Teachers and Firearms


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Having done a few tours of Iraq, I believe that if you banned and confiscated all firearms in the US (an impossibility in my opinion), car bombs and suicide vests would become the weapon of choice for mass killers. It isn't about guns; it's about people who have a desire to kill as many helpless people as possible by whatever means necessary. Security officers in schools is a good idea; not foolproof, but nothing is.

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Lots of lengthy responses. I'll go back and read everyone's thoughts when I get a chance. Meanwhile, the topic of mass shootings and guns in general, continue to weigh heavily on my mind.

I think back to about a year ago (I was 7 months pregnant) when a man tried breaking into our house in the middle of the night. We did not have any lethal weapons in the house, with the exception of a baseball bat and cooking knives but fortunately the police response was immediate, and my husband didn't have to play hero. They did catch the guy. After this, we discussed getting a gun for protection. My husband started doing a lot of reading up on various guns, and talking with friends who are gun owners for input. We still haven't purchased a gun but we're not opposed to it. I'm not sure why we haven't gone through with doing so. I suppose, that while that incident was scary, it didn't send us into a state of paranoia.

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It easier to just do the gun thing, Anatess, even if it has little chance of succeeding. My husband says we wont get there till the millennium and he is probably right but we can try. We have to try.

Sorry, but that isn't good logic. When gun bans have been instituted they have the general effect of increasing total violent crimes. Yes it decreases "gun deaths" if you count suicide in with it, but total number of violent deaths increases, and usually increases vastly.

A ban on guns will only take guns out of the hands of law abiding. Not long ago, a container full of fully automatic AK47's from China (flat out illegal for import) was found. It was apparently headed for Mexico. From what I heard it was one of several dozen that had been brought into or through the United States that didn't get found.

Any attempt to ban guns won't affect anyone wanting to use them to commit crime. It will make it almost impossible for anyone to use a gun to defend themselves against a gun wielding thug.

Worse, we have to take into account that nearly every instance of weapons confiscation in human history has been followed within a couple of generations by a genocide among those who were disarmed.

Gun control has been tried and failed.

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Sorry, but that isn't good logic. When gun bans have been instituted they have the general effect of increasing total violent crimes. Yes it decreases "gun deaths" if you count suicide in with it, but total number of violent deaths increases, and usually increases vastly.

A ban on guns will only take guns out of the hands of law abiding. Not long ago, a container full of fully automatic AK47's from China (flat out illegal for import) was found. It was apparently headed for Mexico. From what I heard it was one of several dozen that had been brought into or through the United States that didn't get found.

Any attempt to ban guns won't affect anyone wanting to use them to commit crime. It will make it almost impossible for anyone to use a gun to defend themselves against a gun wielding thug.

Worse, we have to take into account that nearly every instance of weapons confiscation in human history has been followed within a couple of generations by a genocide among those who were disarmed.

Gun control has been tried and failed.

Did I or did I not say the gun thing has little chance of success?

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Logical View On Tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT - YouTube

I think this man makes a lot of sense. It is not about gun control at all. I am a teacher in a school a lot like sandy hook. I stand in a hallway right behind the front doors every morning and greet the children as they pass by me. I don't know how I would feel about teachers carrying guns but I do know that leaving the schools as they are now is ignoring what is going in the world around us.

Mags

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The solution to those problems is a change in culture. Where people grow up with the culture of respect for life.

I've said before that one of the best way to stop this stuff from happening again, is to raise righteous children and be so sucessful in missionary work that everyone's a Mormon.
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What attitude are you talking about? The attitude that if we entrust our children's emotional and physical well-being to teachers, we should be willing to arm those teachers who are willing to be armed? I don't see the logical flaw in this argument.

I trust my school-age child's teachers, and I believe they would act like the teachers in Conn. But, I believe fundamentally, we need to treat teachers with far more respect than has been shown if we want them to defend the kids with deadly force. It's a matter of fairness. How can we expect them to teach and be prepared to use guns at school if we insist on paying them the wages and benefits that are bare minimum? I'm glad there are those willing to pay a little more if a teacher has a concealed weapons permit, but the fact is teacher's salaries have been slashed so much the past few decades that we now as a society expect them to be paid what an undocumented nanny would get and they'd better be grateful for it, by gum! This Great Recession is merely a solidification of policies that have been accepted over the years: work lean, do more for less, do the same for less, be grateful you're even working. Adding weapons training to a teacher's job is just adding insult to injury.

Soapbox over :D

I think the only thing that even has a hope of being effective is a panic button in each classroom, like bank tellers have. Specific training, panic buttons, and very responsive police. I like an idea I read about in The Deseret News about patrol officer offices at schools. They have to do their paperwork anyways, why not do them at schools where their vehicles will be highly visible?

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But, I believe fundamentally, we need to treat teachers with far more respect than has been shown if we want them to defend the kids with deadly force. It's a matter of fairness. How can we expect them to teach and be prepared to use guns at school if we insist on paying them the wages and benefits that are bare minimum?

You have got to be kidding. I thought no one was fooled by the NEA nonsense, but apparently I was mistaken.

My father was a school teacher and administrator, as was my mother. My sister is a lifelong elementary school teacher. My wife got her first degree in secondary education and taught for a short time. So I have a lot of indirect experience with teaching and teachers in the public schools. Teachers work 9 or 10 months per year and make low-end professional wages with only a four-year degree, full (very valuable) benefits, and with tenure than makes it almost impossible to be fired unless you're practically molesting the children.

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Firstly i noticed nearly everyone on this post is listed inside the US. So i feel like an outsider looking in. It seems to me that America has a serious problem with GUNS in general.

This thread is typical of the nations mental receptors to hand out more guns to people every time their is a shooting. Lets arm our teachers, body guards, combat training.

Whose mother has 3 guns? not just any gun but an assault rifle.

America could take a leaf out of the books from Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and other countries in the area of Gun control.

The United States owns more guns per resident, at about 0.89, than any other nation in the world. The U.S. is almost double the next two highest nations. (2007)

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Whose mother has 3 guns? not just any gun but an assault rifle.

America could take a leaf out of the books from Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia and other countries in the area of Gun control.

The United States owns more guns per resident, at about 0.89, than any other nation in the world. The U.S. is almost double the next two highest nations. (2007)

Professor Writes: UK, Australia Show Gun Control Doesn't Work

How Has Heightened Gun Control Worked in Australia and Britain? - Hit & Run : Reason.com

before you get too involved in removing guns from upstanding citizens...

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Whose mother has 3 guns? not just any gun but an assault rifle.

I don't understand. What's so special about an "assault rifle"? That just means a semiautomatic rifle (you don't have to pull the bolt back by hand) with a detachable magazine. A lot of deer rifles qualify as "assault rifles"; in fact, almost any rifle that loads with a detachable magazine would.

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Really your kidding me... 2 writers went back 16 years to find a tragic incident in Australia's history. Why not go back 200 years when convicts were sent out from England for stealing a loaf of bread.

Lets keep it relevant....

In 2011 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.

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I don't understand. What's so special about an "assault rifle"? That just means a semiautomatic rifle (you don't have to pull the bolt back by hand) with a detachable magazine. A lot of deer rifles qualify as "assault rifles"; in fact, almost any rifle that loads with a detachable magazine would.

Exactly. Let's not confuse assault rifle with assault weapons.

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I don't understand. What's so special about an "assault rifle"? That just means a semiautomatic rifle (you don't have to pull the bolt back by hand) with a detachable magazine. A lot of deer rifles qualify as "assault rifles"; in fact, almost any rifle that loads with a detachable magazine would.

Thanks for clarifying that for me.. maybe i should have just left it with, whose mother has 3 guns? Mine had a wooden spoon:huh:

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I don't understand. What's so special about an "assault rifle"? That just means a semiautomatic rifle (you don't have to pull the bolt back by hand) with a detachable magazine. A lot of deer rifles qualify as "assault rifles"; in fact, almost any rifle that loads with a detachable magazine would.

Actually not. An assault rifle is a "select fire" rifle in an intermediate chambering. Meaning that it is a rifle that can be fired on either semiauto (or burst), or single shot. It is in an intermediate chambering, meaning it is somewhere in-between standard full power rifle cartridges and pistol calibers.

If someone says "High-Powered Assault Rifle" it is meaningless, since an assault rifle is by definition not high powered.

You are correct however that a civilian manufacture AR-15 is functionally no different than any other small caliber hunting rifle. It is not an "assault-rifle" as it does can not fire in burst or full auto mode.

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In 2011 - the latest year for which detailed statistics are available - there were 12,664 murders in the US. Of those, 8,583 were caused by firearms.

And the vast majority of them in areas where it is illegal for the average citizen to own a gun.

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The 2nd amendment was designed as a check and balance against the government. It give the citizens power to at least discourage government from becoming tyrannical. if anything, we should be allowing citizens to have tanks, helicopters, machine guns and other large scale military grade weapons (managed through a local an well formed militia).

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"Assault Weapon" is a term invented by the gun control advocates and media. It is technically meaningless.

Nonsense. You'll find the term used in military circles at least as far back as the early 1940s. It was even used in operational documents from WW2. The term makes technical sense, as there are weapons intended for defensive purposes, and weapons for assault.

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Nonsense. You'll find the term used in military circles at least as far back as the early 1940s. It was even used in operational documents from WW2. The term makes technical sense, as there are weapons intended for defensive purposes, and weapons for assault.

Perhaps not an unimpeachable source, but Wikipedia states:

The term "assault weapon", as used in the context of civilian rifles, has been attributed to gun-control activist Josh Sugarmann, author of the 1988 book "Assault Weapons and Accessories in America" who wrote:

“Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons."

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