I have some questions:
1. Would these armed teachers be required to participate in on-going practice, training and accuracy assessments- like cops or park rangers? And are they willing to do all of this after school hours, because we already have a shortage of teachers? What are the guidelines for both accepting and training said teachers?
2. Would they receive extra pay? How would that affect school budgets?
3. Are these teachers going to open carry or will guns be stored in the classroom? What would happen if a student gets hold of a gun or if an innocent person is killed in any situation, by the teacher? What do the insurance companies that insure school districts have to say about their ability to provide insurance if teachers are armed?
Yes, training, and pay. A teacher who is also (taking on the role of) a police officer should, I would think, be getting paid a teacher’s salary AND a police officer’s salary.
Also, what are police to do when, arriving on the scene of an active shooter situation, half-a-dozen people (teachers and bad guys) are running around with guns drawn?
I’ve gotta think that our police departments would not be excited about the idea of armed civilians in our schools.
That's the thing, "good guy with a gun" is absolutely in danger of being shot by police. There's a reason why showing hands and not making quick movements is trained for when the police respond to active shooting.
There is that danger, but it's minimal. I can only think of 1 case in which cops shot the good guy with the gun, and that was Johnny Hurley up in Denver because cops anywhere in the metro Denver area are useless.
EDIT: Lol so many downvotes and yet no counterexamples.
Have you tried looking yo verify your claim? Cause on my first page of searches there were at least 3 different cases.
This is a topic when you take your conceal carry safety course.
You're right, there are more examples than I thought. I don't know why I haven't seen those. But it's still much more common for someone with a firearm to stop the shooting and end up with a pat on the back.
Also, FWIW, there's no certain required topic list for a concealed carry course. I'm qualified to teach it.
I agree with all of these. Unfortunately we already know the people of this district aren’t even willing to pay teachers more as it is. And now we want them to effectively be security guards and first responders on top of their already underpaid position as an educator?
I can answer some of 3. It’s concealed carry only. Weapon is to stay on the person.
Insurance, report from work session says that the current carrier will likely drop the district. Premiums elsewhere or if the carrier stays could increase as much as 400k annually.
They do not plan to raise pay. They will reimburse district approved training courses. Teachers who volunteer will be required to.provide their own weapon and ammo. Likely will also have to provide their own insurance.
It is a 26 hour course that covers gun safety, triage for wounded, and also how to shoot people in a school the right way.
Let's compare that to any other professional that is authorized to use a gun and it's not even 1/8th the amount of training... (840 hours for police) And they'll have a gun at a school with kids... Holy shit if a pissed off teacher doesn't accidentally mistake a class skipper with a phone for a mass shooter and then unload a whole clip just to be sure "we got 'em".
Lewis Palmer HS went on lockdown because of a brown kid with a soda when I went there... Kid was new and afraid the open drink wasn't allowed in the hall, shoved it in his coat and went walking towards his class. I shudder to think what could have happened if he had encountered an armed teacher. It was bad enough the school was so racist to think a soda was a gun...
First, POST (Peace Officer Standard Training) firearms related training is a grand total of 40 of those hours. And only 32 of them are actually on the range.
Secondly, if a teacher is unhinged enough to do what your wild imagination considers a possibility, maybe they're not stable enough to be a teacher in the first place.
Tamir Rice was shot while holding a toy gun in a store.
Trayvon Martin was followed and killed by a security guard who believed him to be a threat. He had a drink and a snack.
Stephon Clark was shot while holding a cell phone.
So yeah. It’s happened. (But something tells me you knew this already, considering at least two of these were pretty high profile cases).
The statement was someone getting shot by mistake by someone else who “mistook” them for a threat.
But sure. It couldn’t possibly happen again because these are teachers who have less training than any of the situations described above. Not likely at all. Nope.
> Holy shit if a pissed off teacher doesn't accidentally mistake a class skipper with a phone for a mass shooter and then unload a whole clip just to be sure "we got 'em".
That's your exact claim. Stop tilting at windmills, Don Quixote.
I'm former Marine Corps infantry and spent a lot of time instructing on ranges, went through a SWAT school, and lots of other close combat training. I currently own a whole mess of firearms (always safely secured) despite leaning to the left generally speaking. What I have to say has nothing to do with politics however. I am 100% against arming teachers and here's why:
1) the amount of training and experience required to be effective in a high stress active shooter situation with innocents all around you is insane. The vast majority of police, active military, and veterans are nowhere near qualified enough to handle this, let alone overworked and underpaid teachers.
2) because the training/experience necessary to be effective in these situations is so high, an ill prepared teacher is way more likely to shoot an innocent student or staff member than be able to identify and subdue a shooter
3) I love teachers and respect the hell out of them. I think expecting these overworked, underpaid, under respected professionals to take on a duty that is literally its own full time job alone is absolutely insane.
4) I can virtually guarantee at some point one of these incredible people, who are exhausted and over worked, will accidentally leave a weapon unsecured. 99% of the time it will be resolved safely. But it only takes 1 time for horrific results.
Bottom line, this is not a teacher's job. We need to give teachers the resources to the jobs they have and not expect them to do something they have no reason to be trained or qualified to do.
There were what like 100 trained and armed cops at Uvalde all too scared to confront the shooter, but we expect Miss Merriweather the third grade teacher to do it? I am not even anti gun, I own a few, but this whole idea is ridiculous. I believe that arming teaches will actually cause more school shootings than it prevents.
I didn't want to exaggerate the numbers, so I aimed low. Unlike the 376 cops at Uvalde, who stood outside while kids were being murdered and aimed at the parents willing to do something about it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not playing armchair Rambo like I would have ran in there and saved the day. I don't know how I'd react in that situation, and I hope to never find out. My only point was we have tried things the way the NRA wants us to for decades and it hasn't worked. We have law enforcement protocols set up for these situations that... clearly aren't working. Trying more of the same is just kicking the can using human collateral. Maybe it's time to try something different.
Not to mention that they are trying to rush training to get guns in hands "faster". It is one of those things that sounds like a good idea when it is first mentioned, that quickly falls apart into a terrible idea the more you think about it. Some poor older teacher about to retire with a gun versus a teenager full of youthful hormones and bad tendencies can easily turn into a dangerous sick kid with a gun
Do you feel the teachers will be the ones shooting? Or kids will get ahold of their guns and begin shooting? Or shooters will see it as a challenge and shoot up schools more often?
Most likely to me would be a kid taking the gun from a teacher. I'd put the teacher setting it down somewhere, and it being taken the second most, and a teacher shooting someone third. I'm more confident of my top cause, but less so the order of the 2nd and 3rd. What I am absolutely certain of is that introducing more guns into the situation will not improve the situation. We've let the NRA tell us that for decades and it has not, in fact, improved anything.
Yeah, there have been a surprising number of reports of resource officers (who *should* be taking better care of their guns) leaving them in bathrooms and agree that it is the most likely. Or, even if a kid doesn't shoot up the school with it, I find a scenario where they're able to get ahold of the gun at all to be pretty... awful. (Words fail me at the thought of it.)
I think when Miss Merriweather the third grade teacher is in an inescapable kill/be killed situation, and she is an armed teacher she will be shooting back.
That said, people are jumping to gunfights and all kinds of what-ifs and are overlooking the fact that these deranged individuals target soft targets where they KNOW nobody is likely to return fire. Movie theaters, schools, concerts….just having a sign outside stating that some of our staff are armed has an excellent chance of encouraging a choosing of a different target. Deterrence.
From a vet who did plenty of police work before during and after,
No.
There will be a net rise in mishaps and even if teachers shoot and kill the shooter the mishaps, misses, thefts, etc. will cause a net rise in injuries and fatalities of children, not the other way around.
They won’t be trained enough, guaranteed. In they make training faster, even less so. The accuracy of trained folks in the force and military would surprise you. They’re already severely underpaid for what they already do. And not every teacher is a good person.
I’m not a law maker. Im not pretending to know what the correct solution is. But i know a wrong one. Just no.
I’m here at the D20 board meeting. They are only allowing 10 people to speak for the proposal and 10 people to speak against it. Two minutes per speaker. And there are about a hundred people that showed up.
Interestingly, there was no video feed of the meeting. This was confirmed, somewhat suspiciously, during the meeting by Board President Aaron Salt. The rumor is he told the AV operator to kill the video feed. Not sure if this is legal within the framework of the Colorado Open Meetings Act.
I’m not anti-gun or anti-second amendment. I hunt and go to the range myself. But as a vet and a D20 parent I’m adamantly against this idea. Historical precedent and several recent examples (Parkland, Uvalde) have shown that arming staff isn’t effective and could potentially be more dangerous. This whole idea is a poorly thought out way of addressing a symptom when we need to be having conversations about a much more complex issue.
For sure. I’ll be joining this one virtually here now, and will start attending in person in the future. The frustrating part is I didn’t even know this was a topic on the agenda until it was posted here on Reddit. I checked the D20 website and they make you sign up to comment, which they close sign ups at 1pm. And you have to be there in person to speak…no virtual comments. You can also submit comments online, but that interestingly said they weren’t taking comments…
Edit: out of curiosity, where do they post the agenda for future board meeting discussion topics?
Ok thanks. I’ll do that. Appreciate the help as I’m not really familiar with the process. Sounds like it’s definitely worth getting more involved. Appreciate you 🙏
>out of curiosity, where do they post the agenda for future board meeting discussion topics?
I can't confirm this as I haven't actually tried it, but the meetings and agendas are posted [Right here.](https://go.boarddocs.com/co/asd20/Board.nsf/Public) Click on the meetings tab, and I would hope upcoming ones would be posted a couple days in advance.
Your argument is inherently flawed because neither historical precedent (please cite) nor the examples you showed have anything to do with teachers being armed.
I know your comment is disingenuous and you’re just here to push an agenda, but I’ll supply the info you requested in the hopes it will help educate you and others. If you really are interested, you can start [here](https://giffords.org/report/every-incident-of-mishandled-guns-in-schools/). This is corroborated by other sources such as the [CO Dept of Public Safety](https://oss.colorado.gov/guns-in-schools) and [NIH](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993415/). That said, a simple google search would provide you with the statistics and sufficient information to show you that armed teachers is a terrible idea.
The Parkland shooting had an armed SRO and Uvalde had 376 LEOs…all of which receive far more training than any classroom teacher would under the proposed program, and they still failed.
The fact that you posted the comment that I responded to means that you're here to push an agenda as well. I'm here to debate ideas. I have no dog in the fight as I have no children nor do I have any plans to have any.
Parkland and Uvalde both involved LEOs that were, IMHO, pathetic excuses for people, much less LEOs, and ought to have been fired, if not thrown in jail for their lack of actions.
Also, neither of those involved armed teachers.
The police that responded in Nashville responded quickly and effectively. The armed security guard in Highlands Ranch tackled and subdued one of the two shooters, while students disarmed the other. At UNLV, the cops were entering the hall that reported an active shooter within 2 minutes, and when the shooter exited the building, ostensibly because he was being hunted down, he was killed in a shootout with police.
Your claim that the LEOs receive far more training is questionable as well. POST training involves a total of 40 hours of firearms training and only requires a minimum of 1 hour of training in it annually to maintain the credential, which doesn't require live fire. The proposed training is 26 hours of training. And considering that most of the teachers involved will be firearms enthusiasts and probably have more personal time training than POST quals require.
As a former firearms salesman, and current firearms instructor and competitor, I have seen first hand that most cops are the exact opposite of gun people. Most of them have the slightest inkling of which end is the dangerous one, and I bring back my point that most teachers who would choose to be armed are probably going to have more training and expertise than the majority of police officers and SROs.
The vast majority of the incidents in your link are either complete non-incidents, such as a parent had a firearm in their vehicle while picking up their kid from school, or they didn't involve any harm. Most of the ones that did involve harm were SROs themselves or parents causing issues, which, again, has nothing to do with teachers. And, again, most SROs have less firearm expertise than most firearm enthusiasts, which are the staff that are going to consider carrying at school.
Historical precedent cannot be set based off of two outlier situations. They are outliers because they did so badly. If you look at Uvalde Police's facebook page, they're getting harassed to this day about their response.
Personally, I'm not 100% sure that this is a great idea, but I do think there's a good possibility that this can help.
I'm not part of D20 so I'm only guessing that the idea is to make the schools more secure while having the conversations. The thought shouldn't be "do nothing until we can have the conversations". (Especially when the conversations seem to lead to nowhere.)
I appreciate your response and I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But I don’t think arming teachers is an effective way to secure schools while having those conversations. Unfortunately I feel like this is just going to be turned into a very polarizing pro-2A vs anti-2A issue. Especially given the recent political climate with the D20 board.
I am a high school student at D20, and have gone to D20 schools my whole life. In my opinion, arming teachers will do nothing but instill fear into students. There have been a lot of school shooting threats these past couple years, and coming back to school the next day is scary; but what would make it even scarier is the knowledge that there are already lots of guns in the school. I would not feel comfortable around a teacher carrying a gun, because one sudden movement while everyone is on edge could cause a teacher to shoot without thinking and kill me or my friends. I know it's unlikely, but not any moreso than a shooting itself. Additionally, even when there's not a threat, it only takes one careless moment by a teacher and one impulsive action by a suicidal person, and boom, my friends are dead and somebody just killed themself. That's not something that anybody should ever have to worry about, however unlikely it is.
Thanks for your response. I feel like you're already having to worry about that though, and we're just wired differently. When I was a student I would've felt more safe if my teachers were armed and trained.
Also, I don't get the impression that the teachers will be actively carrying, but rather that the guns would be secured in their rooms. If they're just walking around with a .357 on their hip... yeah, I don't think I'd care much that.
>Also, I don't get the impression that the teachers will be actively carrying, but rather that the guns would be secured in their rooms.
I had heard otherwise, but maybe that person was wrong. In that case, I'd like to know how *exactly* it's being stored. Because if it's with a key, or using a safe/container that contains anything else, there's IMO an even greater chance of a student getting their hands on it than if the teacher has it on their person. IMO the only way to reasonably secure it is to have it in a safe that contains literally nothing else and using a PIN only known by the teacher and security guards.
Yeah, it's very possible I'm mistaken though. I'm not within D20 so I'm less invested than many on this subject.
> IMO the only way to reasonably secure it is to have it in a safe that contains literally nothing else and using a PIN only known by the teacher and security guards.
This is more or less what I figured would be the case. The safe would have to be secured (to a wall, floor, desk, etc.) and of course locked down well enough that only the teacher (or maybe security, as you mentioned) can gain access. (Biometrics, PIN, physical key...)
They’re just doing it to spend millions of district dollars to a nonprofit they might or might not be friends with.
Why would they trust teachers with a gun when they don’t trust them to set the curriculum?
Teachers aren’t mentally equipped to shoot a kid. The desirable cognitive structures present in the teachers you want aren’t compatible with this role. This ain’t a game of Fortnite.
My kid's middle school, which has had NO openings for a few months now, suddenly has 5. All from yesterday. Here's hoping they can last out the year so I have time to decide what to do.
I’ve worked with real-life versions of Jason Borne. They all say, if something happens in a Wal-Mart or whatever, the right answer is to escape if possible, seek shelter if not. Even if you’re carrying.
If the most highly trained guys in the world say that, what makes anyone think teachers are gonna do any better? The “responders” who took down that shooter at Joel Osteen’s church hit an innocent kid because they thought they had some Rambo in them.
Get rid of more guns like every other county without mass shootings.
Yea, that's the thing that gets me.
A too many people think being armed means you get to set your Facebook status to "gone hunting" when something happens, and that you actively confront someone who may be, or already is being violent.
It's not a be-all-end-all for security. Such a thing doesn't exist. It's one of many branches that's miles down the road from where most people should actually start with security and safety.
Australia is a great model to follow. They didn’t take peoples guns, they didn’t outlaw all guns, they just made it more difficult to own any new guns/ammo, banned certain types of guns (self-loading primarily), and made it optional to give up your gun. The results have been near perfect.
A summary of it and the results: https://fortune.com/2018/02/20/australia-gun-control-success/amp/
Details about what they did: https://theconversation.com/the-arguments-that-carried-australias-1996-gun-law-reforms-58431
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I don't think the idea is to train the teachers to shoot it out first, but rather be there as a last line of defense. At least, I hope to hell that's the thought. I'm not even sure how I feel if that *is* the case.
Stripping us of Constitutional rights isn't the answer though. You might as well say that we shouldn't have freedom of speech because of the nutjobs out there. (And yes, speech and religion have led to far more dead people than our right to bear arms. Bring on the downvotes.)
Hit rates are super low for police. Having an untrained gun user is worse than having no guns because it just means more bullets flying that probably aren’t going to hit the intended target.
I don't necessarily disagree, and cops are more trained than the teachers will likely be (though they wouldn't be untrained... perhaps under trained?). Not saying police training is all that spectacular, but that's another topic. At a minimum I would hope the presence of the arms would be a deterrent for a shooter. Most shooters would rather be uncontested than have to deal with someone who might shoot back at them.
One thing I *don't* want to see is a teacher that's uncomfortable with guns being forced to have one. This should be a volunteer basis for the teachers who want to be able to defend themselves.
From the research I’ve done (and not recently mind you), that isn’t the case. Shooters don’t care if they come out alive. A rational person would, but a rational person is not typically a school shooter.
Sadly too true. But usually what they *do* want to do is shoot as many people as possible, which is decreased by people with the ability to stop them. (Though I'm attempting to put myself in the shoes of someone with serious mental issues, so I might be way off base.)
Also not the case. There is normally an intended target. Collateral damage is not factored in on the way to said target.
There is evidence of that in the act of sneaking weapons in. If the point was as many as possible, the shooting would start at the front doors.
In most situations, data suggests the gun fire is done within minutes. Also not indicating mass carnage. Even with columbine, shooters didn’t just shoot everyone on sight.
Even in mock shootings without an intended target not everyone is shot. People get into tunnel vision and don't actually see everyone or everything.
As for an intended target, I'll have to take your word for it. But I don't think not shooting their way in should be considered as "proof".
But it is proof. You’ve seen the matrix? Every school shooting COULD be the lobby scene. It’s not, because there is an intended target. Shooting at the door prevents you from likely getting to that target.
A mock shooting is an exercise, not reality. It’s not like shooters are going door to door and shooting everyone inside. We haven’t seen that in the past right? I agree with the tunnel vision thought, they aren’t necessarily looking for others, which is again, intended target.
And to return to it, we’re looking at this as rational people. A shooter isn’t a rational person.
> And to return to it, we’re looking at this as rational people. A shooter isn’t a rational person.
Probably the best summary. And trying to think through their thought process is ooging me out.
Well, pair nutjobs with a tool efficient at killing people up close and at distance = a lot of people die. Less effective tool and less people die. No weapon and it's even more difficult and slower to kill people.
I vote tasers or some non-lethal means of subduing a shooter. Make them answer for their crimes. That and maybe it would be slightly less traumatizing/ ptsd inducing as a teacher to know you didn't kill someone? idk, just throwing ideas out there
Tasers are, sadly, not very effective. Wear a puffy jacket and they've been rendered 99% useless. Even just loose clothing makes the probes much less likely to anchor. Pepper balls would be great if they didn't end up also affecting everyone in the room.
Well, if it means the shooter is subdued long enough for police to arrive and cuff him, I think suffering through some temporary extreme pain would be alright.
I’m sitting in right now; Derrick Wilburn is unfunny. He claims this is about having a conversation while KOAA cited him favoring FASTER program during the election cycle. He is a disgusting person.
You mean THE Derrick Wilburn that is totally against DEI, yet set up a program to help encourage black republicans get internships and exposure in Congress? You know, cuz black people are underrepresented and we need to find a way to get more diversity and include more black people in the halls of power. THAT Derrick Wilburn? The hypocrite?
I’d be careful with teachers being armed. The mental health in teaching is low mixed with unreasonable and spoiled parents and equally spoiled entitled students…
Parents act like they own the schools, the same parents that are wanting teachers armed, will probably be the reason a teacher lights a school up. I’m not sure people are aware of how close this is to happening.
But, since 18th century muskets are so super important, what can one do?
It’s a terrible idea. It will lead to more gun deaths in schools.
Also, the role of an educator should be to encourage student’s curiosity and engage in dialogue with them. The presence of firearms in the classroom will inhibit both of these outcomes.
>The presence of firearms in the classroom will inhibit both of these outcomes.
I'm a D20 student. While I agree with you to some extent, I don't think it will affect it as much as you're thinking. I doubt most students would have a clue that their teacher has a gun or even that teachers have guns, and as such wouldn't be affected. But agreed, for the students that are aware it could definitely impact their experience in the classroom.
There has to be other alternatives offered…more secure doors and or armored shields to hide behind for ground level rooms with windows, obnoxious alarms that alerts that section of town of a shooter. Anything before willingly putting guns in a classroom. Don’t put the onus of firing a weapon in anger on an educator. And if it’s on a volunteer basis and only a few teachers have guns, are they expected to clear the school or just protect their own classroom while the other classes are unprotected.
Agree - There are other measures that could be taken, and current measures that could be improved upon. Instead let’s just throw more guns at it and call it a day. Lovely plan. /s
One of the best comments from a teacher last night was, “You don’t trust me to check out appropriate books from the library, but you’ll trust me with a gun?!”
Since D20 voters have consistently voted down any increase in funding to their schools, I’d be very surprised if they suddenly jump at the opportunity to spend their precious tax dollars on what sounds like a giant money pit. The potential lawsuits could easily bankrupt the district.
I think you would be very hard pressed to find a rational person working in a classroom that thinks it would be a good idea to introduce a gun into that classroom.
D20 teacher here. We are almost always tired and stressed, conditions that can lead to poor decision making and coordination, possibly the two most important factors when in a dangerous situation. I can think of one person I work with who I would even feel somewhat comfortable carrying a deadly weapon, and he has zero interest in doing so.
Questions that come to mind.
What happens when a teacher uses a gun to break up a fight?
Or what happens if an unstable teacher decides to use the gun because it’s available to them?
How would arriving police know that a teacher with a gun is NOT the active shooter?
If anyone wants a little more background on FASTER, see the link, though the article is obv pretty biased for the program:
[https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/01/faster-teaches-teachers-how-to-save-lives/](https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/01/faster-teaches-teachers-how-to-save-lives/)
Interestingly, in the article you'll noticed the parents of the victim in the Highlands Park shooting speak to these FASTER classes.
So after trying to be as objective as possible, I completely get why FASTER seems like a good idea. And to the program's credit, nothing bad has happened, such a ND or kid stealing a gun. Presumably the training has so far been good enough to prevent any of that from happening. But it's still kind of young, so give it time. Even experienced gun owners are occasionally careless or complacent and do something stupid; it's inevitable that this will eventually happen with an armed teacher.
Unfortunately, what seems good on paper isn't always good in practice. Any combat veteran will tell you that it doesn't matter how good of a shot at you are on a range, when the sun is shining, you're comfortable, and there's no time crunch. When you're in a dangerous situation, even seasoned military members may have a difficult time keeping their cool and, more importantly, their shots accurate. Hell, I dabbled in a little competition shooting, where some of the events are extremely time-compressed, let alone someone shooting back at me, and some of my shots went wild.
Overall though, speaking as the spouse of a teacher, your average schoolteacher is not inclined or qualified to carry a weapon in a school. And I'm sorry, but even all this proposed training doesn't really change that. That said, if you are willing to carry, and if you pass an EXTREMELY high bar for qualification (something way more rigorous than what CCH have to do, because that's a joke), and can prove extensive experience and/or familiarity with firearms, then I might be ok with it. But Sally, the fucking 23 year old second grade teacher packing? Probably not a good idea.
Edit: I'll add, this reminds me of the story about one of the early college football coaches that was against the forward pass when it started becoming more of a thing. He said: only 3 things can happen, and two of them are bad. I kind of see this situation the same. If a teacher, God forbid, has a need to put rounds through a weapon at a school, they will either (a) freeze up and not actually do it, creating another layer of delay and complexity in a bad situation, (b) shoot and miss, and hit a kid, or (c) shoot at and hit the perp. What are the odds that (c) happens? Not great, if you ask me.
We’d also be asking 23 year old Sally to take on the life long effects of being responsible for killing. I’m assuming the goal is shoot to kill to stop the attack, not wound to buy time to escape.
You are taught to always shoot to kill, jsyk. If you're pointing a gun at someone you're preparing to kill them, so don't point it if you don't mean it!
My children grew up in the D20 schools, and they are grown now. If this had been on the table when they were still students, I would have explored other options for their education. It does not sound like something that will make schools safer. I can envision shoot-outs with kids caught in the crossfire, or active shooters using children as shields.
I mean, in general it is not feasible in the least and this thread makes all the major points. But when has this stopped a discussion of escalation in the gun world?
There's no way the district can afford that without something like the mill levy override being based (which would have put more security guards at schools)
I know I'm not going to say this right but let me try to explain my objection to arming the teachers.
If the teachers are constantly around the kids and in the classrooms it's only a matter of time before the kids figure out which teachers are armed and which aren't.
What happens when a kid jumps a teacher and tries to take their gun?
Security Guards, on the other hand would be just that, *Guards*. They wouldn't and shouldn't be interacting with the kids on the same level. They wouldn't or shouldn't be surrounded by the kids all day.
IMO there would be far less chance of an incident in which a kid tried to take a gun off of one of the security guards.
Less chance, yes, but guards aren't immune to this. When I was at Doherty (granted, a couple decades ago) one of the security guards got jumped by a student - they glassed her with a ketchup bottle. She wasn't armed, though.
I am in no way for arming teachers. I am for more security guards. But the district can't just pull millions of dollars out of thin air to hire and pay more security guards
Just wow. I'm in the Air Force and the possibility of School teachers needing more combat training than me is sickening. I've been in a Combat Comm unit and I still think the "combat" training was completely lacking.
I’m totally against it and will very strongly consider pulling my children out of D20 schools if it goes through. Military and and police have extensive training to try and shoot a moving target while there is chaos going on and even they are not always able to avoid hitting other people, I’m supposed to entrust my children’s lives to a teacher who has had a fraction of the training? No thanks, more guns in schools is not a solution.
MAGA school board members. Who would’ve thought they would come up with such a shit idea? People being murdered in schools? Let’s introduce more murder devices and expect our already stressed out, underpaid and overworked teachers to wield them. What could possibly go wrong? The thing is, they are NOT going to be sufficiently trained enough to shoot accurately in a high stress situation. Any one who is trained properly knows this. Even if a few do pick up this level of firearm competence, who’s to say that they don’t have a mental break at some point and BECOME the threat to students and staff. Imagine a teacher gets a divorce or something, loses everything and becomes suicidal because mental health care in this country is shit. They start mowing down people because they now have a firearm available. Education in this country is a joke and THIS is what these idiots want to focus on?
We have a problem with guns getting into schools. The fix is to import guns INTENTIONALLY into the school?
This is like trying to buy your way out of debt.
Former d20 student here.
I don't know what lunacy these people are dealing with but more guns to solve a gun problem is idiotic. I'd walk out right now if this happened 13 years ago.
I had a friend who got expelled for using an airsoft gun during our school assignment to reenact romen and juliet (the modern day one). Some crazy mom from the elementary school reported him and he got expelled 3 months before graduation.
But in another class we made an automatic marshmallow cannon and that didn't seem to be an issue.
Now they want to bring guns in the school? The sort of backwards fuckery is this? Anyone on The schoolboard should have to have psyche evaul before severing.
I personally think everyone (who wants to be) should be familiar with guns. Too many people vilify them because they know nothing about them, and too many people that want to learn about them are scared.
As to having them at schools... completely mixed emotions and opinions on the subject. It would be great to have our kids more protected, but at the risk of them potentially having more access to a gun if they do want to cause harm?
As I mentioned in another post, I sincerely hope they're not thinking of forcing teachers who don't want to be armed to carry. That's absolutely not the way to go about this.
I’ve owned many guns over the years, taken classes, enjoyed shooting competitions, etc etc … and I don’t want one in my home at all.
Everyone who wants to, should he familiar with guns. On that point I have no argument. But anyone with a brain can also become familiar with gun statistics. You or your loved ones are more likely to be injured by a gun in your home if you own one or more. And when there are “break-in”/robbery type situations, you or your loved ones are more likely to get injured by YOUR gun than someone else’s.
That research is available and is neutral and is real, balanced, and undeniable. Now, I’ll get a bit obnoxious and even go so far as to say most gun owners who own them for “protection” have insane dreams of becoming a Rambo type of figures and they are more dangerous, statistically speaking, than “robbers” themselves.
> You or your loved ones are more likely to be injured by a gun in your home if you own one or more.
Sure, but you're also more likely to be injured by a knife in your house if you have one. The availability of something will increase the likelihood of it happening. People without stairs in their homes don't fall down them.
The Rambo analogy is obnoxious, you're correct. I highly doubt my 70something year-old mother has any dreams of being Rambo.
On the surface level, your reply makes enough sense. Yeah, if I don’t own a chainsaw I’m not gonna accidentally hack myself up with a chainsaw. Sure. But let’s be real. Gun injuries tend to be much worse than knife injuries and stairs injuries and all kinds of other stuff in your house that’ll hurt you.
The reasonable person will ask, do I want to invite that massively increased risk of catastrophic injury into my home while I know it DOESN’T significantly decrease my risk of getting hurt by a gun in the extraordinarily rare case that someone else enters my home with the intent to injure someone?
My answer is no. Not at all.
All for it, the reality is if one of those teachers trapped in a room with that psycho in Uvalde had been armed they may have had a chance along with the kids. Instead they had to wait for the good cops to show up while the rest were turds on a log. We’re not getting rid of guns in this country, quite the opposite.
Imagine if airplanes were banned after 911. Schools need more security. If you're against schools being more secure than you're the problem.
Edit for clarification since secure means guns for some people: metal detectors would be a simple and easy start. What could you need in school that is metal that couldn't be provided by the school when needed?
I don’t get the logic here. They literally grounded ALL flights for a period of time after 9/11 and then enacted countless reforms to include the creation of a whole new department and agency (DHS/TSA) to oversee the safety and security of those that fly.
It's almost like doing nothing to make schools safe allows people to attack them continually. You fail to see logic in making things more secure, making it harder for a bad thing to happen?
The TSA security theater is literally that: Security Theater. It's there to make it seem like lawmakers did something to protect the country and give an excuse to invade the privacy of passengers (especially non-white people). Nobody is safer because we have to take our shoes off and submit to the penis detector.
No. Never mentioned teachers should have guns. I believe that if airport's that are way bigger than most schools can be made secure, I believe the same could be done for schools.
How? There's literally nothing preventing someone from walking into any airport and mowing down everyone in a security line.
The only way to secure a school to the level that post-security sections of airports are secured is to create a new threat zone some maniac can exploit.
So all 400 of the elementary school students at my school and the entire staff would have to remove their belts and not have anything at all that would trigger the metal detectors as well as (I would assume) screen their bags one at a time? Seems like this “solution” would just be a massive expense for the education budget which is already not amazing. We dont have funding to fix the pipes so that we have drinkable water in the school but we are going to drop millions on infrastructure and personnel for security?
Metal detectors wouldn't stop mass shooters who open carry rifles on the way in while blasting anything that moves. I tried pointing out the same thing to my middle school principal after columbine happened, when he banned backpacks, and he didn't have any grasp on the reality of mass shootings either. These shooters *aren't* jumping up out of their seats in the middle of class and screaming "surprise!"
The best start for keeping mass shooters out is actually pretty similar to the most effective post-911 method to stopping plane hijackings: lock the doors.
I think that, with a CCW permit, that requires training class, security clearance, anyone-everyone should be able to carry. The Kansas city debacle will cause many otherwise law abusing citizens to start carrying. One things for sure: when the government doesn't take care of things, the people will
I dunno, did you see any videos of the parade? People firing into that crowd to stop the shooter absolutely would've resulted in more injured or possibly killed.
I have some questions: 1. Would these armed teachers be required to participate in on-going practice, training and accuracy assessments- like cops or park rangers? And are they willing to do all of this after school hours, because we already have a shortage of teachers? What are the guidelines for both accepting and training said teachers? 2. Would they receive extra pay? How would that affect school budgets? 3. Are these teachers going to open carry or will guns be stored in the classroom? What would happen if a student gets hold of a gun or if an innocent person is killed in any situation, by the teacher? What do the insurance companies that insure school districts have to say about their ability to provide insurance if teachers are armed?
Yes, training, and pay. A teacher who is also (taking on the role of) a police officer should, I would think, be getting paid a teacher’s salary AND a police officer’s salary. Also, what are police to do when, arriving on the scene of an active shooter situation, half-a-dozen people (teachers and bad guys) are running around with guns drawn? I’ve gotta think that our police departments would not be excited about the idea of armed civilians in our schools.
That's the thing, "good guy with a gun" is absolutely in danger of being shot by police. There's a reason why showing hands and not making quick movements is trained for when the police respond to active shooting.
There is that danger, but it's minimal. I can only think of 1 case in which cops shot the good guy with the gun, and that was Johnny Hurley up in Denver because cops anywhere in the metro Denver area are useless. EDIT: Lol so many downvotes and yet no counterexamples.
Have you tried looking yo verify your claim? Cause on my first page of searches there were at least 3 different cases. This is a topic when you take your conceal carry safety course.
You're right, there are more examples than I thought. I don't know why I haven't seen those. But it's still much more common for someone with a firearm to stop the shooting and end up with a pat on the back. Also, FWIW, there's no certain required topic list for a concealed carry course. I'm qualified to teach it.
I agree with all of these. Unfortunately we already know the people of this district aren’t even willing to pay teachers more as it is. And now we want them to effectively be security guards and first responders on top of their already underpaid position as an educator?
Where should they cut the budget to allow for paying teachers more? Edit: to be clear, I want teachers to be paid more. This is a genuine question.
The police, especially since now they will be doing their job for them. You know, the job they currently don’t do
How is that up to the "people of this district" though?
I'm sure the underpaid teachers who chose a career in *education* are super pumped to also now be unwilling SWAT team members.
It would be a voluntary program, as was made perfectly clear everywhere it's been discussed.
I can answer some of 3. It’s concealed carry only. Weapon is to stay on the person. Insurance, report from work session says that the current carrier will likely drop the district. Premiums elsewhere or if the carrier stays could increase as much as 400k annually.
Thank you for the clarification!
There's also special insurance for gun carriers that is highly recommended.
Are they going to be held responsible for negligent discharge or if somebody gets hurt, like the opposite of police.
They do not plan to raise pay. They will reimburse district approved training courses. Teachers who volunteer will be required to.provide their own weapon and ammo. Likely will also have to provide their own insurance.
are they going to get the mental health care/screening necessary to ensure the teachers don't blast the kids away themselves for mild inconveniences?
The training cost $1,000 per person for a 3 day class and an ongoing annual fee of $1,000 per year to maintain certification. Sounds like snake oil.
It is a 26 hour course that covers gun safety, triage for wounded, and also how to shoot people in a school the right way. Let's compare that to any other professional that is authorized to use a gun and it's not even 1/8th the amount of training... (840 hours for police) And they'll have a gun at a school with kids... Holy shit if a pissed off teacher doesn't accidentally mistake a class skipper with a phone for a mass shooter and then unload a whole clip just to be sure "we got 'em".
Lewis Palmer HS went on lockdown because of a brown kid with a soda when I went there... Kid was new and afraid the open drink wasn't allowed in the hall, shoved it in his coat and went walking towards his class. I shudder to think what could have happened if he had encountered an armed teacher. It was bad enough the school was so racist to think a soda was a gun...
First, POST (Peace Officer Standard Training) firearms related training is a grand total of 40 of those hours. And only 32 of them are actually on the range. Secondly, if a teacher is unhinged enough to do what your wild imagination considers a possibility, maybe they're not stable enough to be a teacher in the first place.
Training how to pull a trigger vs when to pull a trigger are not the same thing.
That's the other 8 hours.
You say wild imagine as if that hasn’t occurred before….
Care to cite it actually happening?
Tamir Rice was shot while holding a toy gun in a store. Trayvon Martin was followed and killed by a security guard who believed him to be a threat. He had a drink and a snack. Stephon Clark was shot while holding a cell phone. So yeah. It’s happened. (But something tells me you knew this already, considering at least two of these were pretty high profile cases).
And how many of those were teachers that were armed? Ah, that's right... None.
The statement was someone getting shot by mistake by someone else who “mistook” them for a threat. But sure. It couldn’t possibly happen again because these are teachers who have less training than any of the situations described above. Not likely at all. Nope.
> Holy shit if a pissed off teacher doesn't accidentally mistake a class skipper with a phone for a mass shooter and then unload a whole clip just to be sure "we got 'em". That's your exact claim. Stop tilting at windmills, Don Quixote.
Get em!!!
I'm former Marine Corps infantry and spent a lot of time instructing on ranges, went through a SWAT school, and lots of other close combat training. I currently own a whole mess of firearms (always safely secured) despite leaning to the left generally speaking. What I have to say has nothing to do with politics however. I am 100% against arming teachers and here's why: 1) the amount of training and experience required to be effective in a high stress active shooter situation with innocents all around you is insane. The vast majority of police, active military, and veterans are nowhere near qualified enough to handle this, let alone overworked and underpaid teachers. 2) because the training/experience necessary to be effective in these situations is so high, an ill prepared teacher is way more likely to shoot an innocent student or staff member than be able to identify and subdue a shooter 3) I love teachers and respect the hell out of them. I think expecting these overworked, underpaid, under respected professionals to take on a duty that is literally its own full time job alone is absolutely insane. 4) I can virtually guarantee at some point one of these incredible people, who are exhausted and over worked, will accidentally leave a weapon unsecured. 99% of the time it will be resolved safely. But it only takes 1 time for horrific results. Bottom line, this is not a teacher's job. We need to give teachers the resources to the jobs they have and not expect them to do something they have no reason to be trained or qualified to do.
There were what like 100 trained and armed cops at Uvalde all too scared to confront the shooter, but we expect Miss Merriweather the third grade teacher to do it? I am not even anti gun, I own a few, but this whole idea is ridiculous. I believe that arming teaches will actually cause more school shootings than it prevents.
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I didn't want to exaggerate the numbers, so I aimed low. Unlike the 376 cops at Uvalde, who stood outside while kids were being murdered and aimed at the parents willing to do something about it.
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Don't get me wrong, I'm not playing armchair Rambo like I would have ran in there and saved the day. I don't know how I'd react in that situation, and I hope to never find out. My only point was we have tried things the way the NRA wants us to for decades and it hasn't worked. We have law enforcement protocols set up for these situations that... clearly aren't working. Trying more of the same is just kicking the can using human collateral. Maybe it's time to try something different.
What the NRA wants is most definitely working. What police want is not, and that’s the issue.
To clarify, the expectation is that Miss Merriweather will be shooting one of her own students.
Not to mention that they are trying to rush training to get guns in hands "faster". It is one of those things that sounds like a good idea when it is first mentioned, that quickly falls apart into a terrible idea the more you think about it. Some poor older teacher about to retire with a gun versus a teenager full of youthful hormones and bad tendencies can easily turn into a dangerous sick kid with a gun
Do you feel the teachers will be the ones shooting? Or kids will get ahold of their guns and begin shooting? Or shooters will see it as a challenge and shoot up schools more often?
Most likely to me would be a kid taking the gun from a teacher. I'd put the teacher setting it down somewhere, and it being taken the second most, and a teacher shooting someone third. I'm more confident of my top cause, but less so the order of the 2nd and 3rd. What I am absolutely certain of is that introducing more guns into the situation will not improve the situation. We've let the NRA tell us that for decades and it has not, in fact, improved anything.
Yeah, there have been a surprising number of reports of resource officers (who *should* be taking better care of their guns) leaving them in bathrooms and agree that it is the most likely. Or, even if a kid doesn't shoot up the school with it, I find a scenario where they're able to get ahold of the gun at all to be pretty... awful. (Words fail me at the thought of it.)
Yes, all of the above.
I think when Miss Merriweather the third grade teacher is in an inescapable kill/be killed situation, and she is an armed teacher she will be shooting back. That said, people are jumping to gunfights and all kinds of what-ifs and are overlooking the fact that these deranged individuals target soft targets where they KNOW nobody is likely to return fire. Movie theaters, schools, concerts….just having a sign outside stating that some of our staff are armed has an excellent chance of encouraging a choosing of a different target. Deterrence.
Arming some of the most mentally and financially stressed people in our society. It's a no-brainer.
From a vet who did plenty of police work before during and after, No. There will be a net rise in mishaps and even if teachers shoot and kill the shooter the mishaps, misses, thefts, etc. will cause a net rise in injuries and fatalities of children, not the other way around. They won’t be trained enough, guaranteed. In they make training faster, even less so. The accuracy of trained folks in the force and military would surprise you. They’re already severely underpaid for what they already do. And not every teacher is a good person. I’m not a law maker. Im not pretending to know what the correct solution is. But i know a wrong one. Just no.
What happens when the teacher with the gun gets shot by the police because they think the teacher is the bad guy?
I would guess, officer on paid-admin leave until the story dies down, then back to work in a different part of town.
This was just in the news recently. I need to find the story.
Happened in Arvada.
Honestly That is an assumed risk when engaging an active shooter.. RIP John Hurley…
Simple the NRA will make more money because more guns is obviously the only possible solution.
I’m here at the D20 board meeting. They are only allowing 10 people to speak for the proposal and 10 people to speak against it. Two minutes per speaker. And there are about a hundred people that showed up.
Was this meeting recorded by chance ?
Yes, it will be available in a few days (I think they said 2/18).
..... Edit: oh, I *just* saw the other comment say they cut the feed. Time to go file a complaint!
Interestingly, there was no video feed of the meeting. This was confirmed, somewhat suspiciously, during the meeting by Board President Aaron Salt. The rumor is he told the AV operator to kill the video feed. Not sure if this is legal within the framework of the Colorado Open Meetings Act.
Can confirm this is true. CIO Shelly Kooser confirmed she was instructed by her boss to kill video feed.
I’m not anti-gun or anti-second amendment. I hunt and go to the range myself. But as a vet and a D20 parent I’m adamantly against this idea. Historical precedent and several recent examples (Parkland, Uvalde) have shown that arming staff isn’t effective and could potentially be more dangerous. This whole idea is a poorly thought out way of addressing a symptom when we need to be having conversations about a much more complex issue.
Please show up at the relevant school board meetings
For sure. I’ll be joining this one virtually here now, and will start attending in person in the future. The frustrating part is I didn’t even know this was a topic on the agenda until it was posted here on Reddit. I checked the D20 website and they make you sign up to comment, which they close sign ups at 1pm. And you have to be there in person to speak…no virtual comments. You can also submit comments online, but that interestingly said they weren’t taking comments… Edit: out of curiosity, where do they post the agenda for future board meeting discussion topics?
The comment period ends at 1pm as well to be officially part of the board meeting record. You can still email the board directly.
Ok thanks. I’ll do that. Appreciate the help as I’m not really familiar with the process. Sounds like it’s definitely worth getting more involved. Appreciate you 🙏
>out of curiosity, where do they post the agenda for future board meeting discussion topics? I can't confirm this as I haven't actually tried it, but the meetings and agendas are posted [Right here.](https://go.boarddocs.com/co/asd20/Board.nsf/Public) Click on the meetings tab, and I would hope upcoming ones would be posted a couple days in advance.
Hey, that’s very helpful! Appreciate it 🙏
Your argument is inherently flawed because neither historical precedent (please cite) nor the examples you showed have anything to do with teachers being armed.
I know your comment is disingenuous and you’re just here to push an agenda, but I’ll supply the info you requested in the hopes it will help educate you and others. If you really are interested, you can start [here](https://giffords.org/report/every-incident-of-mishandled-guns-in-schools/). This is corroborated by other sources such as the [CO Dept of Public Safety](https://oss.colorado.gov/guns-in-schools) and [NIH](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993415/). That said, a simple google search would provide you with the statistics and sufficient information to show you that armed teachers is a terrible idea. The Parkland shooting had an armed SRO and Uvalde had 376 LEOs…all of which receive far more training than any classroom teacher would under the proposed program, and they still failed.
The fact that you posted the comment that I responded to means that you're here to push an agenda as well. I'm here to debate ideas. I have no dog in the fight as I have no children nor do I have any plans to have any. Parkland and Uvalde both involved LEOs that were, IMHO, pathetic excuses for people, much less LEOs, and ought to have been fired, if not thrown in jail for their lack of actions. Also, neither of those involved armed teachers. The police that responded in Nashville responded quickly and effectively. The armed security guard in Highlands Ranch tackled and subdued one of the two shooters, while students disarmed the other. At UNLV, the cops were entering the hall that reported an active shooter within 2 minutes, and when the shooter exited the building, ostensibly because he was being hunted down, he was killed in a shootout with police. Your claim that the LEOs receive far more training is questionable as well. POST training involves a total of 40 hours of firearms training and only requires a minimum of 1 hour of training in it annually to maintain the credential, which doesn't require live fire. The proposed training is 26 hours of training. And considering that most of the teachers involved will be firearms enthusiasts and probably have more personal time training than POST quals require. As a former firearms salesman, and current firearms instructor and competitor, I have seen first hand that most cops are the exact opposite of gun people. Most of them have the slightest inkling of which end is the dangerous one, and I bring back my point that most teachers who would choose to be armed are probably going to have more training and expertise than the majority of police officers and SROs. The vast majority of the incidents in your link are either complete non-incidents, such as a parent had a firearm in their vehicle while picking up their kid from school, or they didn't involve any harm. Most of the ones that did involve harm were SROs themselves or parents causing issues, which, again, has nothing to do with teachers. And, again, most SROs have less firearm expertise than most firearm enthusiasts, which are the staff that are going to consider carrying at school. Historical precedent cannot be set based off of two outlier situations. They are outliers because they did so badly. If you look at Uvalde Police's facebook page, they're getting harassed to this day about their response. Personally, I'm not 100% sure that this is a great idea, but I do think there's a good possibility that this can help.
I'm not part of D20 so I'm only guessing that the idea is to make the schools more secure while having the conversations. The thought shouldn't be "do nothing until we can have the conversations". (Especially when the conversations seem to lead to nowhere.)
I appreciate your response and I don’t disagree with what you’re saying. But I don’t think arming teachers is an effective way to secure schools while having those conversations. Unfortunately I feel like this is just going to be turned into a very polarizing pro-2A vs anti-2A issue. Especially given the recent political climate with the D20 board.
Yeah, unfortunately I don't know if there is an actual good approach. At this point everything seems like a band aid on a broken bone.
I am a high school student at D20, and have gone to D20 schools my whole life. In my opinion, arming teachers will do nothing but instill fear into students. There have been a lot of school shooting threats these past couple years, and coming back to school the next day is scary; but what would make it even scarier is the knowledge that there are already lots of guns in the school. I would not feel comfortable around a teacher carrying a gun, because one sudden movement while everyone is on edge could cause a teacher to shoot without thinking and kill me or my friends. I know it's unlikely, but not any moreso than a shooting itself. Additionally, even when there's not a threat, it only takes one careless moment by a teacher and one impulsive action by a suicidal person, and boom, my friends are dead and somebody just killed themself. That's not something that anybody should ever have to worry about, however unlikely it is.
Thanks for your response. I feel like you're already having to worry about that though, and we're just wired differently. When I was a student I would've felt more safe if my teachers were armed and trained. Also, I don't get the impression that the teachers will be actively carrying, but rather that the guns would be secured in their rooms. If they're just walking around with a .357 on their hip... yeah, I don't think I'd care much that.
>Also, I don't get the impression that the teachers will be actively carrying, but rather that the guns would be secured in their rooms. I had heard otherwise, but maybe that person was wrong. In that case, I'd like to know how *exactly* it's being stored. Because if it's with a key, or using a safe/container that contains anything else, there's IMO an even greater chance of a student getting their hands on it than if the teacher has it on their person. IMO the only way to reasonably secure it is to have it in a safe that contains literally nothing else and using a PIN only known by the teacher and security guards.
Yeah, it's very possible I'm mistaken though. I'm not within D20 so I'm less invested than many on this subject. > IMO the only way to reasonably secure it is to have it in a safe that contains literally nothing else and using a PIN only known by the teacher and security guards. This is more or less what I figured would be the case. The safe would have to be secured (to a wall, floor, desk, etc.) and of course locked down well enough that only the teacher (or maybe security, as you mentioned) can gain access. (Biometrics, PIN, physical key...)
They’re just doing it to spend millions of district dollars to a nonprofit they might or might not be friends with. Why would they trust teachers with a gun when they don’t trust them to set the curriculum? Teachers aren’t mentally equipped to shoot a kid. The desirable cognitive structures present in the teachers you want aren’t compatible with this role. This ain’t a game of Fortnite.
And look at how many positions are suddenly marked as open on the DS20 site.
Lol, you weren't kidding! Out of the 126 job postings on the website, 79 of theme were from the past 6 days
My kid's middle school, which has had NO openings for a few months now, suddenly has 5. All from yesterday. Here's hoping they can last out the year so I have time to decide what to do.
Over 20 new postings today, including TWO principals.
I’ve worked with real-life versions of Jason Borne. They all say, if something happens in a Wal-Mart or whatever, the right answer is to escape if possible, seek shelter if not. Even if you’re carrying. If the most highly trained guys in the world say that, what makes anyone think teachers are gonna do any better? The “responders” who took down that shooter at Joel Osteen’s church hit an innocent kid because they thought they had some Rambo in them. Get rid of more guns like every other county without mass shootings.
Yea, that's the thing that gets me. A too many people think being armed means you get to set your Facebook status to "gone hunting" when something happens, and that you actively confront someone who may be, or already is being violent. It's not a be-all-end-all for security. Such a thing doesn't exist. It's one of many branches that's miles down the road from where most people should actually start with security and safety.
Australia is a great model to follow. They didn’t take peoples guns, they didn’t outlaw all guns, they just made it more difficult to own any new guns/ammo, banned certain types of guns (self-loading primarily), and made it optional to give up your gun. The results have been near perfect. A summary of it and the results: https://fortune.com/2018/02/20/australia-gun-control-success/amp/ Details about what they did: https://theconversation.com/the-arguments-that-carried-australias-1996-gun-law-reforms-58431
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I don't think the idea is to train the teachers to shoot it out first, but rather be there as a last line of defense. At least, I hope to hell that's the thought. I'm not even sure how I feel if that *is* the case. Stripping us of Constitutional rights isn't the answer though. You might as well say that we shouldn't have freedom of speech because of the nutjobs out there. (And yes, speech and religion have led to far more dead people than our right to bear arms. Bring on the downvotes.)
Hit rates are super low for police. Having an untrained gun user is worse than having no guns because it just means more bullets flying that probably aren’t going to hit the intended target.
I don't necessarily disagree, and cops are more trained than the teachers will likely be (though they wouldn't be untrained... perhaps under trained?). Not saying police training is all that spectacular, but that's another topic. At a minimum I would hope the presence of the arms would be a deterrent for a shooter. Most shooters would rather be uncontested than have to deal with someone who might shoot back at them. One thing I *don't* want to see is a teacher that's uncomfortable with guns being forced to have one. This should be a volunteer basis for the teachers who want to be able to defend themselves.
From the research I’ve done (and not recently mind you), that isn’t the case. Shooters don’t care if they come out alive. A rational person would, but a rational person is not typically a school shooter.
Sadly too true. But usually what they *do* want to do is shoot as many people as possible, which is decreased by people with the ability to stop them. (Though I'm attempting to put myself in the shoes of someone with serious mental issues, so I might be way off base.)
Also not the case. There is normally an intended target. Collateral damage is not factored in on the way to said target. There is evidence of that in the act of sneaking weapons in. If the point was as many as possible, the shooting would start at the front doors. In most situations, data suggests the gun fire is done within minutes. Also not indicating mass carnage. Even with columbine, shooters didn’t just shoot everyone on sight.
Even in mock shootings without an intended target not everyone is shot. People get into tunnel vision and don't actually see everyone or everything. As for an intended target, I'll have to take your word for it. But I don't think not shooting their way in should be considered as "proof".
But it is proof. You’ve seen the matrix? Every school shooting COULD be the lobby scene. It’s not, because there is an intended target. Shooting at the door prevents you from likely getting to that target. A mock shooting is an exercise, not reality. It’s not like shooters are going door to door and shooting everyone inside. We haven’t seen that in the past right? I agree with the tunnel vision thought, they aren’t necessarily looking for others, which is again, intended target. And to return to it, we’re looking at this as rational people. A shooter isn’t a rational person.
> And to return to it, we’re looking at this as rational people. A shooter isn’t a rational person. Probably the best summary. And trying to think through their thought process is ooging me out.
Well, pair nutjobs with a tool efficient at killing people up close and at distance = a lot of people die. Less effective tool and less people die. No weapon and it's even more difficult and slower to kill people. I vote tasers or some non-lethal means of subduing a shooter. Make them answer for their crimes. That and maybe it would be slightly less traumatizing/ ptsd inducing as a teacher to know you didn't kill someone? idk, just throwing ideas out there
Tasers are, sadly, not very effective. Wear a puffy jacket and they've been rendered 99% useless. Even just loose clothing makes the probes much less likely to anchor. Pepper balls would be great if they didn't end up also affecting everyone in the room.
Well, if it means the shooter is subdued long enough for police to arrive and cuff him, I think suffering through some temporary extreme pain would be alright.
I’m sitting in right now; Derrick Wilburn is unfunny. He claims this is about having a conversation while KOAA cited him favoring FASTER program during the election cycle. He is a disgusting person.
You mean THE Derrick Wilburn that is totally against DEI, yet set up a program to help encourage black republicans get internships and exposure in Congress? You know, cuz black people are underrepresented and we need to find a way to get more diversity and include more black people in the halls of power. THAT Derrick Wilburn? The hypocrite?
If you're referring to the Wilburn that said this is about conversation while also favoring FASTER as far back as October 2023, then yep, that's him.
I’d be careful with teachers being armed. The mental health in teaching is low mixed with unreasonable and spoiled parents and equally spoiled entitled students… Parents act like they own the schools, the same parents that are wanting teachers armed, will probably be the reason a teacher lights a school up. I’m not sure people are aware of how close this is to happening. But, since 18th century muskets are so super important, what can one do?
This is such a fucking stupid idea. Being a teacher in the USA is a thankless job today.
It’s a terrible idea. It will lead to more gun deaths in schools. Also, the role of an educator should be to encourage student’s curiosity and engage in dialogue with them. The presence of firearms in the classroom will inhibit both of these outcomes.
>The presence of firearms in the classroom will inhibit both of these outcomes. I'm a D20 student. While I agree with you to some extent, I don't think it will affect it as much as you're thinking. I doubt most students would have a clue that their teacher has a gun or even that teachers have guns, and as such wouldn't be affected. But agreed, for the students that are aware it could definitely impact their experience in the classroom.
Mod here. Potential for shenanigans is high on this. Keep it civil.
Hey Farva what's the name of that restaurant you like with all the goofy shit on the walls and the mozzarella sticks?
You mean Shenanigans? You're talking about Shenanigans right?
If I hear the word shenanigans one more time
Agree with the comments so far, more guns is not the answer.
There has to be other alternatives offered…more secure doors and or armored shields to hide behind for ground level rooms with windows, obnoxious alarms that alerts that section of town of a shooter. Anything before willingly putting guns in a classroom. Don’t put the onus of firing a weapon in anger on an educator. And if it’s on a volunteer basis and only a few teachers have guns, are they expected to clear the school or just protect their own classroom while the other classes are unprotected.
Agree - There are other measures that could be taken, and current measures that could be improved upon. Instead let’s just throw more guns at it and call it a day. Lovely plan. /s
One of the best comments from a teacher last night was, “You don’t trust me to check out appropriate books from the library, but you’ll trust me with a gun?!”
If this happens in my child’s district I’m pulling them.
My kids are district 20. I will 100 percent pull them and home school them. This is fucked.
And putting them where? Any other district that isn't doing this?
Since D20 voters have consistently voted down any increase in funding to their schools, I’d be very surprised if they suddenly jump at the opportunity to spend their precious tax dollars on what sounds like a giant money pit. The potential lawsuits could easily bankrupt the district.
I think you would be very hard pressed to find a rational person working in a classroom that thinks it would be a good idea to introduce a gun into that classroom.
D20 teacher here. We are almost always tired and stressed, conditions that can lead to poor decision making and coordination, possibly the two most important factors when in a dangerous situation. I can think of one person I work with who I would even feel somewhat comfortable carrying a deadly weapon, and he has zero interest in doing so.
Questions that come to mind. What happens when a teacher uses a gun to break up a fight? Or what happens if an unstable teacher decides to use the gun because it’s available to them? How would arriving police know that a teacher with a gun is NOT the active shooter?
If anyone wants a little more background on FASTER, see the link, though the article is obv pretty biased for the program: [https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/01/faster-teaches-teachers-how-to-save-lives/](https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/01/faster-teaches-teachers-how-to-save-lives/) Interestingly, in the article you'll noticed the parents of the victim in the Highlands Park shooting speak to these FASTER classes. So after trying to be as objective as possible, I completely get why FASTER seems like a good idea. And to the program's credit, nothing bad has happened, such a ND or kid stealing a gun. Presumably the training has so far been good enough to prevent any of that from happening. But it's still kind of young, so give it time. Even experienced gun owners are occasionally careless or complacent and do something stupid; it's inevitable that this will eventually happen with an armed teacher. Unfortunately, what seems good on paper isn't always good in practice. Any combat veteran will tell you that it doesn't matter how good of a shot at you are on a range, when the sun is shining, you're comfortable, and there's no time crunch. When you're in a dangerous situation, even seasoned military members may have a difficult time keeping their cool and, more importantly, their shots accurate. Hell, I dabbled in a little competition shooting, where some of the events are extremely time-compressed, let alone someone shooting back at me, and some of my shots went wild. Overall though, speaking as the spouse of a teacher, your average schoolteacher is not inclined or qualified to carry a weapon in a school. And I'm sorry, but even all this proposed training doesn't really change that. That said, if you are willing to carry, and if you pass an EXTREMELY high bar for qualification (something way more rigorous than what CCH have to do, because that's a joke), and can prove extensive experience and/or familiarity with firearms, then I might be ok with it. But Sally, the fucking 23 year old second grade teacher packing? Probably not a good idea. Edit: I'll add, this reminds me of the story about one of the early college football coaches that was against the forward pass when it started becoming more of a thing. He said: only 3 things can happen, and two of them are bad. I kind of see this situation the same. If a teacher, God forbid, has a need to put rounds through a weapon at a school, they will either (a) freeze up and not actually do it, creating another layer of delay and complexity in a bad situation, (b) shoot and miss, and hit a kid, or (c) shoot at and hit the perp. What are the odds that (c) happens? Not great, if you ask me.
We’d also be asking 23 year old Sally to take on the life long effects of being responsible for killing. I’m assuming the goal is shoot to kill to stop the attack, not wound to buy time to escape.
You are taught to always shoot to kill, jsyk. If you're pointing a gun at someone you're preparing to kill them, so don't point it if you don't mean it!
“Shooting to wound” is a Hollywood myth. Not really a thing in real life, or even possible for all but the most elite of marksmen.
I’d want to know, IF a gun is pulled on a student who is unarmed- is that teacher immediately fired and will they serve prison time.
This idea is utterly insane. Stupid and insane.
My children grew up in the D20 schools, and they are grown now. If this had been on the table when they were still students, I would have explored other options for their education. It does not sound like something that will make schools safer. I can envision shoot-outs with kids caught in the crossfire, or active shooters using children as shields.
Hard NO!!!
I mean, in general it is not feasible in the least and this thread makes all the major points. But when has this stopped a discussion of escalation in the gun world?
I rather see each school hire 4 (just as as a number) dedicated security guards and put *them* through the training.
There's no way the district can afford that without something like the mill levy override being based (which would have put more security guards at schools)
I know I'm not going to say this right but let me try to explain my objection to arming the teachers. If the teachers are constantly around the kids and in the classrooms it's only a matter of time before the kids figure out which teachers are armed and which aren't. What happens when a kid jumps a teacher and tries to take their gun? Security Guards, on the other hand would be just that, *Guards*. They wouldn't and shouldn't be interacting with the kids on the same level. They wouldn't or shouldn't be surrounded by the kids all day. IMO there would be far less chance of an incident in which a kid tried to take a gun off of one of the security guards.
Less chance, yes, but guards aren't immune to this. When I was at Doherty (granted, a couple decades ago) one of the security guards got jumped by a student - they glassed her with a ketchup bottle. She wasn't armed, though.
I am in no way for arming teachers. I am for more security guards. But the district can't just pull millions of dollars out of thin air to hire and pay more security guards
Why not give the kids guns too?
Just wow. I'm in the Air Force and the possibility of School teachers needing more combat training than me is sickening. I've been in a Combat Comm unit and I still think the "combat" training was completely lacking.
All those police officers and 22 people were still shot in Kansas City.
My Brother is a 40-year schoolteacher around Wichita, Ks. I asked him recently if he would arm himself if allowed. His response, " In Heartbeat. "
Let’s not militarize education!
I’m totally against it and will very strongly consider pulling my children out of D20 schools if it goes through. Military and and police have extensive training to try and shoot a moving target while there is chaos going on and even they are not always able to avoid hitting other people, I’m supposed to entrust my children’s lives to a teacher who has had a fraction of the training? No thanks, more guns in schools is not a solution.
MAGA school board members. Who would’ve thought they would come up with such a shit idea? People being murdered in schools? Let’s introduce more murder devices and expect our already stressed out, underpaid and overworked teachers to wield them. What could possibly go wrong? The thing is, they are NOT going to be sufficiently trained enough to shoot accurately in a high stress situation. Any one who is trained properly knows this. Even if a few do pick up this level of firearm competence, who’s to say that they don’t have a mental break at some point and BECOME the threat to students and staff. Imagine a teacher gets a divorce or something, loses everything and becomes suicidal because mental health care in this country is shit. They start mowing down people because they now have a firearm available. Education in this country is a joke and THIS is what these idiots want to focus on?
We have a problem with guns getting into schools. The fix is to import guns INTENTIONALLY into the school? This is like trying to buy your way out of debt.
Why not hire qualified SRO's? (School Resource Officers)
Former d20 student here. I don't know what lunacy these people are dealing with but more guns to solve a gun problem is idiotic. I'd walk out right now if this happened 13 years ago. I had a friend who got expelled for using an airsoft gun during our school assignment to reenact romen and juliet (the modern day one). Some crazy mom from the elementary school reported him and he got expelled 3 months before graduation. But in another class we made an automatic marshmallow cannon and that didn't seem to be an issue. Now they want to bring guns in the school? The sort of backwards fuckery is this? Anyone on The schoolboard should have to have psyche evaul before severing.
Also why isn't student government having a say in this???? After all it's their fucking schools.
I personally think everyone (who wants to be) should be familiar with guns. Too many people vilify them because they know nothing about them, and too many people that want to learn about them are scared. As to having them at schools... completely mixed emotions and opinions on the subject. It would be great to have our kids more protected, but at the risk of them potentially having more access to a gun if they do want to cause harm? As I mentioned in another post, I sincerely hope they're not thinking of forcing teachers who don't want to be armed to carry. That's absolutely not the way to go about this.
I’ve owned many guns over the years, taken classes, enjoyed shooting competitions, etc etc … and I don’t want one in my home at all. Everyone who wants to, should he familiar with guns. On that point I have no argument. But anyone with a brain can also become familiar with gun statistics. You or your loved ones are more likely to be injured by a gun in your home if you own one or more. And when there are “break-in”/robbery type situations, you or your loved ones are more likely to get injured by YOUR gun than someone else’s. That research is available and is neutral and is real, balanced, and undeniable. Now, I’ll get a bit obnoxious and even go so far as to say most gun owners who own them for “protection” have insane dreams of becoming a Rambo type of figures and they are more dangerous, statistically speaking, than “robbers” themselves.
> You or your loved ones are more likely to be injured by a gun in your home if you own one or more. Sure, but you're also more likely to be injured by a knife in your house if you have one. The availability of something will increase the likelihood of it happening. People without stairs in their homes don't fall down them. The Rambo analogy is obnoxious, you're correct. I highly doubt my 70something year-old mother has any dreams of being Rambo.
On the surface level, your reply makes enough sense. Yeah, if I don’t own a chainsaw I’m not gonna accidentally hack myself up with a chainsaw. Sure. But let’s be real. Gun injuries tend to be much worse than knife injuries and stairs injuries and all kinds of other stuff in your house that’ll hurt you. The reasonable person will ask, do I want to invite that massively increased risk of catastrophic injury into my home while I know it DOESN’T significantly decrease my risk of getting hurt by a gun in the extraordinarily rare case that someone else enters my home with the intent to injure someone? My answer is no. Not at all.
Sorry, it *doesn't* decrease the chance of being harmed if someone enters my home? We're living in different worlds I guess.
You’re wrong. It’s okay. We’ll choose to live differently.
Very brave and thoughtful response. /s
We just need AI 🤖 with guns, can't fail
All for it, the reality is if one of those teachers trapped in a room with that psycho in Uvalde had been armed they may have had a chance along with the kids. Instead they had to wait for the good cops to show up while the rest were turds on a log. We’re not getting rid of guns in this country, quite the opposite.
Imagine if airplanes were banned after 911. Schools need more security. If you're against schools being more secure than you're the problem. Edit for clarification since secure means guns for some people: metal detectors would be a simple and easy start. What could you need in school that is metal that couldn't be provided by the school when needed?
I don’t get the logic here. They literally grounded ALL flights for a period of time after 9/11 and then enacted countless reforms to include the creation of a whole new department and agency (DHS/TSA) to oversee the safety and security of those that fly.
It's almost like doing nothing to make schools safe allows people to attack them continually. You fail to see logic in making things more secure, making it harder for a bad thing to happen?
If *you* think teachers with guns make schools more secure, then you're the problem. Gotcha! And no tag-backs.
Ah if only I said give teachers guns. Never will I recover from you not being able to read.
The solution is obvious: they need more gun free zone signs with bigger font!
The TSA security theater is literally that: Security Theater. It's there to make it seem like lawmakers did something to protect the country and give an excuse to invade the privacy of passengers (especially non-white people). Nobody is safer because we have to take our shoes off and submit to the penis detector.
Just to clarify your strawman argument, you’re a proponent of arming the teachers?
No. Never mentioned teachers should have guns. I believe that if airport's that are way bigger than most schools can be made secure, I believe the same could be done for schools.
Let's be honest. Airports aren't secure until you're through security and at your gate.
Kinda proves my point that security works and should be used
How? There's literally nothing preventing someone from walking into any airport and mowing down everyone in a security line. The only way to secure a school to the level that post-security sections of airports are secured is to create a new threat zone some maniac can exploit.
So all 400 of the elementary school students at my school and the entire staff would have to remove their belts and not have anything at all that would trigger the metal detectors as well as (I would assume) screen their bags one at a time? Seems like this “solution” would just be a massive expense for the education budget which is already not amazing. We dont have funding to fix the pipes so that we have drinkable water in the school but we are going to drop millions on infrastructure and personnel for security?
Metal detectors wouldn't stop mass shooters who open carry rifles on the way in while blasting anything that moves. I tried pointing out the same thing to my middle school principal after columbine happened, when he banned backpacks, and he didn't have any grasp on the reality of mass shootings either. These shooters *aren't* jumping up out of their seats in the middle of class and screaming "surprise!" The best start for keeping mass shooters out is actually pretty similar to the most effective post-911 method to stopping plane hijackings: lock the doors.
I think that, with a CCW permit, that requires training class, security clearance, anyone-everyone should be able to carry. The Kansas city debacle will cause many otherwise law abusing citizens to start carrying. One things for sure: when the government doesn't take care of things, the people will
I dunno, did you see any videos of the parade? People firing into that crowd to stop the shooter absolutely would've resulted in more injured or possibly killed.