Teachers with Guns Will Be Targets of Police - Guaranteed

[MineralMan]

Here's a likely scenario:

A lone gunman rushes into a school with his AR-15 and a satchel of magazines. He starts shooting the place up. A call from school officials immediately goes out to local police, who rush to the scene and arrive about 5-10 minutes later.

Meanwhile, one of Trump's armed schoolteachers, an Army vet, still in his late 20s, thinks on his feet, retrieves his weapon, steps into the hallway and fires at the shooter, wounding him and sending him to the floor. The teacher yells at the shooter not to move, and covers him with his weapon. The shooter, in shock from being shot, complies.

Suddenly, the door bursts open and cops stream into the hallway. They're armed with their own AR-15s and are wearing protective gear, including face masks and ballistic vests. What do they see? A man with a gun pointed at someone on the floor. The teacher turns toward them to tell the cops that he has disabled the shooter by shooting him. The second cop who came through the door fires immediately at the armed teacher before he can say a word, killing him.

The teacher is dead. The shooter is wounded. Ambulances come and the scene is secured. Then, post-incident training reviews why there is this dead, armed teacher. It's all very sad.

This is what will happen. There will be no communication. The armed teacher is the most likely person to be shot by the police. People will feel really bad afterward, and they'll laud the teacher as a hero. That will be small comfort to his family.

[PJMcK]

1. This will happen (n/t)

[MineralMan]

2. It's guaranteed to happen if teachers are armed.

It's a tragedy waiting to occur, really. There will be many regrets, no doubt.

[PJMcK]

49. Many thoughts and prayers, too

(snark)

[pangaia]

3. Most likely if the teacher is black.

[MineralMan]

5. It won't matter. Really, it won't.

Black, white, man or woman - the person holding the gun and pointing it at the real shooter is likely to be killed by the Police. They will protect themselves first and then ask questions. Everyone will be very sad, but they were just following their training.

The problem is that there is a report of a shooting. If you have a gun in your hand, how is anyone to know you're not the shooter. Nobody will take the time to inquire politely about that. That's how those things go.

Cops get shot by other cops all the time, especially if one is not in uniform. See gun? Shoot person with gun! Bystanders get shot, too. Police officers don't fire just once. They empty their magazines and don't really aim all that well, either. People die when cops come to a shooting scene if they see people with guns.

It's a real problem that Trump has no idea about. He's probably never even held a firearm, and is a cowardly, impetuous man.

[dalton99a]

4. A bulletproof vest with the word 'TEACHER' emblazoned on both sides

should be required standard attire

[MineralMan]

6. Sure. It should be kept locked up with the teacher's gun, so the teacher can

put it on before confronting the shooter. That'll solve the problem, fer shure! :sarcasm"

[Luz]

10. Unless its a teacher that flips out. But, that would never happen,

or would it? Idiots one and all.

[Louis1895]

16. Shooter steal "TEACHER" vest...

...and wears it during his crime.

Or easier yet, boards a school bus outside of school ground and shoots all of the kids like sitting ducks. (of course, then we put armed guards to "ride shotgun" on every bus.)

[Hangingon]

18. There will have to be some established procedures in place, if this path is chosen.

An armed teacher will have to be approved by the school administration. Rules for gun security will have to be developed, with the assistance of law enforcement. Teachers will have to be trained and kept current. Ideally I think the school should issue the weapon and ammunition for control. The school must supply the names and ID information of armed teachers to law enforcement. Police tactics will have to take into account to the presence of armed teachers. The use of TEACHER emblazoned raid jackets or Kevlar vests would certainly aid identification.

I am opposed to the idea of armed teachers. Certainly no teacher should have to carry a weapon if they do not want to. They would be counter productive. Far better I think would be an armed police presence in the school - an ISD police that supplements local law enforcement. This is not unusual.

I understand the reason some suggest arming teachers. As posted in the scenario above, the police arrive in 5 to 10 minutes and the shooting phase is over. It is critical that the shooter is confronted as soon as possible to save lives.

[MineralMan]

21. How about we put a SWAT officer in the back of every classroom,

in full regalia, with stun guns, tear gas, and anything else he might need? Now, that would put an end to all that nonsense, and keep the kids very quiet, as well. The perfect learning environment...

[B2G]

22. Is that how we handle Air Marshals?

Don't think so. Undercover is the approach. Why would this be any different?

[MineralMan]

24. I've seen Air Marshals on flights I've been on.

You can spot them right away. They're the only ones wearing business-like clothing in Coach.

Plus, they look all serious and stuff. Actually, I haven't seen any recently on my flights.

[B2G]

25. How do you know they aren't business people?

What would be the point of having them there in the first place if they're so easy to identify?

Have you never seen Starsky & Hutch? LOL.

[MineralMan]

26. Well, actually, one time, I knew, because I had seen them bypass

the Security line after showing their ID.

The Air Marshal's service used to have a dress code. They dropped that, for just that reason. However, they are carrying a pistol in a holster. So, they wear jackets to hide that fact. What I'm telling you is that I can spot any air marshal who is on a flight I'm on. I can see them coming down the aisle, scanning the passengers visually.

They're not real obvious, but you can spot them, if you're paying attention.

[bullsnarfle]

57. Right.

Maybe you haven't heard, but there WAS an armed cop AT THE SCENE when the shooting started.

17 people are still dead.

[Hangingon]

62. Okay. You convinced me

Let’s just do nothing.

[Fred Sanders]

52. Which the shooter may mark on his bulletproof vest...not that it will matter to either.

TEACHER logo, on an armed teacher with a bullet proof vest is insane.

[Blue_true]

7. I am more concerned about.

Panicked students running all over the place as the bad guy mow them down while the teacher can't get a clean shot, or is shooting students that are trying to run.

[MineralMan]

8. That's another scenario, and also a likely one.

In such situations, "Who's the Shooter" is the game being played. Could be anyone, really.

Moronic idea, arming teachers is.

[Blue_true]

14. Ideal like arming teachers becoming public policy.

Is why voting republicans out in November is so important. They are too screwed up to set appropriate public policy.

Someone asked in a thread why deep red states simply don't arm everyone, including teachers. If republicans think arming teachers is such a good idea, they should work to have that implemented in red states.

[Initech]

9. Yeah throwing more guns onto a gun problem isn't going to solve a gun problem.

If anything it will make things worse. And I can't believe Trump is going along with this. Oh yes I can, he's addicted to Fox News.

[MichMary]

11. Also--

cops can be killed by armed teachers. Just by coincidence I've been reading a lot about Columbine. When the SWAT officers burst into the science room where the teacher was dying, all the people in that room knew was that there were people with guns coming in. They thought they were about to die. Guaranteed, if one of them had been armed, he/she would have shot an officer.

In that case, because the fire alarm made verbal communication impossible, they turned around and pointed to the backs of their windbreakers, which clearly said, "SWAT."

[Renew Deal]

12. Students that appear threatening will be targets of armed teachers

[MineralMan]

20. Or just catch a stray bullet or two.

You know, on the TeeVee, you get trained to keep shooting until you have no more rounds to fire. That's how you do it. Aiming is a secondary issue. That's why you need a large-capacity magazine. If you shoot enough times, you're bound to hit something, after all.

[Blue_Adept]

13. You're making it far more complicated than it needs to be.

Just remember Philando Castille. A ~cafeteria worker~ with a gun that was pulled over on his ride home and shot.

How many teachers will want to bring their gun home? They likely can't leave it at school because that opens a whole other set of liability issues, storage, check-in, check out. Do they want the gun close to their family? After all, most gun deaths occur in the home.

And then we gotta talk about teachers that shoot themselves.

http://tnvalleytalks.hoop.la/topic/utah-teacher-shoots-herself-in-the-leg-while-at-school

There will be numerous deaths and accidents before your situation even comes close to life.

[MineralMan]

15. Those things, too, yes.

[HAB911]

17. +++++++++++

[Lee-Lee]

19. Thats actually a problem easily mitigated

It’s done now in cases where there is armed private security that is plainclothes. For example large corporate offices or the homes of wealthy people that have armed security.

In those cases part of the procedure is that there is some sort of prearranged article of clothing they quickly put on- for example an odd and brightly colored hat (toboggan style to not get knocked off) or a bright colored reflective belt like joggers wear thrown over the shoulder.

The color that will be worn isn’t known or put out but it’s in the computer as an alert for dispatchers, who notify the responding officers.

In the case of a school you could go a step further and even have the guns finished in that same color. Don’t let the color be known, and then it provides a quick visual ID.

[MineralMan]

23. Sure. No problem. Let's see:

If there is an active shooter alert, Teacher digs in purse to find keys to locked drawer. Opens drawer. Puts on "armed teacher" hat, dons armored vest, takes firearm, and then heads toward the sound of gunshots. That'll work, I'm sure. Easy.

[Lee-Lee]

27. Well actually

A wise approach would be the fingerprint activated safes that are available.

No need for a teacher to “dig in her purse”, just a swipe of the finger.

But your misogynistic assumption any teacher would be “digging in her purse” for keys to something that important is noted.

And for all that, even as slow as you describe, response time would be under 30 seconds. Considering average police response for emergency calls is 9 minutes in most jurisdictions you just brought armed resistance to the attacker and disrupted their plans 8 minutes and 30 seconds sooner.

Let’s say it’s a place with great response times and the average response is 5 minutes. You just cut 4 minutes and 30 seconds of that.

And every second you cut off from the first armed resistance the attacker faces is a second they are not free to kill and harm without opposition.

The alternative, that you propose, is wait longer to respond and let more people die.

Just because you don’t like the idea.

[MineralMan]

30. So, you support arming teachers?

Make your case, then. Show my why my scenario in the OP is incorrect. I'll wait here.

[TeamPooka]

34. Finger print activated safes, special colored hats. Who's paying for all this in every school?

Not the GOP, that's for sure.
Dream solutions cost money.
People won't even pay teachers and buy enough supplies for schools now they are going to pay to arm them up.

[MineralMan]

37. See, here's the thing: The odds of a particular teacher ever having

to do anything like that are really, really, really low. So, it's really not a situation that is actually likely to occur in a given school. It's very unlikely that an armed teacher is going to be constantly vigilant, due to that. Teachers have, like, this really difficult job of trying to teach children, maintain some sort of order, and help them learn what's in that school's curriculum. That's a tough order, in the first place.

Even most police officers have never fired their service weapon, except on the range. That's why the average cop isn't all that useful in a crisis situation, and is more likely to miss than to hit what they're shooting at. Doing that sort of thing well requires frequent intensive training. That's why there are SWAT teams, who train together in a wide range of scenarios, over and over again.

Teachers are not cops. Teachers, if they're good at their jobs, focus on imparting knowledge to a classroom full of students. That's also a very difficult job. They're not going to be doing constant defensive training. There's no time. There's no money to conduct that training. Teachers are trained to teach students, not shoot people.

Most teachers are horrified at the idea. Most teachers are dedicated to what they do. They have to be, since the pay's lousy and they're expected to supply a lot of the things schools used to provide. They don't want to learn to kill people. They want to teach children.

Arming teachers is not how to prevent school shootings. Making it more difficult for people to buy AR-15s and similar weapons would work a helluva lot better. If teachers are armed, there will be teachers who die from being shot by police or by the school shooter. I guarantee it. Who want's that to happen. Better lockdown capabilities would be a far better investment.

[ffr]

28. David Hogg said as much today. The scenarios just go south from there.

What if the teacher is shot and a student picks up the teachers weapon to return fire. Police/SWAT may target that student. Now we have innocents being shot or killed because of these added guns in a school environment.

Watch: https://cheddar.com/videos/parkland-survivor-and-gun-activist-david-hogg-talks-neveragain-movement

[FailureToCommunicate]

29. True, Mineral Man. This scene comes to mind...

[MineralMan]

31. That's pretty funny. Really.

[FailureToCommunicate]

61. Unless you're the black guy of course.

[lutherj]

32. Another scenario, though somewhat less likely, is a shootout with multiple armed teachers shooting

at each other down hallways and across gyms, as they try to distinguish the lone gunman from friendly fire. Then of course the swat team shows up. It would be like Black Hawk Down inside a suburban high school. Or a Quentin Tararantino movie.

[MineralMan]

40. There are lots of potentially disastrous scenarios.

More than we can count. It's not the right solution, by any measurement.

[lutherj]

46. Agreed. The idea of arming teachers is absurd. Its a sign of how divorced from reality

the right has become.

[TeamPooka]

33. yup 100%

[Lucky Luciano]

35. Im very curious how many black students get murdered by their teacher...

...in this absurd scenario.

[MineralMan]

41. That's hard to estimate. I have no idea.

[IronLionZion]

36. I doubt they have these conversations in other countries

they seemed to have found a much simpler and more effective solution. Maybe it's just a coincidence.

[MineralMan]

42. You are absolutely correct.

[lark]

38. That's sadly enough a best case scenario.

More likely is guy is heard shooting, kids are screaming and running around, person grabs gun and tries to shoot shooter, but in the chaos and movement, he hits someone else, at least once and then gets killed by police. Body count has been expanded, which is what orange assface and NRA want in the first place and kids are not protected. In just about any scenario, the teacher with a gun will end up dead and the children aren't protected.

corrected typo

[MineralMan]

43. It's just one scenario. It's easy to imagine others that

turn out as bad or even worse. Add more firearms to a crisis situation and more people will die. It's simple math.

[lark]

45. Exactly.

NRA and their lying rw enablers just want to sell guns and are totally ok with millions of people dying for their profits.

[Turbineguy]

39. Easy Solution

Teachers who are on the OK List get a secret bright red MAGA hat. That will keep them from getting shot. MAGA hats have Secret Powers. Sshhhhh. Don't tell anybody.

OK, so Teacher grabs gun, puts on Secret Powers MAGA Hat and runs into the hallway. Perp is so surprised by the cool hat that he stops shooting people. Perp observes, "If I only had a hat like that, I would have never done this horrible deed!" Teacher shoots perp because only perps willing to admit to being Democrats are allowed to survive the encounter.

[TwistOneUp]

44. I thought...

The objective was to have LESS lead flying around the classroom, not more.

The more shooting in the classroom, the higher the probability that one or more people will be hurt or die.

What's going to happen when a teacher shoots a child by mistake? How bad will the child's parent(s) feel, how bad will the teacher feel, and for how much will the teacher be sued?

Everybody loses. Better to have security for the school using trained professionals / police.

[ancianita]

47. In no time, kill off teachers, shut down public schools. The only ones left: private preps, since

1744. https://www.boardingschoolreview.com/top-twenty-schools-listing/oldest-founding-date

Only the best for kids of the rich. These are the only schools and kids who've never been subjected to cost/benefit, bang-for-buck debates, "diversity," austerity funding, administrative bullying, corrupt government patronage, crowded classrooms, underpaid teachers, salary freezes, Gradgrindian standardized tests, test practice, lessons based tests, metal detectors, constant surveillance, security guards, police officers, bad cafeteria food, no medical personnel.


Tie the public up, bring on the NRA PR army, wear the public out, weary the children, the public, tell them to be patient. Keep the anti-FBI propaganda noise up.

I could go on. But if the DeVos privatizers can't get 50 states to give up public schooling, get Big Badass 45 to do it with his Russia-funded Badass NRA.

For centuries the owners of this country have had peaceful, innocent childhoods for their children while fomenting disunity in the "united" states' people. They know that if the public won't fight for its children, the owners of this country now own the future.

[Moral Compass]

48. You are absolutely correct

The police are not trained to differentiate and really couldn’t differentiate. In the normal scenario they’ll take out anyone that is armed. Realistically, they can’t afford not to.

[ewagner]

50. I think it will be worse than that....

let's say...

All teachers are "encouraged" to be armed...it's well publicized and everybody assumes that teachers are trained in the use of the gun and willing to use it.

The would-be shooter knows this as well as anybody else...

So in order to carry out his plan, who will be his first target?

The unarmed student? Or the teacher with the gun?

And, every other teacher in the school as the shooter goes about his sick mission.

Bottom line? Teachers will be the first targets...then the newly "disarmed" students.

[riversedge]

51. uga uga. So clear it could happen. so easily.

[FakeNoose]

53. Yep, this is the next tragedy waiting to happen

We have to ban military assault weapons now. Confiscate all the ones that are already out there, long with the ammo and parts.

There's no reason to discuss background checks or minimum age, just ban them now. I believe the kids have the right idea - just shame the GOP and all the parents into going along with a ban. There's no reason for any non-military Americans to have an assault weapon - ever.

[Heartstrings]

54. Yes, just one of the many scenarios

of "what could possibly go wrong"?

[BBG]

55. Drones. Armed Drones.

Of course we need a super nationwide network to run the drones control signaling. We could leverage the FirstNet first responder network ATT is building but a special version and call it SchoolNet. And name the drones that will terminate the active shooter Terminators. It will be positively futuristic, like something out of a sci-fi movie.

[Nitram]

56. You're right MM, but that's only one of the many, many things that could go wrong.

Arm all teachers and before you know it a teacher will commit the next mass killing. Or a gun will go off and kill someone by mistake. Or a teacher will shoot at a shooter, miss, and kill an innocent student by mistake. Or a student will grab a teacher's gun and start shooting. More guns is not the answer to gun violence.

[BamaRefugee]

58. Or teachers will unintentionally kill lots of innocent students

The call goes out "Shooting in progress, Happy Haven High School, be on alert for WHITE MALE 16 5'9 150 Brown hair, wearing dark t-shirt and jeans", teachers immediately open fire on 30% of the student body.

just imagine the crossfire even if teachers on all 4 sides of The Quad are shooting at the right person, so bullets are flying in 4 different direction while crowds of kids are running around, panicked.

[nykym]

59. Lottsa talk about the pros and cons

of arming teachers.
One thing school districts need to consider.
Insurance coverage.
From the NY Times 7-7-13:
As more schools consider arming their employees, some districts are encountering a daunting economic hurdle: insurance carriers threatening to raise their premiums or revoke coverage entirely.
More at link
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/us/schools-seeking-to-arm-employees-hit-hurdle-on-insurance.html

Not so easy!

[renate]

60. right! and not just armed teachers--all teachers

Unless the armed teachers are identified ahead of time, so the shooter knows exactly who to go for (they'll earn Trump's being-armed bonus, that's for sure), all teachers will be assumed to be among the 20% who have guns.

This idea is so incredibly, unfathomably stupid--I can't believe it's actually being discussed as though it's not utterly delusional. How about protecting schools with flying monkeys?

[librechik]

63. or worse n/t