a great idea.. but I know that there are some real 'morons' who teach.. Both my parents were educators.. and I think both would have been OK as an armed faculty member.. my Mom would have been better than my Dad.. She's tougher, Dad had a soft streak. But maybe he had a hard core,, he did survive WWII and The Ardens in the Battle of the Bulge. A tough guy at one time.

As usual Paul's thorough comments are to the point.. and well put 'on paper'..

I think if a few students were shot when trying to shoot up a school or students and faculty, then the number of incidents would drop to near zero.. Just getting the word out that the school is armed and can shoot back would deter most attacks.

Greg L.

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Yikes! Greg I thought you lived in God's country. There can't be that many home invasions or crime. Also, I'm not saying you shouldn't protect your home but arming teachers in a school is totally different. In most of the cases that I've read about the gun slingers that break into schools and start shooting either committed suicide or were shot so the theory that we should shoot them to deter future acts makes no sense that I can see. If we're going to arm teachers then we need to arm taxi drivers, liquor store workers, bank tellers or where ever there is a likely case for crime. Heck we should all carry guns 24/7. However, watch out for the irate soccer dad who beats up the coach or the wife that gets mad at her husband or the teacher who is too stressed and pulls his gun on a student. You better not curse other drivers either - we'll give road rage a new level of violence. I also wouldn't want to be a cop where every dummy carries a gun and is quick to pull it out and use it. This sounds like a very paranoid and scared society. I agree that crime is real and needs to be dealt with and everyone should have a plan of action for protecting their homes however we should strive to make our society a safe place to live and to do this we need to get hand guns out of the hands of thugs. If our nation started to confiscate guns then it would be much more difficult for criminals to buy guns and conceal them. Ultimately this would make our nation safer. You guys could still keep your shotguns at home and I'd u are really are paranoid then buy a stun gun.

traderfjp wrote:In most of the cases that I've read about the gun slingers that break into schools and start shooting either committed suicide or were shot so the theory that we should shoot them to deter future acts makes no sense that I can see.

I agree with that. I think in almost every case, (Columbine, etc) the shooters intended to die along with their victims. (I think most kill themselves in the end) You can't deter someone bent on suicide with a threat of killing them!

traderfjp wrote:If we're are going to arm teachers then we need to arm taxi drivers, liquor store workers, bank tellers or where ever there is a likely case for crime. Heck we should all carry guns 24/7. However, watch out for the irate soccer dad who beats up the coach or the wife that gets mad at her husband or the teacher who is too stressed and pulls his gun on a student.

From a LEO (I like that acronym ) standpoint, the fewer guns on the street the better.
From a private citizen's standpoint, I insist on the right to defend myself & family. I totally agree with trader in thinking a shotgun is the best means of defense within your own home, but I differ with trader on wanting all handguns done away with.

2nd Amendment interpretations aside, (I do believe the founding fathers intended the militia involvement as key to their words, but I prefer the current Supreme Court ruling) I feel that both sides of the gun debate are overstating their positions & a happy medium is the way to go. I would favor requiring much more training b4 a pistol permit is given, but not taking away an individual's right to carry one, if properly trained!

There never will be an easy answer to these questions.



Getting back to the point of this thread, I think school teachers are probably one of the last groups I would want to see carrying concealed weapons .

traderfjp wrote:Yikes! Greg I thought you lived in God's country. There can't be that many home invasions or crime. Also, I'm not saying you shouldn't protect your home but arming teachers in a school is totally different. In most of the cases that I've read about the gun slingers that break into schools and start shooting either committed suicide or were shot so the theory that we should shoot them to deter future acts makes no sense that I can see.

For the irrational attackers you are right, it won't deter them, but it will enable the school to put a stop to their killing spree earlier than it would otherwise end. At least it would give them a fighting chance. And it would certainly deter the more rational attackers who still fear for their lives and aren't acting on blind rage or mental defect.

If we're going to arm teachers then we need to arm taxi drivers, liquor store workers, bank tellers or where ever there is a likely case for crime. Heck we should all carry guns 24/7.

First, we aren't arming teachers or anyone else. We're allowing them to arm themselves if they so wish, with the blessing and encouragement of their society. There is still personal choice involved here and there are all the laws and checks and protections already in place with regard to hiring of teachers, issuance of CCWs, etc. Most are probably open to additional requirements to being allowed to carry in schools. We aren't arming teachers, just as we didn't arm pilots. We opened up the option, that is all.

Second. I'm all for taxi drivers, liquor store owners, and bank tellers being legally armed if they so wish. Why aren't you? Pizza delivery people, for example, are apparently some of the most at risk people for being the victim of violent crime. Why shouldn't they be encouraged to avail themselves of personal defense tools as they see fit (again, under normal legal channels). I sense a grand amount of paranoia against and a low opinion of the public in your desire to disarm these at risk individuals and the public in general.

However, watch out for the irate soccer dad who beats up the coach or the wife that gets mad at her husband or the teacher who is too stressed and pulls his gun on a student. You better not curse other drivers either - we'll give road rage a new level of violence. I also wouldn't want to be a cop where every dummy carries a gun and is quick to pull it out and use it. This sounds like a very paranoid and scared society.

I agree, you do sound paranoid and scared of society. A large number of states have liberalized their gun laws in the past couple decades. In these states I think almost all of them have seen marked declines in violent crime rates, many well below the rates and change in rates of the national average and states/cities of similar type. When these new laws went into effect in these states there was an initial "burst" of registration, but it eventually tappered off back to normal levels. Along with the increase in legal pistol owners and carriers, there was not a percentage increase in incidence of legally registered gun owners committing a violent crime, it remained vanishingly low compared to the incidence of "normal" criminal/non-registered-holder violent crime (which itself, as I said, fell well below national rates and rates of change for violent crime). (Most of this I've culled from the book "More Guns, Less Crime" and other reading and listening over the past few years, which I'm sure Devil and perhaps yourself will roundly reject as a useful or reliable source of information).

There are now decades of reliable data supporting this, yet the myth of liberalized concealed carry and pistol laws leading to outbursts of violent gun crime among the newly registered persists. It simply doesn't happen. Yes, there are incidences of individual crimes by registered owners, but they don't become more prevalent in the aggregate and they certainly don't outweigh the benefits that have been observed with increased home and personal possession of firearms. And when we're talking about more liberalized CCW policies, we're talking about laws that still have effective and discriminating licensing rules and processes as a general matter. We aren't talking about no-barriers CCWs here. Background checks, character witnesses, often safety a class or other seminars/training is involved, etc. We're generally talking about removing as much subjectivity in the approval process as possible and eliminating other do-nothing and hindering process barriers as possible, such as overly high, sometimes outright punitive registration costs and short license expiration periods, long processing delays, deliberate under-staffing of licensing authority offices, etc.

I agree that crime is real and needs to be dealt with and everyone should have a plan of action for protecting their homes however we should strive to make our society a safe place to live and to do this we need to get hand guns out of the hands of thugs. If our nation started to confiscate guns then it would be much more difficult for criminals to buy guns and conceal them. Ultimately this would make our nation safer. You guys could still keep your shotguns at home and I'd u are really are paranoid then buy a stun gun.

I disagree whole-heartedly. I think the evidence on civilian ownership bans is precisely the opposite of what you say here. It encourages more "active" burglaries and other violent crimes. Often gun bans are not the last stop on the banning train. Many societies that adopt such bans also ban possession of stun guns, pepper spray, and even knives and hand defense "enhancers" like pressure point sticks. And these aren't authoritarian regimes we're talking about, these are democratic, developed nations (Britain is the latest example). Even now, there are states in this country that ban possession of stun guns and non-projectile stunners entirely and I think one (maybe NJ?) even requires a concealed carry permit (for a pistol) for possession of pepper spray.

I'm all for making society more safe. I'm all for discriminating as best as possible the whack jobs from the average citizen before issuing licenses. But at the end of the day the fact is crime will exist no matter what and it is not a recipe for a safer society to disarm that society. That makes society more vulnerable to crime, it encourages more crime (often more violent crime), it makes the society vulnerable to its own government, and ultimately makes people wards of the state for individual safety which is, of course, entirely impossible to provide and totally antithetical to the principles of this nation.

Devil505 wrote:Getting back to the point of this thread, I think school teachers are probably one of the last groups I would want to see carrying concealed weapons .

Why?

They are probably some of the most "vetted" employees out there. Background checks, years of apprenticeship and training, often hired by committee process, subjected to tenure committee process for advancement, have a high degree of interaction with many people day to day, generally thought to be some of the more intelligent amongst us, do their job for a pittance (especially early on) which tends to weed out those without commitment and character, in some cases undergo psych screening, etc. I do think that they are probably among the least likely to want to carry a gun given the strong liberal biases of teachers as a group. However, of the teachers I've known, there are only a few I wouldn't trust to take the choice to carry a gun seriously and respectfully. Of those I wouldn't trust, all of them would be among the first to sign on to a national gun ban, so I'm not too worried about them trying to get certified. If anything I think they would be the ones most likely to break the code of silence on who in the school is carrying, and they'd probably do it with a clean conscience and with much righteous indignation.

There are some loopy (not evil, just unserious) teachers out there, but I'm confident they could either be weeded out as part of the certification process or that they wouldn't be interested in doing it in the first place. And as to the issue of a sociopath or insane faculty member managing to get certified, I submit nothing is stopping them from carrying out an attack without the certification and they get no real advantage by having it. They are already a "trusted" member of the faculty and can get whatever weapons they want into the school and they already have free movement within the school. So there is no additional threat posed by their slipping through the system and getting certified. It would be embarrassing for all involved and devastating if an attack by such an individual were to occur, but no one is at additional risk because of that kind of screw up.