Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: A question for this group-- [View all]digonswine
(1,485 posts)I feel like some people think there is a way to plan for all contingencies when there is not.
Maybe-just maybe, having guns around is not best for this situation? Could that be true? I'm sure having a gun is sometimes best-but why must it always be so? It's sort of silly to think it could be.
When responses to similar events are looked at, certain behaviors of those leading students have been shown to reduce harm. Guns in the classroom is not one of those things.
1. If possible--change that to almost always possible and preferable.
2. I said-"If armed, a teacher would be conflicted regarding this action. I think that the goals of keeping all safe and taking out the threat are mutually exclusive. That is, you can do one or the other but not both."
I don't want survival instinct to have squat to do with my decisions. When the sympathetic nervous system kicks in, the ability to make good decisions plummets. This is how cell phones are mistaken for guns and otherwise ok cops can reach for, pull out, and fire their gun instead of the taser they intended. Most folks don't do great thinking when threatened.
3. We have no SRO nor do most school our size. We will not be locked in rooms-we will be the fuck outside and gone in almost all cases. Stating put is the death sentence.
4. Not relevant. This is making the perfect the enemy of the good as mentioned before. Stabber is not killing at a distance. Stabber outside room 1 has nothing to do with the exit of room 2. Stabber is not getting into the barricaded classroom(which we would do as last resort.) Stabber is easier to incapacitate if they do gain entrance. Comparisons to knives used in killings is a silly and classic ineffective tactic and argument. Which would YOU prefer?
5. What you are stating has no relevance to what I am talking about. Don't push that shit onto me when it is very far from my court. Yup-I just don't care. Can you say with a straight face that if a person had a very hard time accessing a gun like those used in mass shootings, that that would have no effect on the number of people they could kill? This is NOT about more guns-more crime. That argument has 100% nothing to do with this. Classic bait and switch. It might be an argument in your mind but not in mine.
Any talk of improving safety is pure fakery without a discussion about access.
There has been a decrease in violent crimes in this country for sure. No thinking person attributes this to more guns, anyway. It has happened despite the increase. I suggest reading Steven Pinker's-The Better Angels of our Nature for info on this. It actually is just a really good, enlightening book and not one about guns really at all.
6. Could be-I can't say. Maybe it should be looked into. But it is STILL irrelevant. I am not for disallowing all people to own guns. Again-I have guns. I am saying that the way we go about allowing them for nearly anyone is nuts.
I suspect that many carriers think long and hard about the responsibility. I think many, if not most, are LESS likely to get into a kerfuffle or escalate a situation because of that responsibility. But many are not this way. I think that if someone is willing to go through more training, take a class or two, reapply yearly to own the gun, and whatever else is shown to be of any help-they are the ones that we can have more confidence in.
7. Your response here is disappointing. When talking to someone in the middle of it, working in concert with law-enforcement and their current practices, having thought through this with real responsibility, you still act like you know you are right. I think your ability to accurately assess this issue is clouded by ideology. The beam is in your eye--I am trying to be logical, as in all things.
I feel like any further response from me would be a waste. I personally don't see a vast disagreement here to be a big thing, though. As long as you are on the side of right and vote against the bastards, it's all good! Take care--JP