Tactics gone wrong

[The Reaper]

Originally Posted by x_sf_med

Bad idea to let most teachers carry guns, IMHO, all it's gonna take is one tightly wound armed teacher to just let loose.... I think it's a bad idea for most civilians to carry, for the same reason.

I think you live in the right part of the country for that thought process. Clearly, the media has you believing that firearms cause crime by themselves.

Frankly, I don't know why anyone other than the police even need a gun, right?

Do some research. How many million civilians are carrying legally with CCWs right now? How many "tightly wound armed CCW holders just let loose" in the last ten years?

Train and license, then let them carry, but locked up, similar to the FFDOs. Last thing we need is one left in the restroom like some of the highly trained federal agents seem prone to do.

TR

[uboat509]

I will probably be in the minority in this but I don't think that more guns in a school zone in the hands of civilians is the answer. In any case I suspect that a lot of teacher's unions wouldn't stand for it. I don't MRS. Reteshka (my 2nd grade teacher in '79) getting into a firefight in a school full of children.

SFC W

[GackMan]

Who breaches a hole to "look through"?? The press has to have that wrong... I hope.

Originally Posted by jasonglh

As I understand it PD trains to shoot until the subject is no longer a threat. 9 Swat firing at one target=68 hits in a span of what a few seconds vs 1 man firing one gun with 8 hits? Seems reasonable to me they fired less than the criminal did...and offered the chance to give up first.

I think you are confusing 2 events.

The bad guy ran from a traffic stop. Police chased him, starting a dog track and Deputy Matt Williams and his K-9 were killed and Deputy Douglas Speirs was wounded. The bad guy took one of the officer's gun and ammo and continued on the run... shooting and two other officers while hiding and running.

SWAT caught up with him the next day and killed him.

Walking shoulder to shoulder through vines and underbrush, the officers were practically on top of Angilo Freeland before they spotted him under a large, fallen oak tree covered with vines, Polk Sheriff Grady Judd said.

They ordered him to show his hands; he raised one and officers saw a handgun.

The pictures I saw showed a dead fall tree about 3-4 feet in diameter supported off the ground at an angle (looked like a giant moss covered lean to). If the bad guy was bunkered down under that solid cover and wouldn't come out and presented a weapon? 9 guy firing 110 rounds. Each of them fires 12 rounds and gets 50% hits firing at a target in the prone under hard cover while getting off line or behind cover and none of them get hit.

Sounds good to me.

The Sheriff needs to keep his mouth shut. Yeah, that was an amusing quip - who doesn't want to fuck with the press after one of your Deputies is killed with 2 contact wounds to the head and the press is only worried about how many times the bad guy was shot? They are getting sued so that wasn't too smart. They probably had more than 12 rounds each so it was un-true... don't make untrue statements about people's death, even if they are scumbags.

[dfirsty]

I agree with TR, anyone legally allowed to do so should be allowed to carry a concealed firearm. Unfortunately I don't think teachers would ever be allowed to do so. I say give all teachers Tasers, I personally can't stand them, but I think if everytime a student even mentioned a violent act with a weapon or someone was found on the school property that didn't belong there got lit up with 50,000 volts violent crime in schools would drop.

[Jack Moroney (RIP)]

Originally Posted by stakk4

What is everyone's opinion on the often discussed (post school crimes) solution of letting teachers carry weapons? S

Well if the teacher's union was changed from that feckless NEA to the NRA, that might be a start. Unfortunately too many of the teachers that I have run into are extremely liberal, think that their role in life is to substitute their core values for those of the parent, see parents as the enemy and not as a partner in the education process, expect a medical program for free that will cover them and their families for an entire year even though they actually perform their job for 8-9 months out of a year, have better daily hours than bankers, and have a separate teachers parking lot only to avoid running over the students when they race from the school as the students are filing out to get on their busses. Now before I start getting hate mail, there are some outstanding teachers out there in addition to those professional weapon carrying, patriotic, selfless, defenders of even the liberal teachers in this country but they all wear Green Berets.

[x SF med]

Originally Posted by The Reaper

Train and license, then let them carry, but locked up, similar to the FFDOs. Last thing we need is one left in the restroom like some of the highly trained federal agents seem prone to do.

TR

TR-
You nailed my point exactly - train and license. I should have amended my post to say unrestricted carry - apologies, and I owe you a few, like 20 for being unclear.

I'm trained and qualified in the use of most firearms out there, and if it wasn't such a PITA in this area, I might actually still own a few handguns (still kicking myself for giving up the gold cup 1911, and the Berretta 92SB), I consider them tools, I guess that's an occupational hazard after being an 18B.

[El Cid]

Originally Posted by x_sf_med

Bad idea to let most teachers carry guns, IMHO, all it's gonna take is one tightly wound armed teacher to just let loose.... I think it's a bad idea for most civilians to carry, for the same reason.

I know plenty of "civilians" who have more training and experience with handguns than military and LE personnel. I think your line of thinking is a bit flawed. Statstically it has proven out that more guns = less crime.

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by x_sf_med

Bad idea to let most teachers carry guns, IMHO, all it's gonna take is one tightly wound armed teacher to just let loose.... I think it's a bad idea for most civilians to carry, for the same reason.

That's ok, I don't think most should be allowed to breed either.... but we have to have stupid ones in order for others to shine.... given time the stupid are culled from the herd.... we have over six million car accidents every year, we ain't getting rid of stupid people anytime soon.

Give'em guns and throw them into the fray I say.

There is no way to keep the children safe unless we build prisons for schools.

[stakk4]

There is no way to keep the children safe unless we build prisons for schools.

This also seems to me to be a trade off. If teachers and students can secure themselves in safe rooms, they will be much safer from attackers who are intent on moving from room to room killing as many as possible. But if attackers manage to lock themselves in these secure rooms with hostages, it makes the SWAT/Rescue team's job that much harder. It is one of those cases of protecting as many as possible I suppose.

The Wisconsin Rep who is the latest to propose that teachers carry has referenced success with such policies in Israel, Thailand, and India. Would the result here be same/better/worse?

S

[Logan]

We will all see massive anti-gun propaganda as a result of the recent horrific cases of disturbed people doing horrific acts. One unspoken truth that we will not see on the news is that one reason these wakos think they can get away with this is due to the Gun-Free School Zones Acts curtsey of gun control fanatics who pressured congress and state legislatures to pass them. One never read about school massacres before we began to make guns bad and unavailable to the law abiding citizens..

Which would be better. Keeping our teachers, parents and staff unarmed sheep leaving them to the whim of criminals who will be armed regardless of the laws. Or allowing licensed and trained individuals a means at their disposal to defend themselves and save innocent lives.

-The Tennessean Newspaper Oct 6th 2006
In reference to the recent shooting and as a rebuttal to the "safety zones" created by a zero tolerance of firearms on school grounds wrote this reminder to the non thinking anti gun population.
"Luke Woodham, who shot up Mississippi’s Pearl High School in 1997 after slitting his mother's throat. Midway through his spree, Woodham encountered Vice Principal Joel Myrick, who had rushed to his car to retrieve a .45 caliber pistol. Myrick aimed the gun at Woodham's head and held him until police arrived. You read little about Myrick's heroism, and less about his handgun, in press reports…. After the Pennsylvania attack on an Amish school in Lancaster County, anti-gun Gov. Ed Rendell had a remarkable moment of candor when he admitted that tougher gun law would not have stopped the gunman. . Rendell said: You can make all the changes you want but you can never stop a random act of violence by someone intent on taking his own life.
His remarks were ignored by the media"

I do however disagree with Gov Rendell. True most sheep will not be able to stop random acts of violence as they live in a fantasy world of liberal daydreams of a non violent utopian society where a police officer is there to stop all who stray from the path of politically correct behavior. I for one like a 45 cal center of mass to these criminal’s operating systems. Ill call 911 afterwards....
I want my kids teachers armed and trained as well as School Resource Officers with more tactical training and a rifle in the car.

Sorry to babble but the issue is not guns in the hands of teachers, citizens, police or other law abiding legal residence of my beloved state and country. You do not have to be a graduate of a multi acronym school or have combat experience to get well qualified to defend yourself and others with handgun in public. I make my living teaching these civilians (military & L.E. Also) self defense and I am confident they can stop these type of mad men if they are allowed to be armed.

[NousDefionsDoc]

Do any of you advocating arming this bunch actually know a teacher?

I'm not talking about PTA or parent's night.

First of all they won't carry, they are the biggest libs on the planet. Second of all, most of them can't get 20 6th graders on a school bus without some type of drama.

THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I WOULD ARM THOSE PEOPLE! I don't even want pilots armed. I would rather arm the kids than 99.9% of the teachers I know.

[The Reaper]

It occurs to me that the copy-cat nature of these crimes means that had the media not given the scumbag perpetrators any coverage, others would not be striving for their 15 minutes of fame as well.

Why not deny any media publicity to these events outside of their immeduiate communities? It really isn't a national story anyway.

Maybe we need media control? Does the First Amendment "people" differ from the Second?

TR

[incommin]

Too many sheep. Too many wolves. Too few sheep dogs!

Jim

[smp52]

It occurs to me that the copy-cat nature of these crimes means that had the media not given the scumbag perpetrators any coverage, others would not be striving for their 15 minutes of fame as well.

Roger Ebert had interesting words on this topic when reviewing the movie Elephant by Gus Van Sant.

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. "Wouldn't you say," she asked, "that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?" No, I said, I wouldn't say that. "But what about 'Basketball Diaries'?" she asked. "Doesn't that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?" The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it's unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. "Events like this," I said, "if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn't have messed with me. I'll go out in a blaze of glory."

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of "explaining" them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

[El Cid]

Originally Posted by NousDefionsDoc

Do any of you advocating arming this bunch actually know a teacher?

I'm not talking about PTA or parent's night.

First of all they won't carry, they are the biggest libs on the planet. Second of all, most of them can't get 20 6th graders on a school bus without some type of drama.

THERE IS NO WAY IN HELL I WOULD ARM THOSE PEOPLE! I don't even want pilots armed. I would rather arm the kids than 99.9% of the teachers I know.

My mom, girlfriend and sis-in-law are all teachers. Only one of the three would be interested in carrying a weapon - especially at school. The one is my gf and it's only because I have opened her eyes to the real world in which we live. My mom and SIL are not anti-gun... but they are not the type to use a gun (even if it was available) against a student. I love them dearly, but they are very much sheep. They'd probably protect the students from an outside predator, but they lack the warrior mindset to engage a threat with any verocity. I also don't see them willingly taking the kind of training we'd want them to have.

That said, there are teachers who would happily bear arms. We do have teachers that are avid shooters, hunters and many who are former military (remember "troops to teachers") or are in the Guard/Reserve. Heck, my high school had a rifle team which included several .22LR rifles and an indoor range in the basement. It went away in the late 90's because of rising insurance costs and administrators less willing to fight for it.

I guess what I am driving at is that even if we only have the gym teachers, wrestling coach, and the occasional teacher, vice principal, etc. armed -- it is better than none. Yes, physical security/deterence is the first priority, but nothing is airtight as we all know.