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Kingsburg High to allow teachers to carry guns on campus

Dittohead not!

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[h=1]Kingsburg High to allow teachers to carry guns on campus [/h]
Kingsburg Joint Union High School District will now allow teachers to carry guns on campus.
The school board on Monday unanimously approved a new policy that allows up to five district employees – designated by the superintendent – to carry a concealed firearm on school grounds.




Small town, small school district in a mostly conservative town. Local opinions are very mixed. What do you think?
 
Why not? What makes carrying in a public school different from say carrying on the streets? Because adults are replaced with children? Is that supposed to make legal gun owners suddenly berserk criminals hell bent on killing ****?
 
On balance, I do not think firearms need to be in the schools, nor do I necessarily think it is appropriate with teachers at the helm, either.
 
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It will be quite an embarrassment, if a teacher shoots a naughty kid.

It won't be embarrassing at all. I bet parents will think twice about letting their unruly and undisciplined kids run amok knowing that teachers are packing.
 
This is an area where I've changed my opinion over time. No, teachers should not have firearms. Their job is to teach, not to be rushing into a life or death situation with a deadly weapon where they have to make a split second decision. Furthermore, a teacher carrying a firearm drastically changes the power dynamic of the teacher/student relationship and not in a good way. No, teachers should not be armed.

Where I've changed my opinion some is the presence of firearms at all in schools. I argue that instead of adding yet another responsibility on teachers (even if the teacher is willing to accept it) we should have a greater police presence in our schools, officers who regularly train to deal with those situations. Not only do you have better trained professionals in place, you also can use that time to foster a more positive relationship between citizen and officer, something which is sorely lacking these days. Ever since Newtown, we've had a more visible police presence throughout our school and I think it really has had a positive effect on the opinions several of our students have of the officers.

In conclusion, teachers should not be armed but I think an increased police presence should be had.
It won't be embarrassing at all. I bet parents will think twice about letting their unruly and undisciplined kids run amok knowing that teachers are packing.
Yes, because we all know the best way to educate someone is to make them fear for their life. :roll:
 
It will stop any chance of another Columbine-type massacre at that school.

I am fine with it.
 
Yes, because we all know the best way to educate someone is to make them fear for their life. :roll:

I was largely in agreement with you throughout your post, particularly the above section and the statement that it changes the dynamic between student and teacher in a negative way.

I am nervously skeptical about firearms in schools, including in the hands of SROs, other staff members, or even teachers. Firearms are, largely, an unknown commodity in the school system, so the impact may be a net positive, a net negative, a neutral decision, or an impact (positive or negative) in discrete categories. Given that school shootings, stabbings, and so forth are incredibly rare, when introducing a solution that will be ever-present regardless of the condition of a given school, we must consider how that one variable may influence scores of additional situations.

This is why I think even the SROs are a huge double-edged sword. On one hand they were absolutely needed in the wake of incredibly large school shootings. Further, the presence of some of these officers instilled a positive relationship between students and police, or, rather youth to authority figure. They were meant to be two separate institutions cooperating for the greater good of school safety. On the other hand, our data has shown that schools have too readily and too easily blurred the lines between police and school administrative or management tasks. As a result, the number of negative encounters, penalties, and criminal records skyrocketed, often for things that should have strictly been in the domain of school-only personnel and quietly dealt with just as in the past. In another somewhat separate solution, when the utilization of seclusion and restraints was (or is) allowed, we have data showing how those techniques became standard operating procedure for everything, even if we know it was used against commonly accepted "evidence-based practices." When a student was "non-compliant" (a term so vague and subjective it often describes anything an authority figure in the school doesn't like), escalation tactics were readily employed. These could often, and did, endanger a student's life. I know such students by name who were luckily alive after the encounter, but they could have died right there for something that posed no danger to self or other. Introducing a new variable that can be used to assure or insure compliance can be easily abused or lead to situations in which one party or the other (i.e. the student) escalates the situation into a fatal encounter. Without the firearm, the situation may have inappropriately escalated because of the staff member or the student, but we have a much greater chance that both parties are going to be able to come home alive after that. I really don't want our society to turn into a place where a kid may or may not come home alive, because they were shot and killed over an escalated situation that started from something as innocuous as a dress code violation. We already have too much escalation in our schools over stuff like that. There's frankly no way we should be needing to worry about whether or not the introduction of firearms will have the same kind of consequences that the mere introduction of an SRO has had on in-school arrests and so on. Sadly, whenever we have introduced new mechanisms or permissions to schools in order to address a perceived crisis, we have in turn created other crises or social problems which show themselves in far greater instances or impacts than the tools were meant to solve.
 
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I was a teacher in public schools for many years, most of those years in high school. I was also the head wrestling coach. For that reason alone, I never had a problem with a student, even a "bad" one. Anyway, I do not think that teachers should be allowed to carry a firearm while on school grounds. The OP asked the question: "What do you think?" That's what I think.
Joe
 
I was a teacher in public schools for many years, most of those years in high school. I was also the head wrestling coach. For that reason alone, I never had a problem with a student, even a "bad" one. Anyway, I do not think that teachers should be allowed to carry a firearm while on school grounds. The OP asked the question: "What do you think?" That's what I think.
Joe

Why should a teacher or anyone for that matter give up a right to defend them-self just because they are on school grounds?
 
It won't be embarrassing at all. I bet parents will think twice about letting their unruly and undisciplined kids run amok knowing that teachers are packing.

This reminds me of something a state legislator of mine once recently said. When considering whether or not to issue regulations of seclusion and restraint on kids with behavior problems, there was another bill that would have allowed teachers to carry inside the school. This Senator in question was a big proponent of that latter bill and expressed a thick disdain for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, especially because they were allowed in school. In the same breath as asking whether or not the bill would preclude teachers from disciplining students covered under the seclusion and restraint bill (and as a side note: seclusion and restraint is never supposed to be used to discipline a student), the Senator then asks if a bill on seclusion and restraint would put any restrictions on a teacher being able to use their firearm.

One could only surmise that the good Senator was asking if it was permissible to shoot such children for being unruly.
 
On balance, I do not think firearms need to be in the schools, nor do I necessarily think it is appropriate with teachers at the helm, either.

I know it seems strange but before the idiocy stuck and this stupid law was passed disarming not only teachers but parents guess what? Can you reflect back to 1994 and find any reason to suggest the law was needed and what did it cure? Do you know what it did? Turned schools into the place of choice for nuts, giving them a guaranteed safe shooting gallery with live targets and plenty of time before being disturbed.

Nice swop don't you think? Who got the better of the deal citizens or gun control with a nice source of atrocities to bolster their propaganda?
 
I know it seems strange but before the idiocy stuck and this stupid law was passed disarming not only teachers but parents guess what? Can you reflect back to 1994 and find any reason to suggest the law was needed and what did it cure? Do you know what it did? Turned schools into the place of choice for nuts, giving them a guaranteed safe shooting gallery with live targets and plenty of time before being disturbed.

Nice swop don't you think? Who got the better of the deal citizens or gun control with a nice source of atrocities to bolster their propaganda?

School shootings have neither increased in frequency, nor have they become hot beds for shootings.
 
This reminds me of something a state legislator of mine once recently said. When considering whether or not to issue regulations of seclusion and restraint on kids with behavior problems, there was another bill that would have allowed teachers to carry inside the school. This Senator in question was a big proponent of that latter bill and expressed a thick disdain for students with emotional and behavioral disorders, especially because they were allowed in school. In the same breath as asking whether or not the bill would preclude teachers from disciplining students covered under the seclusion and restraint bill (and as a side note: seclusion and restraint is never supposed to be used to discipline a student), the Senator then asks if a bill on seclusion and restraint would put any restrictions on a teacher being able to use their firearm.

**One could only surmise that the good Senator was asking if it was permissible to shoot such children for being unruly.**

Would you assume it was ok to punch and kick the guy into submission or is this just your bias?
 
Would you assume it was ok to punch and kick the guy into submission or is this just your bias?

Punch and kick a student with an emotional or behavioral disorder that is not otherwise harmful to self or to others? No, I happen to think that's unacceptable and immoral conduct for any authority figure in a school.
 
I was a teacher in public schools for many years, most of those years in high school. I was also the head wrestling coach. For that reason alone, I never had a problem with a student, even a "bad" one. Anyway, I do not think that teachers should be allowed to carry a firearm while on school grounds. The OP asked the question: "What do you think?" That's what I think.
Joe

I was only a teacher for four years. I knew teachers I surely wouldn't want anywhere near a fire arm. Hell, I hated to see them get behind the wheel of a car at the end of the day. I do agree that most teachers absolutely shouldn't be armed. However, there are some that would be fine carrying. It would be far, far better if public schools would renounce gun free zones. Whether a school has teachers who carry or not, the element of doubt created in the ill-willed would go a long way toward cutting some of the mayhem down. Parents should have a reasonable expectation that their children are safe in school, and that the focus is on education.
 
School shootings have neither increased in frequency, nor have they become hot beds for shootings.

Your point is??????????????????

They are the place of choice for mass shootings. That is what I said and that is what I mean. Do you agree with this or not?
 
Punch and kick a student with an emotional or behavioral disorder that is not otherwise harmful to self or to others? No, I happen to think that's unacceptable and immoral conduct for any authority figure in a school.

Why would you think one would want to shoot a student then? Would it not have been more logical to assume the senator was an idiot and an ass?
 
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Your point is??????????????????

It was in desperation of trying to understand an incredibly incoherent series of posts. Perhaps I should apologize for making the effort.

They are the place of choice for mass shootings. That is what I said and that is what I mean. Do you agree with this or not?

They are not the "place of choice" for mass shootings. They are a soft target, yes, but they are not "the choice" for mass shootings.
 
Why would you think one would want to shoot a student then?

I was making an observation that reinoe was certainly not the only person I have seen making a subtle-to-not-so-subtle inquiry or statement indicating the desirability that a certain percentage of American school children are killed by school staff members.
 
Why should a teacher or anyone for that matter give up a right to defend them-self just because they are on school grounds?
When they're chosen method to defend themselves conflicts with other's rights to be free from harm, intentional or otherwise.

It seems pretty basic.
 
As long as the teacher is vetted and trained I have no problem with it. And I mean SERIOUS training. The point of allowing them to carry in a school is to protect out children if it comes to that and to do so properly requires specialized training and periodic drills.
 
When they're chosen method to defend themselves conflicts with other's rights to be free from harm, intentional or otherwise.

It seems pretty basic.
And where will that sentiment be when there is another mass school shooting incident and all the teachers involved have for their and student's defense against the assailants are to throw staplers, books or their own bodies? It would be a very nice sentiment if it had a basis in the world of what is real. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
 
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