Arming Teachers: A college students perspective

[Epic Beard Man]

The great Mike Tyson once said:

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

As a current graduate student this has to be the dumbest idea that has been proposed by any president in my lifetime!

Following statements made by Trump:

President Donald Trump continued to criticize the armed school resource officer in Parkland, Florida, who stayed outside of the school during the shooting, saying during a White House news conference conference that Scot Peterson "doesn't love the children, probably doesn't know the children."


"We need offensive capability and we are going to be doing something about it,"

Trump told reporters earlier on Friday that Peterson "certainly did a poor job" and was a "coward."
"He trained his whole life," Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House. "But when it came time to get in there and do something he didn't have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There's no question about that."

“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened,” Trump said during an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual conclave of the American right, held just outside Washington.

See:Trump says armed school officer in Parkland didn't 'love the children' - CNNPolitics

“He was tested under fire, and there wasn’t a good result,” Trump said of Peterson at the first event. “He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you.”

Appearing later alongside Turnbull, Trump argued the advantage of arming teachers — he’s suggested about 20 percent should carry concealed weapons — is that they “love their pupils.”

“See, a security guard doesn’t know the children, doesn’t love the children,” Trump said. “This man standing outside of the school the other day doesn’t love the children, probably doesn’t know the children.”

See:https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...76b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.5fc1a619f0a9


As a graduate student the job of a teacher is to teach, and to enrich the students with worldly knowledge allocated to the curriculum. Their job is not to teach as well as being armed JUST IN CASE THERE IS A SCHOOL SHOOTER. People forget that teachers are people to. People forget teachers like most of us who work have personal problems and sometimes these personal problems do follow us at work. Speaking on mental stress how do we know by arming a teacher they're not showing up to class under mental duress? Because graduate school is full of opinionated students especially on controversial subjects how do we know the teacher may not react in a violent manner? We don't know and I wouldn't like to find out. But what I'm mostly offended by what Trump said in the aforementioned quotes is that he is equating being armed with love. People also forget that teachers have families to and teachers are all not combat veterans who are prepared for the potentiality of mental stress of a school shooting. What shows me love as a student coming from a teacher is not their Glock 21F .45 on their hip, but the desire to teach me when I'm struggling.

The issue at hand has nothing to do with the armament of teachers, but the microcosmic issues of school protocols, security risks, and personnel training. Every school is not always going to have violence, hell! there maybe schools in affluent neighborhoods that do not even see a lick of violence that you see in urban communities. So what? We arm them even if they don't see any violence? I think this is a bad idea and according to some think tanks it is a worse idea:


"It's a crazy proposal," said Dr. David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an expert on the public health impact of gun violence. Chuckling, he added, "So what should we do about reducing airline hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?"

'Colossally stupid idea': Trump's plan to arm teachers widely panned by experts

 

[Aldrnari]

Dear lord...

Being in a life or death situation like this requires more than just having guns, but it also requires the competence to use them under dire pressure. These teachers would need serious training just to condition themselves for combat. Are we going to train them, now, like soldiers so they don't accidentally shoot one of the kids?

It makes me sad that we are talking about this in a serious manner...

 

[Orbit]

I'm a college professor, not a commando.

 

[Phantasman]

The great Mike Tyson once said:

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

As a current graduate student this has to be the dumbest idea that has been proposed by any president in my lifetime!

Following statements made by Trump:

President Donald Trump continued to criticize the armed school resource officer in Parkland, Florida, who stayed outside of the school during the shooting, saying during a White House news conference conference that Scot Peterson "doesn't love the children, probably doesn't know the children."


"We need offensive capability and we are going to be doing something about it,"

Trump told reporters earlier on Friday that Peterson "certainly did a poor job" and was a "coward."
"He trained his whole life," Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House. "But when it came time to get in there and do something he didn't have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There's no question about that."

“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened,” Trump said during an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual conclave of the American right, held just outside Washington.

See:Trump says armed school officer in Parkland didn't 'love the children' - CNNPolitics

“He was tested under fire, and there wasn’t a good result,” Trump said of Peterson at the first event. “He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you.”

Appearing later alongside Turnbull, Trump argued the advantage of arming teachers — he’s suggested about 20 percent should carry concealed weapons — is that they “love their pupils.”

“See, a security guard doesn’t know the children, doesn’t love the children,” Trump said. “This man standing outside of the school the other day doesn’t love the children, probably doesn’t know the children.”

See:https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...76b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.5fc1a619f0a9


As a graduate student the job of a teacher is to teach, and to enrich the students with worldly knowledge allocated to the curriculum. Their job is not to teach as well as being armed JUST IN CASE THERE IS A SCHOOL SHOOTER. People forget that teachers are people to. People forget teachers like most of us who work have personal problems and sometimes these personal problems do follow us at work. Speaking on mental stress how do we know by arming a teacher they're not showing up to class under mental duress? Because graduate school is full of opinionated students especially on controversial subjects how do we know the teacher may not react in a violent manner? We don't know and I wouldn't like to find out. But what I'm mostly offended by what Trump said in the aforementioned quotes is that he is equating being armed with love. People also forget that teachers have families to and teachers are all not combat veterans who are prepared for the potentiality of mental stress of a school shooting. What shows me love as a student coming from a teacher is not their Glock 21F .45 on their hip, but the desire to teach me when I'm struggling.

The issue at hand has nothing to do with the armament of teachers, but the microcosmic issues of school protocols, security risks, and personnel training. Every school is not always going to have violence, hell! there maybe schools in affluent neighborhoods that do not even see a lick of violence that you see in urban communities. So what? We arm them even if they don't see any violence? I think this is a bad idea and according to some think tanks it is a worse idea:


"It's a crazy proposal," said Dr. David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an expert on the public health impact of gun violence. Chuckling, he added, "So what should we do about reducing airline hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?"

'Colossally stupid idea': Trump's plan to arm teachers widely panned by experts

Dumb or not, it's a proposal. Everyone says something must be done. A dumb idea is better than no idea.

I think saying AR15s should be illegal is another dumb idea. If someone wants to kill people there are slews of other things to do it. So far everyone is coming up with "band-aids" for a bleeding wound. I see it as a complicated issue that has no easy solution. It's like coming up with a solution to stop wildfires from happening. Yet controlled fires to battle out of control ones work.

If I had kids in school today, I'd be home schooling them myself. Teachers today are nothing like when I went to school. Neither are the those in the social field (class mates). Technology has wound up being a double edged sword.

What ever idea is enacted, one thing is for sure. Half the country won't like it.

 

[Nakosis]

The great Mike Tyson once said:

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

As a current graduate student this has to be the dumbest idea that has been proposed by any president in my lifetime!

Following statements made by Trump:

President Donald Trump continued to criticize the armed school resource officer in Parkland, Florida, who stayed outside of the school during the shooting, saying during a White House news conference conference that Scot Peterson "doesn't love the children, probably doesn't know the children."


"We need offensive capability and we are going to be doing something about it,"

Trump told reporters earlier on Friday that Peterson "certainly did a poor job" and was a "coward."
"He trained his whole life," Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House. "But when it came time to get in there and do something he didn't have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There's no question about that."

“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened,” Trump said during an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual conclave of the American right, held just outside Washington.

See:Trump says armed school officer in Parkland didn't 'love the children' - CNNPolitics

“He was tested under fire, and there wasn’t a good result,” Trump said of Peterson at the first event. “He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you.”

Appearing later alongside Turnbull, Trump argued the advantage of arming teachers — he’s suggested about 20 percent should carry concealed weapons — is that they “love their pupils.”

“See, a security guard doesn’t know the children, doesn’t love the children,” Trump said. “This man standing outside of the school the other day doesn’t love the children, probably doesn’t know the children.”

See:https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...76b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.5fc1a619f0a9


As a graduate student the job of a teacher is to teach, and to enrich the students with worldly knowledge allocated to the curriculum. Their job is not to teach as well as being armed JUST IN CASE THERE IS A SCHOOL SHOOTER. People forget that teachers are people to. People forget teachers like most of us who work have personal problems and sometimes these personal problems do follow us at work. Speaking on mental stress how do we know by arming a teacher they're not showing up to class under mental duress? Because graduate school is full of opinionated students especially on controversial subjects how do we know the teacher may not react in a violent manner? We don't know and I wouldn't like to find out. But what I'm mostly offended by what Trump said in the aforementioned quotes is that he is equating being armed with love. People also forget that teachers have families to and teachers are all not combat veterans who are prepared for the potentiality of mental stress of a school shooting. What shows me love as a student coming from a teacher is not their Glock 21F .45 on their hip, but the desire to teach me when I'm struggling.

The issue at hand has nothing to do with the armament of teachers, but the microcosmic issues of school protocols, security risks, and personnel training. Every school is not always going to have violence, hell! there maybe schools in affluent neighborhoods that do not even see a lick of violence that you see in urban communities. So what? We arm them even if they don't see any violence? I think this is a bad idea and according to some think tanks it is a worse idea:


"It's a crazy proposal," said Dr. David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an expert on the public health impact of gun violence. Chuckling, he added, "So what should we do about reducing airline hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?"

'Colossally stupid idea': Trump's plan to arm teachers widely panned by experts

They have air Marshals on flights. Folks train to deal with these situations.

So, yes, teacher should teach. Not carry weapons. However, they should consider making train law enforcement officers available to campuses.

If you want the kids to be as safe as possible, have trained officers on site.

 

[Polymath257]

OK, one of the locations of a mass shooting was in a lecture hall where I frequently taught in (the room is no longer a classroom). Fortunately, I was at home already (having completed my teaching for the day) when the shooter let loose. He came in via a side door and shot 48 rounds of bullets and 6 shotgun rounds into the seats.

So I have some thoughts on this.

The proposal to arm teachers is absolutely the most insane idea I have heard. What training are they going to get? Who pays for the weapons? Given that many schools don't have the funds for *books and pencils*, why in the world would we waste resources in this way? How are the armed teachers selected?

If you want to make people even more afraid ALL the time, arm teachers. Instead of being army barracks, we should have schools. We should pay for books, not guns.

Instead of attempts to make even more guns and even more flying bullets, perhaps we have to look at why, in this society, so many people are driven to kill others. Maybe we should realize that those who *are* determined to kill others would not be as successful if they didn't have a gun. If the latest shooter had a knife, they *might* have killed one or two people, not 17. The shooter at my school might have managed 1 rather than five. Not perfect, but a great deal better.

So, what are we going to do to keep guns out of the hands of people who want to kill people? How are we going to find these people and make sure they cannot get the weapons that will kill so many? How are we going to create a society that detects these people and listens to the warnings and makes sure they cannot carry out their plans? And, if we cannot do this, how are we going to make sure whatever they manage to do is as little as possible?

How are we going to make sure that a lone killer doesn't shoot up another school on yet another Valentine's Day?

 

[Polymath257]

They have air Marshals on flights. Folks train to deal with these situations.

So, yes, teacher should teach. Not carry weapons. However, they should consider making train law enforcement officers available to campuses.

If you want the kids to be as safe as possible, have trained officers on site.

Unfortunately, not a realistic thing. First of all, airplanes are very controlled situations with a limited area for the marshal to cover. That makes it *possible* for one or two people to do this job.

In a typical high school, the building itself is large enough that one or two security guards won't be able to provide coverage. On a college campus, the problem is even greater. The sheer number of guards that would be required makes this unrealistic. And, let's face it. The vast majority of the time, these people would be doing absolutely nothing. Even today, most schools will not see a shooting or even be close to having one. So, we either hire a number of people that are doing essentially nothing, or we hire too few people to provide the coverage when something does happen. Either way, we have wasted our resources.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The great Mike Tyson once said:

"Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."

As a current graduate student this has to be the dumbest idea that has been proposed by any president in my lifetime!

Following statements made by Trump:

President Donald Trump continued to criticize the armed school resource officer in Parkland, Florida, who stayed outside of the school during the shooting, saying during a White House news conference conference that Scot Peterson "doesn't love the children, probably doesn't know the children."


"We need offensive capability and we are going to be doing something about it,"

Trump told reporters earlier on Friday that Peterson "certainly did a poor job" and was a "coward."
"He trained his whole life," Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House. "But when it came time to get in there and do something he didn't have the courage or something happened. But he certainly did a poor job. There's no question about that."

“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened,” Trump said during an address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual conclave of the American right, held just outside Washington.

See:Trump says armed school officer in Parkland didn't 'love the children' - CNNPolitics

“He was tested under fire, and there wasn’t a good result,” Trump said of Peterson at the first event. “He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you.”

Appearing later alongside Turnbull, Trump argued the advantage of arming teachers — he’s suggested about 20 percent should carry concealed weapons — is that they “love their pupils.”

“See, a security guard doesn’t know the children, doesn’t love the children,” Trump said. “This man standing outside of the school the other day doesn’t love the children, probably doesn’t know the children.”

See:https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...76b4fe57ff7_story.html?utm_term=.5fc1a619f0a9


As a graduate student the job of a teacher is to teach, and to enrich the students with worldly knowledge allocated to the curriculum. Their job is not to teach as well as being armed JUST IN CASE THERE IS A SCHOOL SHOOTER. People forget that teachers are people to. People forget teachers like most of us who work have personal problems and sometimes these personal problems do follow us at work. Speaking on mental stress how do we know by arming a teacher they're not showing up to class under mental duress? Because graduate school is full of opinionated students especially on controversial subjects how do we know the teacher may not react in a violent manner? We don't know and I wouldn't like to find out. But what I'm mostly offended by what Trump said in the aforementioned quotes is that he is equating being armed with love. People also forget that teachers have families to and teachers are all not combat veterans who are prepared for the potentiality of mental stress of a school shooting. What shows me love as a student coming from a teacher is not their Glock 21F .45 on their hip, but the desire to teach me when I'm struggling.

The issue at hand has nothing to do with the armament of teachers, but the microcosmic issues of school protocols, security risks, and personnel training. Every school is not always going to have violence, hell! there maybe schools in affluent neighborhoods that do not even see a lick of violence that you see in urban communities. So what? We arm them even if they don't see any violence? I think this is a bad idea and according to some think tanks it is a worse idea:


"It's a crazy proposal," said Dr. David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard School of Public Health and an expert on the public health impact of gun violence. Chuckling, he added, "So what should we do about reducing airline hijacking? Give all the passengers guns as they walk on?"

'Colossally stupid idea': Trump's plan to arm teachers widely panned by experts

I never liked the idea of arming teachers no more than arming students.

 

[BSM1]

I think that you are overlooking the fact that many teachers probably already have CC permits and may have weapons training. Also, no teacher is being forced to carry a weapon but if an honest poll was taken I'd be willing to bet the results would be at least mildly surprising.

Some Teachers Already Have Guns

 

[sun rise]

I think that you are overlooking the fact that many teachers probably already have CC permits and may have weapons training. Also, no teacher is being forced to carry a weapon but if an honest poll was taken I'd be willing to bet the results would be at least mildly surprising.

Some Teachers Already Have Guns

Many? I doubt it. May have had training - the weasel word "may" appears to be informative but is just expressing nothing in particular.

Given all the reports of "well-trained" cops shooting first and asking questions later, I would make it a felony for anyone but police to have guns in schools. We need way way fewer guns not more.

And I'm thrilled beyond words on the full-bore attack on the NRA now going on - may it increase 10,000 fold.

 

[sayak83]

I think that you are overlooking the fact that many teachers probably already have CC permits and may have weapons training. Also, no teacher is being forced to carry a weapon but if an honest poll was taken I'd be willing to bet the results would be at least mildly surprising.

Some Teachers Already Have Guns

What happens if a teacher shoots and kills an innocent student by mistake in the chaos?

 

[esmith]

What happens if a teacher shoots and kills an innocent student by mistake in the chaos?

And if the shooter is not stopped what do you call it?

 

[sayak83]

And if the shooter is not stopped what do you call it?

Failure of law enforcement. Same as any crime that goes unprevented. Somewhat different than if an armed civilian mistakenly kills a innocent in an amateur attempt at law enforcement because the state has abdicated it's responsibility of doing it?

 

[Epic Beard Man]

Dumb or not, it's a proposal. Everyone says something must be done. A dumb idea is better than no idea.

I think saying AR15s should be illegal is another dumb idea. If someone wants to kill people there are slews of other things to do it. So far everyone is coming up with "band-aids" for a bleeding wound. I see it as a complicated issue that has no easy solution. It's like coming up with a solution to stop wildfires from happening. Yet controlled fires to battle out of control ones work.

If I had kids in school today, I'd be home schooling them myself. Teachers today are nothing like when I went to school. Neither are the those in the social field (class mates). Technology has wound up being a double edged sword.

What ever idea is enacted, one thing is for sure. Half the country won't like it.

You're kidding right?

There are plenty ideas you can submit, and arming teachers shouldn't even be remotely close...

I'm a college professor, not a commando.

 

[Epic Beard Man]

OK, one of the locations of a mass shooting was in a lecture hall where I frequently taught in (the room is no longer a classroom). Fortunately, I was at home already (having completed my teaching for the day) when the shooter let loose. He came in via a side door and shot 48 rounds of bullets and 6 shotgun rounds into the seats.

So I have some thoughts on this.

The proposal to arm teachers is absolutely the most insane idea I have heard. What training are they going to get? Who pays for the weapons? Given that many schools don't have the funds for *books and pencils*, why in the world would we waste resources in this way? How are the armed teachers selected?

If you want to make people even more afraid ALL the time, arm teachers. Instead of being army barracks, we should have schools. We should pay for books, not guns.

Instead of attempts to make even more guns and even more flying bullets, perhaps we have to look at why, in this society, so many people are driven to kill others. Maybe we should realize that those who *are* determined to kill others would not be as successful if they didn't have a gun. If the latest shooter had a knife, they *might* have killed one or two people, not 17. The shooter at my school might have managed 1 rather than five. Not perfect, but a great deal better.

So, what are we going to do to keep guns out of the hands of people who want to kill people? How are we going to find these people and make sure they cannot get the weapons that will kill so many? How are we going to create a society that detects these people and listens to the warnings and makes sure they cannot carry out their plans? And, if we cannot do this, how are we going to make sure whatever they manage to do is as little as possible?

How are we going to make sure that a lone killer doesn't shoot up another school on yet another Valentine's Day?

These are very pertinent questions to ask.....As I've said in another thread laws that help mitigate gun controls are not 100% I honestly don't know how to keep guns out of the hands of people with ill intent. This is one of those things that we cannot answer. We don't know who is going to go off and who isn't. Just as some far right republicans want students to carry on campus see the following: Gun rights advocates' push for campus-carry measures like Texas' is slow going

People think we live in the wild wild west.....Our times have changed tremendously.

 

[Frater Sisyphus]

More guns is always the solution

 

[Frater Sisyphus]

What happens if a teacher shoots and kills an innocent student by mistake in the chaos?

Or on purpose when a student when it gets on the teacher's nerves? (teachers have a temper sometimes too)

 

[Augustus]

What happens if a teacher shoots and kills an innocent student by mistake in the chaos?

If there are 50,000 or so schools in America, and 20% of teachers are armed, that's hundreds of thousands of guns.

How many of these would be stolen by students in a given year? Certainly more than zero. Nicking a teachers gun would practically become a sport in some schools. The ultimate status booster.

A lot of teachers get assaulted by students, and many couldn't physically stand up to an aggressive student. Even at my school, which was one of the better state schools in the country, someone head butted the headteacher and broke his nose. If you are armed and know this what do you do? Shoot the kid? Take a beating and risk your gun being stolen and used against you and other kids?

 

[idav]

These are very pertinent questions to ask.....As I've said in another thread laws that help mitigate gun controls are not 100% I honestly don't know how to keep guns out of the hands of people with ill intent. This is one of those things that we cannot answer. We don't know who is going to go off and who isn't. Just as some far right republicans want students to carry on campus see the following: Gun rights advocates' push for campus-carry measures like Texas' is slow going

People think we live in the wild wild west.....Our times have changed tremendously.

A teacher I talked to said they probably would forget the gun in the room and a kid would get a hold of it.

It needs to be more difficult for criminals and mentally ill folks to get guns. I’m talking the same folks I’d be hiding all my knives and swords from if they were staying at my house . Rights are great and all but sometimes there are reasons to treat it as privilege that can be taken away. We already do this for example for felons and people convicted of domestic abuse. It’s sad when sometimes we even have a law but the mass shooter never gets entered into a database that bars them from legally obtaining weapons. We need to make it difficult for criminals at the very least.

 

[Nakosis]

Unfortunately, not a realistic thing. First of all, airplanes are very controlled situations with a limited area for the marshal to cover. That makes it *possible* for one or two people to do this job.

In a typical high school, the building itself is large enough that one or two security guards won't be able to provide coverage. On a college campus, the problem is even greater. The sheer number of guards that would be required makes this unrealistic. And, let's face it. The vast majority of the time, these people would be doing absolutely nothing. Even today, most schools will not see a shooting or even be close to having one. So, we either hire a number of people that are doing essentially nothing, or we hire too few people to provide the coverage when something does happen. Either way, we have wasted our resources.

Ok, what's a better idea?