Reply #20: Good idea

[rrneck]

"Do you think they would have the same effect on learning?"

No. Police officers are trained to carry a weapon and are held to strict standards for their behaivor on and off duty. If an officer screws up it goes hard on him/her too I'll bet. The presence of an officer carrying would (or certainly should) be welcome anywhere he/she went. It helps close the impossible gap. Your suggestion regarding the additional training for students carrying is a very good idea. I would add that increased personal power (the firearm) plus additional training equals increased responsibility. How that would play out in terms of public policy I don't know.

"Being in the business I don't believe you can make a society safe enough where people will never have the need to defend themselves."

Agreed. Totalitarian societies can usually brag about their low crime rates. Ten minutes sounds pretty good to me. It's more like a half hour where I live.

Come to think, the notion of extra training for college students sounds pretty good when I see something like this: www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=971 Southern Poverty Law Center
(snip)"Two years ago, the Intelligence Report revealed that alarming numbers of neo-Nazi skinheads and other white supremacist extremists were taking advantage of lowered armed services recruiting standards and lax enforcement of anti-extremist military regulations by infiltrating the U.S. armed forces in order to receive combat training and gain access to weapons and explosives."

Sometimes I wonder why the smart people shouldn't be a lot better armed and trained than they are. But then again, a squad of armed art students is a little more surreal than I can without that missing bottle of Tequila.