Indeed. It's beyond ridiculous; teachers are being put in charge of classrooms of minors, while being denied the right to carry arms to protect them effectively. (Perhaps you and I might have different points to make during that conversation).
Or, maybe just maybe, it might lead to less deaths by shooting if there were less guns floating around to do the shooting with?
It literally boggles my mind that people make this suggestion with any sincerity.
Seriously though, either:
- school shootings are a statistically significant threat, in which case, arming teachers who wish to be armed seems reasonable
or
- school shootings aren't statistically significant, in which case, enough with the fear-mongering already
You can't point to other countries with no guns and just wish it were like that where you are. It isn't, it won't be for a very long time, and to pretend otherwise is just wishful thinking.
That seems a little silly to me - especially considering the rate of non-compliance with previous registration schemes. In California more "assault weapons" were sold in the state in the three months prior to the registration deadline than were registered. In Connecticut there are people calling for armed conflict over a similar registration scheme, and the reports I've seen say that there are about 100k unregistered weapons there.
Regardless of how you feel about guns, to believe that America could be disarmed in 5 years is exceedingly naïve.
Seems like the best plan is to give weapons to those most responsible, rather than only those who would use them for bad.
It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.
That's the old Charlton Heston argument. There are "good" people and "bad" people. How likely is it that a teacher is going to flip and kill Andy, 16, next time he shoots his mouth off?
> It's not like all guns are just going to disappear into thin air.
The UK essentially legislated away private gun ownership years ago. But of course, it's a society choice. I'd rather live in a society where my kid can go to school safely, with no guns on the premises.
It's true though. Even better, we can in practice select "good people" (defined as "won't murder somebody with a gun") from the general public with an exceedingly low false positive rate (although with a high false negative rate).
The combination of having to fill out stacks of paperwork for the ATF, go through their background checks, pay a $200 per-gun tax, and pay several thousands of dollars for the gun itself makes for a very effective "good people" filter.
Furthermore, people purchasing semi-automatic weapons are not subjected to the scrutiny that I described. What I described is the process that you go through if you want to buy an automatic weapon. The high price of semi-automatic rifles such as AR-15's discourage use by people who would abuse them, but the even higher price of automatic weapons is even more effective. Only two people have been murdered with legally owned automatic weapons since the 1930s.
http://qz.com/37015/how-school-killings-in-the-us-stack-up-a...
Your stats actually back my position up quite nicely, which is: if you're going to have an armed society, then probably the worst thing you can do is gather large numbers of children together under the care of people who are themselves unarmed.
Personally, I think that it's reasonable to be allowed to go armed in public; especially for the old, infirm, and physically weak a weapon is a great equaliser.
The problem comes when you have an armed society, with pockets of disarmed (as opposed to unarmed) prospective victims.
It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it situation. Either you disarm the population (wearing the cost to those incapable of physically defending themselves, and also, best of luck with that) or you arm the teachers who wish to be armed.
Any other position is wishful thinking.
Because after the first shooting started by a teacher, there's really noone left to arm. Other teachers, or security are not exactly helpful here, because the shooter has easy access to taking kids hostage. Everyone who was useful has been armed. What's the solution now? And if there is one, why wouldn't we apply it as step one, before arming teachers?