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Originally Posted by chumdawg
We've heard the notion in this thread that as a parent one would feel safer if they knew the teachers at their kid's school were carrying concealed weapons. Let's make sure that is really and truly the case.
Let's say that you are relocating to North Texas, and you are researching the school districts in the area, looking for the best one in which to place your child. Let's say you narrow it down to two school districts. You are looking for a difference maker between the two, doing your research, when you discover that one of the school districts has armed teachers and the other doesn't. How does this influence your thinking?
Do you choose the district with the armed teachers, for the reason that your kids will be safer?
Or do you ask yourself, "Why in the world do they need armed teachers in that district? What kind of stuff goes on there?"
Let's say you dig into the matter further, and you research how many incidents each district had in the last several years. You research murders in both school districts, and you find that neither had any. You research incidents of students brandishing guns in both school districts, and you find that neither had any. You research abductions, serious assaults, and so forth, and you find none in either district. For all intents and purposes, the two districts appear to you equally safe for your child.
But then you think to ask whether the armed school district had any incidences of teachers brandishing their weapons. Surely that sort of thing is documented. You learn that yes, weapons were brandished...let's say three times. None of the incidents resulted in any sort of injury.
Does this new information at all influence your determination of which school district seems safer for your child?
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Yes, Chumdawg. I would have a problem with the scenario where the teacher waved a gun around 3 times for no reason.
Again, I think:
1)any teacher carrying a gun at school needs to be deputized. I am not in favor of letting teachers just carry guns at school. They need full training and screening just like a law enforcement officer.
2)any law enforcement officer who does use his/her weapon inappropriately is generally found guilty of a crime. The teacher "brandishing" a gun foolishly should be punished for a crime.
We could extrapolate this whole discussion to the same discussion about Security forces carrying guns on airplanes. Remember that debate? The pros for the armed security was to deal with the rare chance of a repeat attempt to hi jack a plane. The con was that a gun fired in an airplane might cause substantial harm in several different fashions. You might recall that the armed guards were placed on planes...
they are all concealed carriers of a weapon and are dressed in regular civilian clothing to draw no attention...