Actually, the SAFE Act was amended before passage. It did not originally exempt police, and I believe also military, but the police were very vocal about them needing more rounds to keep them safe. The version that was enacted gave an exempt to police and military. Interestingly, that same argument for the rest of the citizenry fell on deaf ears. They had to further amend it when they discovered most handguns could not fit 7-round round mags, and required that only 7 rounds be loaded into a handgun. I don’t recall reading where crime decreased due to that law, nor where criminals began carrying fewer rounds due to that law.
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100 percent on point! The administration answer is to take away all of the law abiding citizens’ weapons and continue to defund the police knowing full well criminals and outlaws and mentally unstable individuals will still get their hands on weapons? This administration is an embarrassment to the world.
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First off, I am a middle school teacher in a Title 1 middle school. We have had students bring guns into our school with the intent of mass shooting (another kid who realized what was about to happen grabbed the backpack from the intended shooter and ran with it to the office).
That said, I look at what happened again, where well-armed police stood around doing nothing. Here, I will post in something that I put on a teacher forum. No, it isn’t in lockstep with the current, not really, ‘conservative’ mindset. I decided not to edit it for the audience though. I will return after the quote.
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We have “AVID” which is probably about the same. No, of course, it isn’t enough.
Unarmed human wave attacks by a bunch of kids. . . really. . .
It isn’t a plan. It is a desperate grasp and being able to shift the blame and, of course, the liability. This way we can blame the dead teachers for not perfectly, and successfully, carrying out a plan that had no chance. But it will be easy because the teacher will be dead.
Of course, we will blame the gun. After all, inanimate objects are easy to blame. What we can not blame is a society that is creating so much despair that it is poisoning families and children. To act on that would call for deep social restructuring. Not just shiny band-aids.
As many here have seen, I am in favour of allowing teachers the choice of having the means of protecting themselves and the children in their charge. However, that is a band-aid. The disease is a rot that has left us with no social contract.
There is another way. The principles of The Doughnut Economy is not socialism. It is a mutually beneficial social stability, something that we are lacking. Despair is taking so much of the place in our minds that it is the disease. Right here, right now, we are contributing to it.
There are other paths, we need to be on a different path. It will be a big change, but it has a light at the end of it. Really, does anyone see any light at the end if we stay on this path?
Back from the quote, You saw the bit about human wave attacks. Here is another post in response to a person arguing that “Highly trained police officers” seldom hit with more than 1 out of ten bullets fired, and that children screaming, there is no possibility of a “mere teacher” hitting an attacker. Her point was that giving the teachers the option of being armed would only make things worse.
and again, my block post of a response.
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My classroom has no exterior windows or doors. To make it a bit worse, The windows, facing an interior hallway, are arranged so that my entire trapezoidal classroom can be observed from outside the room. There is literally nowhere to hide.
As far as screaming children, they can be taught to stay low. Yes, the screaming will still happen, I am more concerned with running around. The alternative plan, and the one we use, is for all the students to throw “things” and rush the shooter. They are, in no way, prepared for what this “human wave” tactic is going to look and sound like. Further, I don’t think they are disciplined enough to carry it off.
Yes, at this point we are discussing “human wave” tactics. That is the current plan. Compared to having an armed teacher, it is a bad plan.
That is right, the current plan, which we intend to use, is for the students to throw whatever they have at the attacker, be it books, erasers, whatever, and rush the attacker in the hope that someone will get through to manually disarm the attacker.
We scorned the “Human wave” attacks used by so many armies. Yet we say it is the best we can do?
Back to what happened. We tell kids to “rush” the attacker with books and erasers. Yet the heavily armed police with firearms and armour cowered. Bad news, the first guy through the door probably won’t be going home that night. Probably not the second either. It does not change the fact that many of the deaths were the direct result of cowardice.
I get it, black lives matter, blue lives matter, but as a teacher, it is pretty clear that teacher’s lives don’t matter.
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Just to throw in a couple of my other posts on that teacher forum. The op went on and on about how, as I mentioned in the previous post, . .
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What people don’t seem to understand or don’t want to understand is that even a “highly” trained police officer in a shooting situation only hit their target 10% of the time. Do you still want some want trained teachers shooting in a enclosed space with 30 or so screaming/running children? [important point, these are the words of one of the better spoken anti-gun teachers, not mine]
I am just going to throw in one of my responses to that. . .
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Cast me in as believing that the means to protect the students under one care should be an option available to teachers. And no, I wasn’t a “Highly trained” police officer. I was minimally qualified to carry a firearm as a reserve police officer. I do understand the problem of shooting in a stressful situation. I still think it would be a better option, for me, than to attempt to appeal to the shooter’s sense of humanity in the last seconds of my life.
Another teacher threw the idea of having lockers in the classroom that would only be unlockable with a thumbprint reader and only durring a lockdown alert (yes, two levels of electronics in the way. . . ). I tried to do the ole’ I gree, with essential changes (like no stupid electronic locks).
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This is an option that I also support. It would also need to allow the firearm to be removed (outside of school hours) for maintenance and training. That said, I am not in favour of the automatic locks you mention. However, the idea of a locker available only to the teacher is a fair compromise.
When I started at my current school, in part due to my background training, and because I happened to note the locked drawer, when repairing another computer, I was told by one teacher that in a worst-case situation, I would need to find a way to open her desk.
One more. I happened to be at school on a Sunday afternoon. I had been shooting that morning and still had my holster on. I stopped and chatted with the principal in the hall for a moment as I was going about my class prep.
Later that day (remember, Sunday, not a school day)she came into my classroom and asked, Mr X, are you wearing a gun?"
I told her no and commented that I had been at the range earlier in the morning. She then asked, “if things went really bad, could I count on you to be able to find a gun?”
I again told her no. It was clear that wasn’t the answer she wanted.
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I’ve always believed in fire extinguishers. I’m sure there can be a designated teacher, security personnel, even highly experienced janitor and a secret location of a firearm on school grounds. The same way fire extinguishers and AED’s are positioned throughout the supermarket and malls.
Unfortunately not a joke anymore! I’m sure a safe with limited access and knowledge would give a classroom a fighting chance, because I don’t see an eraser doing much harm.
I also don’t see a problem with invisible metal detectors built into the doorways of schools, however leaving the door open defeats the purpose. I guess you could say we failed them again.
At home I check my doors at least three times before going to bed. As a former submariner, I check EVERYTHING twice.
And last but not least, what happened to discipline at home?
I thought school was for reading, ritting, and rythmatic! Guess that’s ancient times! We need to get back morals and ethics and leave politics out!
I just wants kids to laugh, ride their bikes, scrape their knees, kiss the girls, get muddy, learn some life lessons by making some mistakes, get back up and do things better, but what do I know! God, I’m sad!
Pardon the politics, but I firmly believe he could be a hero, if he just put everything back the way it was! EVERYTHING!
Then he could sit back and take the credit! I’ll give him kudos for that!
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They should remove fire extinguishers from schools since teachers aren’t trained firefighters.
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And kids use them to spray each other, and pull fire alarms to get out of school. If it saves only one child…
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Comparing driving a car to bearing arms is a false comparison. Driving a car is not a right.
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Right on, brother. Very well said, and if you go in, I’m right there next to you. We feel the same.
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A few years ago, this was floated by the state government in, guess where. . . Texas
The idea was to have a firearms locker somewhere in the admin area with a small number of trained people having keys. Frankly, it was a bad idea. Think, this is instituted and 20 years down the road there is a sudden need.
How does this work? Does anyone even remember that those lockers exist, how about remembering where they are? How much stuff is piled in front of them? Oh, who has the key?
Now, we answer all those questions, how does it work? Does the teacher run from the classroom to the arms locker, and back to their classroom, while carrying this rifle?
Just to add to the “how does this work?” Keep in mind, no one has fired, or even looked at those rifles in over twenty years.
[quote]Pardon the politics, but I firmly believe he could be a hero, if he just put everything back the way it was! EVERYTHING!
Then he could sit back and take the credit! I’ll give him kudos for that![/quote]
I am not sure who “he” is. However, much as you can never step in the same river twice, there is no going back. That is a general rule, it pays no heed to who is at the helm.
We need to work with what we have, not what we wish we have. Yes, we can try to change what we have to a more ideal state, but what we have is always the starting point.
Frankly, I am not talking about CPI training. Sure, that is fine for little Suzzy and Jill slapping at each other, but when even a couple of 6"+ 200Lb+ middle school “boys” are going at each other, it isn’t enough. . . and here we are just talking about the normal stuff; clearly things that do not call for “go-to gun.”
So far, in seven years here I have only had one student take an honest swing at me. I was trying to downplay a situation and I made the comment, in an attempt to trivialize it by saying "not an issue, I just put it in the category of juvenile behav. . . " and then I was blocking a swing. As we (he, me, his parents, the principal, and the police) later realized in a meeting. In his mind, the juvenile was shorthand for juvenile delinquent and references the juvenile justice department. he was a rather scary looking individual, definitely bigger than me and built. Of course the gang tattoos and all that.
He was shocked that I had deflected his blow, and considering how long it had been since I had any formal training, so was I. He saw that my cane had ceased to be a cane and thought better of the whole idea, good for both of us. As I said, it all got sorted. He thought I had dissed’ him in public, and had to respond. The fact that I didn’t back down gave me cred’ and actually improved my ability to work with him (I still expect him to end up in prison for something, but that is outside of my control).
I mention this story as it is an example of what many fear, that a teacher will “go-to gun” where it isn’t the appropriate way to respond. I personally think many of those, who feel that way, because they fear it is what they would do, but I can not really know what they think and it is a bit of hubris to think that I can. That said, I do remember a board member in my district saying “I can’t see how a teacher with a gun would not be shooting their students, there are a few I would sure like to shoot” and then he laughed and proceeded to make a decision for me, based on his fears of how he might react.
The case I mentioned, and so many others that happen every day, are cases that clearly do not call for “gun.” That said, the places that do allow teachers to choose to be armed do not have students being gunned down by teachers.
As far as the nuts and bolts. I would like to see a locker, in the classrooms, that only the teacher has the key to with a clear understanding that a teacher can place a rifle in it (however, most of those would just have purses and lunches, which is fine). As far as on the teacher, there are a lot of rectangular belt holsters that do not reveal, or betray the shape of, the pistol. Summer training should be available at no cost. No, I would not expect to be paid during the training, at the same time I would not want it to be prohibitively expensive. The training would, ideally, cover a lot more than just firearms usage. Finally, yes, an armed teacher would be a fool if they didn’t join an organization like USCCA, while the union’s lawyer is supposed to be the teacher’s lawyer, in the end, they are the union’s lawyer.
There are probably a few other particulars that would need to be sorted out, that is a generally safe statement. Most armed teachers would never, in their entire career, have any need for “go-to gun”. In the future, I would like to see a conversation go like this, “why do some teachers carry guns?”
". . . Well, because of those “things” that sometimes happened way back then. . . "
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That would be on the mandatory list of “do this” every school year.
Schools already have fire drills, and tornado drills, and lockdown drills, they have fire extinguishers that are kept accessible and charged, they have first aid kits/stop the bleed kits that are kept up to date and accessible, they have trained teachers and staff and everybody, every school year, knows what their roles and responsibilities are.
It’s not like it would just sit unattended and forgotten. At least, it shouldn’t and I’d wager in the VAST majority of cases, would not be forgotten.
I would not vote against teachers having the ability to lock one in their classroom, but, I would much prefer teachers the ability to carry on their person (and on their person FULL time), or in an admin area that is occupied by staff. Classrooms are left empty too often where, maybe this or that gets left unlocked while people are present, one time a kid or intruder gets access to that gun and goodbye to all of this in the country forever. In the admin area that should be much less of a risk.
But overall any secured and safe practices in place availability of a firearm to someone in the school is better than disarmed waiting an hour or whatever for police to do it from the outside as a delayed response (even if they don’t delay, they have to get there first…tick tock)
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If I still worked in schools, I belive I would come armed. There’s just too much at stake. I would never tell anyone, though.
Luckily I don’t have to make that decision.
They do take driver’s licenses, for “habitual” non payment of child support. I dont like that either. Personally, I think a guy, and in all too few cases a female, who doesn’t support their children should go to jail instead. But, driving is a privilege and not a right. By the way, I personally finished paying 19 years of support last year, mostly paid early, and still help him with college!
This last despicable act shows much deeper issues. We will never be able to legislate morality. Our society is sick. We have had the answers right in front of us for years.
Allow and train volunteer parents to be armed on grounds, or provide armed security on premises. Or, better yet, dismantle the Public Schools system and start over.
Soft on crime policies need to stop. 20 years, means 20 years, etc.
We allow armed security for Politicians, the rich, celebrities, and more.Yet they are the very ones clamoring for gun control. WHY?
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Yes it is… but once OP started this comparison, I only adjusted it a little. However this is not about comparing rights to privileges, but comparing ideas of usage and punishment.
Let’s stop it… 
Explanation already posted… 
Depends, are those on site able to see? Could you not figure out the meaning?
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I just watched a five part YouTube on Active Shooters and I highly recommend watching at least the first one. It takes all the politics and emotions out of an active shooter situation and explains it in a factual manner. If you have time, watch all five parts. Each video runs 16 to 22 minutes.
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Richard152 would you be saying the same thing if it had been one of your children or your wife or sister? If we don’t work to find common ground and find a solution that 20% of the effort will yield an 80% solution we may lose a lot more. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. This is about protecting people going about their everyday lives.
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What are you recommending that will protect us?