Bring a gun to school

Well, since 2 people believe it, it must be true.

ignorant wrote: confirmed with my wife and her mom last night.. possessing a firearm sends the wrong image for school age children. They do not believe it fosters a positive learning environment.

What image is that? The gun-toting loose cannon teacher? The protective teacher? I'm thinking it depends on your view of the right of self-defense.

Why is it even generating an image? If schools weren't excluded, there'd be no real rabble-rabble, as the whole point of "concealed" is that nobody knows.

Our old history teacher had a concealed carry permit. She told us about it when we studied human rights.

Freind and old roomate was an ex Navy Seal He quit teaching at Cleveland Public, when the students had bigger guns than his!

He packed a Colt Commander .45!

sorry sorry.. I'm sorry that my family and friends are semi progressive and believe in things like.. "violence begets violence" now my wife is an internationally trained and certified Montessori teacher, she also is a trained and certified regular teacher with experience in both.

I'll go away now, good thing my kids will never go to a school that will allow guns. Bad thing is its going to cost me dollars.

ignorant wrote: sorry sorry.. I'm sorry that my family and friends are semi progressive and believe in things like.. "violence begets violence"

Although I generally agree. I'm going to have to counter that, if all you're doing is carrying a gun, you are not doing anything violent. If you draw and fire, that is violent, but presumably you are doing that in reaction to someone else's violent behavior.

You can do violence and never handle a gun. You can carry a gun and never do violence.

Also, are you a complete pacifist? If someone were to jump up and start kicking and punching you, would you: stand there and take it to demonstrate how firmly you disbelieve in violence? run away because you believe in not escalating a situation but not particularly wanting to get beat up? fight back? A combination of the above?

If someone were attempting to kill you or another innocent person you cared about, and the only way to stop them was to kill them first, would you do so?

I have incredible respect for people who believe in pacifism so strongly that they remain resilient when people attack them. I think that is a great ideal that changes societies. I believe that violence is a last resort, but I believe it must eventually be resorted to and is something you have to prepare yourself for. I am very proud to have avoided getting into any physical fights. I do not ever want to get into one because my philosophy is that: "In a fight, no one wins. One person just looses less." However, I am determined to loose as little as humanly possible if I, or someone I care about, is ever attacked. Chances are that will mean avoiding or removing myself from a situation, but if I have to gouge someone's eye out, crush their throat, and bite a chunk out of their arm, I will do whatever it takes to survive.

If you don't fight back, what will make them go "hmm, maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

i think that's the whole point here. well put

ignorant wrote: sorry sorry.. I'm sorry that my family and friends are semi progressive and believe in things like.. "violence begets violence" now my wife is an internationally trained and certified Montessori teacher, she also is a trained and certified regular teacher with experience in both. I'll go away now, good thing my kids will never go to a school that will allow guns. Bad thing is its going to cost me dollars.

What's the rent like in that Ivory Tower?

Tommy Suddard wrote: If you don't fight back, what will make them go "hmm, maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

That depends if that is your goal. They could decide it was a bad idea if the police haul them off for assault.

If someone is blusterously trying to pick a fight with you, nothing pisses them off more than standing calmly and not rising to their baiting. Don't advance and show aggression, or back down and show weakness. Stand there and speak calmly.

The most I've ever shocked someone getting angry at me is when they got so in my face that they litterally bumped noses with me, and I didn't react.

Osterkraut wrote:

ignorant wrote: sorry sorry.. I'm sorry that my family and friends are semi progressive and believe in things like.. "violence begets violence" now my wife is an internationally trained and certified Montessori teacher, she also is a trained and certified regular teacher with experience in both. I'll go away now, good thing my kids will never go to a school that will allow guns. Bad thing is its going to cost me dollars.

What's the rent like in that Ivory Tower?

sorry I was raised by quaker/hippies..

that comment is not acceptable.

ignorant wrote:

Osterkraut wrote: What's the rent like in that Ivory Tower?

sorry I was raised by quaker/hippies.. that comment is not acceptable.

So, are you actively a pacifist or just strongly anti-violence? Do you believe that a person or society should/must defend themselves with force on occasion? Do you believe there are times when it is appropriate/necessary to use deadly force to protect yourself or someone else?

because we own the Ivory tower.

Tommy Suddard wrote: If you don't fight back, what will make them go "hmm, maybe that wasn't such a good idea."

The idea is to not have these issues in the first place. thats the only lasting solution, unless you want an arms race.

I understand that, letting licensed teachers carry guns is a short term solution. Until a way can be found to make sure nobody can smuggle a gun into a school, something should be done.

Tommy Suddard wrote: I understand that, letting licensed teachers carry guns is a short term solution. Until a way can be found to make sure nobody can smuggle a gun into a school, something should be done.

It's harder than that though. There are plenty of lethal weapons. I knife can easily be as deadly as a gun. For that matter, you could hold someone hostage with a scalpel from a bio lab.

Weapons are only tools. The root problem is not presence or absence of weaponry. The root problem is an increasingly alienated and disconnected society where people don't care about or concern themselves with the wellbeing of the people around them.

I do not see carrying or disarming weapons as addressing the root problem. They're just a really easy surface phenomenon that both sides can point out because it's something that can changed without doing any real work.

Neither arming or disarming more people will address these core problems. They will only change the way those problems get expressed.

That's a good point. Has anybody found a way to fix the core problems?

Tommy Suddard wrote: That's a good point. Has anybody found a way to fix the core problems?

There is no magic bullet that can solve all the social ills of society. If there was, it would probably be more frightening than the alternative.

I try to stay away from these threads, but I am a weak vessel - just can't do it today.

At the risk of insulting young Tommy, none of the following comments are directed towards him.

As for the rest of y'all with your expert opinions of "podunk shootings in Pennsylvania;" could you at least get your facts straight BEFORE you pontificate? I mean, I realize that the world can be viewed through the internet prism, but of all the situations to pick as an "example where teachers packing a concealed weapon could somehow be a good thing," that was not it. The Amish community is non-violent. They do not fight in wars. The teachers were Amish and therefore would not have any weapon, period. The person who pulled that off was a nut, plain and simple. Society will never be free of those types - unfortunately. Lucky for us though he was able to purchase many weapons.

But all of this bleating about "consequences" and the usual "this surely may have prevented Columbine crap" is, well, crap. Further, it is over-simplification of the worst kind, as if somehow, the world is some sort of John Wayne Western where a good-old beating "teaches lessons."

That world never existed and surely doesn't exist now.

I would suggest, gentle readers, that perhaps you all would do well to come out from behind the gentle glow of the TV or computer screen and see what the real world is like. For the better part of the last 20 years I have been volunteering in the "inner cities" with the types of youth that you all so darkly hint about. I have never seen a gun nor felt the need for one.

What I have felt the need for was more volunteers. More people to stop and help put on programs. More people ready to lend some help, some time, an ear, anything to these kids. some of them just need a boost, a friendly word an actual role model - anything to pattern their lives on.

But no. Y'all want to put more guns in the schools and teach consequences by having more death and more killing and more pain and more anguish and more anger and more blood. That is just sick.

In all my time doing this stuff I have never once heard from a cop, a counselor a teacher, a kid or a parent that we need more guns anywhere or that guns will teach anyone anything useful.

What teaches respect, my reactionary deep-thinking friends is treating others with respect.

What teaches civil behavior is treating everyone civilly, no matter who they are.

Jamming a gun in their face only earns their hatred.

I don't live in an ivory tower, osterkraut. And to be honest, I find it embarrassing to the German side of my family to have someone as narrow minded as you (if the "kraut" thing is a hint at your lineage) spouting the stuff you spout - but hey - it is your privilege.

But for the rest of you, rather than turning your nose up at the "youth" that you see as a problem, try seeing them as an opportunity: an opportunity to find their quality and to show yours.

All this brave talk about solving problems by shooting first and asking questions later demonstrates nothing more than your own inability to solve a problem and in fact, shows that the person with the biggest problem is you (seeing as how you are supposedly the "civilized" folks).

You can be part of the solution, part of the scenery or part of the problem. A good number of you here are just propagating the problem.

JohnSSC wrote: Said a whole bunch of stuff I could never be so gifted to say.. Infact, I am too young to say in an appropriate manner.

John. Good post. It is words such as these that want me to go work for an NGO and do some good.

Heartfelt thanks.

ignorant wrote: confirmed with my wife and her mom last night.. possessing a firearm sends the wrong image for school age children. They do not believe it fosters a positive learning environment.

That's fine. Your wife and mom are absolutely entitled to believe that, and act on that belief. I fully support them in that.

I also completely disagree with them.

I noticed that later on you mentioned being raised Quaker. That is a group I give great credit to with regards to pacifism. They take it seriously. Unlike many lazy cowards who try to hide within the veil of pacifism.

Thanks ignorant.

I just hope that my actions are worthy of your respect.

Tommy, I have thought a lot about what you asked as to what the solution may be.

I don't have any one answer and I think, Tommy that the problem here (and I could be part of it) is that there is no one simple answer.

I do know this: isolating ourselves from people and things that we view as "problems" by moving to isolated areas and/or communities is not the answer.

Judging others without knowing what their lives are really like is not the answer. Remember what the Galilean once said: "Judge not, lest ye be judged." I am not overly religious, but those truly are words to live by.

Let me tell you a story.

About 10 years ago I had a kid on a team who was very overweight. Kids teased the heck out of him - real verbal abuse from kids who were growing up in a "nice" neighborhood. Previous coaches (soccer) had stuck him goal because he was big and slow and they figured he was useless. I showed him how to play the position. I talked to him about how he COULD play the position. One day, one of his tormentors got a breakaway. This kid did exactly what I told him and he stopped the shot. The look on his face and the boost he got lasted the whole season. Made my year.

Another one: I was coaching inner city. A young, very angry fellow had an older brother killed in a drive-by. One day after practice waiting for his ride home I asked him: "What do want to be when you grow up?" He just looked at me. He said: "Serious?" I said: "Sure." He lit up and spent the next 15 minutes talking about making movies. How much he liked films. He was 14 at the time. I kind of lost track of him over the years, but you get the point. You don't know what is in there until you ask, you know?

My point, Tommy, is that I am no saint. Far from it. I am an opinionated arse a good bit of the time. But what we NEED, Tommy is to stop and talk to each other. To listen. To give a boost. To lend a hand.

To stop sitting around and posting on internet forums how great it would be if teachers had guns so they could blow the brains out of the kid sitting next to you just because he looks twitchy today. The kid who wants to make films. The kid who has been picked on. The young lady I started coaching 6 years ago who is getting a four year ride at a major college here in nuclear engineering. Who will graduate an officer. Who I am proud to say I helped give her some space to be herself, stay out of trouble and be somebody.

You want to help solve the problem Tommy?

Help someone - just one person - be somebody/be themselves.

Good luck to you.

So you lease out your section of the Ivory Tower?

If I'm a teacher in a school and Jonesboro or Columbine Part 2 breaks out, I think just maybe I'd rather have a gun instead of taking on some shotgun-armed kid with my bare hands. That's the idea behind the CCW.

JohnSSC wrote: To stop sitting around and posting on internet forums how great it would be if teachers had guns so they could blow the brains out of the kid sitting next to you just because he looks twitchy today. The kid who wants to make films. The kid who has been picked on. The young lady I started coaching 6 years ago who is getting a four year ride at a major college here in nuclear engineering. Who will graduate an officer. Who I am proud to say I helped give her some space to be herself, stay out of trouble and be somebody. You want to help solve the problem Tommy? Help someone - just one person - be somebody/be themselves. Good luck to you.

Well said, you're right. I didn't mean my opinion to sound like that. I thought that letting teachers carry guns would deter kids from bringing them, but if somebody is going to bring a gun, they probably don't care what the consequences are going to be, anyway. The last thing I want is our schools turning into the wild west.