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S.Peelman said:
I wouldn’t be so sure. Most people are not smart. I’m European, so I’ll never understand this, and I won’t argue because why would I, but I don’t see how some here don’t see that arming teachers and whatnot would only lead to wild-west style shootouts in places where you don’t want them. |
As a former teacher, a couple of things.
First off, I'm not really sure that I would have taken my gun and gone to confront the gunman. I tried to teach my kids the best I could, I never volunteered to take a bullet for them. Maybe in the heat of the moment I'd have the courage, but honestly, I don't think so. For my family, I'd do anything I could. For your family, probably not. Not what I signed up for.
Of course, even if I did, it wouldn't have accomplished much. Shooting people is kind of hard, especially in a high stress situation when they have body armor and a much better gun than you. Unless Jack Bauer is your art teacher, a gun's not going to help.
Of the teachers I've worked with, I have not met any that I thought "yeah, this is a person I'd trust in a shoot out". If anything, they'd be more likely to harm someone else in that situation. What I have met, is a lot of dumb fucking teachers. I find the idea of a teacher leaving a gun in an unsafe place far more likely than a teacher gunning down an intruder. And if I'm a teacher breaking up a fight with a bunch of kids? Not unreasonable that one of them could get a hold of my gun.
We could train teachers, but it's a shit job as it is. Tons of them are woefully unqualified, and adding a marksmanship requirement isn't going to be feasible.
I'm not sure it would necessarily lead to wild west shootouts, but at best it would be as likely to cause harm as prevent it.
It isn't a real solution, but the people proposing it don't believe it is. They hope that people are dumb enough to buy into these bullshit suggestions, and then while sensible people are pointing out the stupidity, nothing will get done. It's a distraction. Other countries don't have armed teachers, have video games, have mental health problems, have a large number of guns (Switzerland has 2 million guns and 8 million people), but don't have mass shootings, because they have things like background checks and waiting periods. But, I guess we can't have a well regulated militia with those things, so we'll just have to let more children (and adults) die preventable deaths.
Last edited by JWeinCom - on 27 May 2022
