Today's Mass Shooting

[fuelair]

Except that it wasn't poorly worded or ambiguous when it was written; it merely seems that way to people who don't understand linguistic drift and are not scholars of history, and that view is encouraged by those who use said ignorance to distort the original meaning in order to push their own agenda -- something both advocates and opponents are equally guilty of.

That said, the Constitution was designed in such a way that it could be updated as needed to meet the needs and principles of a changing culture, along with safeguards to help ensure such changes were not made whimsically or without a great deal of popular support. It's not a perfect system, but no human system can ever be perfect.

IIRC it was also supposed to be exposed to study and possible revision regularly............

 

[thaiboxerken]

Can you imagine a country that would allow teachers to carry firearms to use on children?That's what is being pushed by some.

They don't pay teachers enough for the job they do. Now they want to add more responsibility to the teachers. Think they'll want to pay them more for that added duty?

 

[crescent]

They don't pay teachers enough for the job they do. Now they want to add more responsibility to the teachers. Think they'll want to pay them more for that added duty?

Some places already allow teachers to be armed, there was a spate of accidental discharges and poorly secured weapons after the last round of momentum on the issue.

Most proposals I've seen make it optional - teachers can carry, if they want to. Most proposals require such teachers to undergo some sort of additional training, but not all do. Some proposals allow individual schools or districts to decide, some would force schools and districts to allow teachers to bear over the objections of Superintendents and Principals.

There may be proposals to require teachers to be armed, but I have not seen nor heard of any such proposals. It would not surprise me, though.

Most of my FB friends are much more conservative than I am. There is a LOT of talk about this right now. Legislation will almost certainly be introduced at State, city and county levels across the country. This is popular right now, very popular in the conservative world.

One 'food for thought' thing is that the Florida school apparently had an armed security guard. I know for certain that Columbine had an armed guard on site who even exchanged fire with the shooters at the beginning of the event, but he had left the building (because the shooters started outside), and they managed to get inside and shoot at him, preventing him from getting back inside.

 

[a_unique_person]

Looks like the massacre gun of choice is the AR15.

 

[MikeG]

......There may be proposals to require teachers to be armed, but I have not seen nor heard of any such proposals. It would not surprise me, though.

Most of my FB friends are much more conservative than I am. There is a LOT of talk about this right now. Legislation will almost certainly be introduced at State, city and county levels across the country. This is popular right now, very popular in the conservative world.......

There are consequences to this, of course. If teachers are required to carry guns, then people who dislike guns, or dislike the policy, or who don't think guns are appropriate in the classroom, and so on, will leave or not enter the profession. This will skew the politics of the teaching profession towards the conservative end of the spectrum. You know, that end of the spectrum which likes to deny science, promote religion, promote creationism, and so on. Be under no illusion at all that any move to arm teachers is a by-stealth take-over of the education system of America by the conservative right.

 

[angrysoba]

Apart from it just being plain *********** bonkers, it would lead to only conservatives going into teaching, skewing the politics of schools, and possibly leading to the re-opening of nonsense such as the teaching of creationism. There's an agenda here, folks......

There are consequences to this, of course. If teachers are required to carry guns, then people who dislike guns, or dislike the policy, or who don't think guns are appropriate in the classroom, and so on, will leave or not enter the profession. This will skew the politics of the teaching profession towards the conservative end of the spectrum. You know, that end of the spectrum which likes to deny science, promote religion, promote creationism, and so on. Be under no illusion at all that any move to arm teachers is a by-stealth take-over of the education system of America by the conservative right.

I agree that arming teachers is bonkers. But unless you have evidence other than your supposition, I think the assumption that arming teachers is a right wing ruse to make the teaching profession "conservative" is also bonkers.

There have been calls for the arming of teachers for many years and not just on the right. Left-wingers such as Alexander Cockburn of Counterpunch were also saying this after Virginia Tech.

Since there undoubtedly will be a next time, probably in the not so distant future, what useful counsel on preventive measures can we offer students and faculty and campus police forces across America?

There have been the usual howls from the anti-gun lobby, but it’s all hot air. America is not about to dump the Second Amendment to the US Constitution giving people the right–albeit an increasingly circumscribed one — to bear arms.

A better idea would be for appropriately screened teachers and maybe student monitors to carry weapons. A quarter of a century ago students doing military ROTC training regularly carried rifles around campus. US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently recalled regularly traveling on the New York subway system as a student with his rife. Perhaps there should be guns in wall cases, behind glass, at strategic points around campuses, like those fire axes, usually with menacing signs about improper use.

 

[MikeG]

Why is it bonkers to suggest that anti-gun people won't go into teaching if it is compulsory to be armed? Why is it bonkers to suggest that this would skew the balance of teachers greatly in favour of right wingers/ conservatives? Why is it bonkers to think that this scenario hasn't occurred to conservatives?

 

[angrysoba]

Why is it bonkers to suggest that anti-gun people won't go into teaching if it is compulsory to be armed? Why is it bonkers to suggest that this would skew the balance of teachers greatly in favour of right wingers/ conservatives? Why is it bonkers to think that this scenario hasn't occurred to conservatives?

None of that is what I am referring to.

I'll highlight the bits that I think are bonkers.

Apart from it just being plain *********** bonkers, it would lead to only conservatives going into teaching, skewing the politics of schools, and possibly leading to the re-opening of nonsense such as the teaching of creationism. There's an agenda here, folks......

There are consequences to this, of course. If teachers are required to carry guns, then people who dislike guns, or dislike the policy, or who don't think guns are appropriate in the classroom, and so on, will leave or not enter the profession. This will skew the politics of the teaching profession towards the conservative end of the spectrum. You know, that end of the spectrum which likes to deny science, promote religion, promote creationism, and so on. Be under no illusion at all that any move to arm teachers is a by-stealth take-over of the education system of America by the conservative right.

 

[crescent]

I don't like arming teachers, especially for high schools. If you carry a hammer, you're going to go looking for that nail.

High school kids are still kids, even if they are big kids. They are kids who are often bigger than the adults around them. But, kids being kids, they still get in fights, sometimes they'll sty to start them with the adults.

Sooner or later, someone is going to see one of those fights as a nail, and they'll use that hammer. That's unacceptable.

Even that ignore the probability of accidents, the difficulty in securing the firearm from curious and intelligent but naive kids, but still being able to get to it in time when needed. There will be carelessness and accidents, and kids will die because of that.

 

[William Parcher]

It could turn out that the best marksman in a classroom is one of the students and not the teacher. That person is the one who should be armed and protecting the room.

 

[sadhatter]

Random thought experiment.

If the 2nd amendment was being drafted with knowledge about modern arms. How would it have been written?

Are you saying the people who drafted it had no idea that firearms would improve?

I feel it is a pretty solid statement to say the people who wrote it were at least of average intellect and as such would understand that just like everything else guns would continue to improve. And as such, the 2nd amendment was written with the concept of modern firearms in mind.

Otherwise show me some evidence that the people who wrote it held beliefs that firearms are unique in that they reached their technical peak at that time. If you have that then I'd be required to change my opinion.

 

[sadhatter]

Looks like the massacre gun of choice is the AR15.

And at one time it was the Thompson sub machine gun.

Find out why that was, and you will understand why is now the ar-15

 

[sadhatter]

It could turn out that the best marksman in a classroom is one of the students and not the teacher. That person is the one who should be armed and protecting the room.

I'd take an average adult over a great kid any day. Composure is more important than ability, I'd rather someone hit off centre and hit the right person, than get a head shot on the janitor.

 

[William Parcher]

I'd rather someone hit off centre and hit the right person, than get a head shot on the janitor.

When that janitor goes postal you want your best shooter to bust his pumpkin.

 

[ponderingturtle]

How will the SWAT team tell who the bad guy is? In this case it would have been easy to think any adult was the perpetrator.

Slay them all, the lord will know his own.

 

[ponderingturtle]

And at one time it was the Thompson sub machine gun.

Find out why that was, and you will understand why is now the ar-15

It makes up 60% of rifle sales?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

It makes up 60% of rifle sales?

The whole "it looks scary" bit is often derided, but I'm dealing with a situation at the moment where someone who bears certain similarities to Cruz threatened to kill their next door neighbour (with a knife, this is the UK), they then started searching on line for combat knives rather than just going down stairs and grabbing a kitchen knife. When you're dealing with someone whose problems aren't necessarily grounded in reality, and whose solution certainly isn't, the relative importance of things like the appearance of a weapon and how it fits their fantasy may be much greater than the sheer practicality of grabbing the nearest, most effective or least traceable tool to do the job.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Are you saying the people who drafted it had no idea that firearms would improve?

I feel it is a pretty solid statement to say the people who wrote it were at least of average intellect and as such would understand that just like everything else guns would continue to improve. And as such, the 2nd amendment was written with the concept of modern firearms in mind.

Otherwise show me some evidence that the people who wrote it held beliefs that firearms are unique in that they reached their technical peak at that time. If you have that then I'd be required to change my opinion.

Show me contemporary writings, even fiction, directed toward rapid fire handheld firearms at the time of the writing of the second amendment. The gatling gun wasn't made until more than 70 years later. And that was a military munition mounted to a cart.

I think they had as much sense of what a wide proliferation of AR-15s totally divorced from military training would look like as Samuel Morse had of a society stuck looking at their smart phones.

The progress that any technology makes over a long time always looks obvious in hindsight, but is actually quite hard to predict.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Show me contemporary writings, even fiction, directed toward rapid fire handheld firearms at the time of the writing of the second amendment. The gatling gun wasn't made until more than 70 years later. And that was a military munition mounted to a cart.

I think they had as much sense of what a wide proliferation of AR-15s totally divorced from military training would look like as Samuel Morse had of a society stuck looking at their smart phones.

The progress that any technology makes over a long time always looks obvious in hindsight, but is actually quite hard to predict.

Not to mention that the pace of technological change is far greater at the moment than through most of human history.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Show me contemporary writings, even fiction, directed toward rapid fire handheld firearms at the time of the writing of the second amendment. The gatling gun wasn't made until more than 70 years later. And that was a military munition mounted to a cart.

I think they had as much sense of what a wide proliferation of AR-15s totally divorced from military training would look like as Samuel Morse had of a society stuck looking at their smart phones.

The progress that any technology makes over a long time always looks obvious in hindsight, but is actually quite hard to predict.

As well as the point that their fears of a standing army has been at the least unwarranted in the case of the US, and the weapons being used are not exactly those that we would be using in an insurgency campaign.