<p>I haven’t left either. I fully support armed officers in schools. I see nothing wrong with it. I wouldn’t support every teacher being armed because that would be coercive, but if x teacher was trained and licensed I would be fine with that. Heck, if the gang bangers weren’t sure if and who was armed it might keep them behaving.</p>
<p>An alternative solution is to install machine gun nests on the roof of every school, one above each entrance. Nests could be installed atop school buses too, in case deranged nuts start shooting up school buses. A trained eye should be able to spot a madman approaching the school carrying a huge megaclip weapon. The many combat vets who will soon be out of work could man these. And the DOD could rent out those fake villages they use for urban warfare training for summer armed teacher training. (end sarcasm).</p>
<p>We have an armed PD resource officer assigned to our high school, which I think is great.</p>
<p>My guess is that the purpose of the Texas proposal is to deter shootings. If no one knows which, if any, teachers are armed, but they know that some or all might be, they are less likely to bring a weapon into the classroom.</p>
<p>As I explained to my kids, why do you think we are never attacked in our homes when all there is between us and the thugs is a plate-glass window? It is because they know there is a strong possibility we can and will shoot them dead if they try to break in.</p>
<p>I was the victim of a break-in last winter and having a gun in my house would have done absolutely nothing for me unless I happened to be wearing it or keeping it ready while sitting on my couch in my den having a cup of tea along with younger d. Since my first impulse was to run after the guy who broke in and stole my bag by chasing him down the street in… my thought process was after go after him-- he might have a gun and could kill me to call 911, call my DH who was away on vacation and cancel my AMEX and Visa. I waited till the next day to call my dept store credit cards since I did not think that Lord & Taylor or Bloomingdale’s would have been high priority destination.</p>
<p>“As I explained to my kids, why do you think we are never attacked in our homes when all there is between us and the thugs is a plate-glass window? It is because they know there is a strong possibility we can and will shoot them dead if they try to break in.”</p>
<p>How do they know you have a gun? Do you have a decal on your house? </p>
<p>Do you keep a gun on your person at all times? </p>
<p>I think most homes are broken into when no one is home.</p>
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<p>I doubt it, but they would know if you had a large, brave barking dog behind the door.</p>
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<p>Unless they know me, they don’t know if I own a gun. That is the point. There are millions of gun owners and millions of guns in the US, so the chances are pretty good that any given homeowner may own a gun. That is the deterrent effect!</p>
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<p>No, I don’t even own a hand gun. Again, you are missing the point! Thugs don’t know if I own one or not. But they do know that I might own one and have one on me. And they do know that guns are not banned where I live!</p>
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<p>I specifically said “we are never attacked in our homes!”</p>
<p>Not sure why this is so hard for some to understand…</p>
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<p>Bay, this is what you said. “Bad guys” do not know what the possibility is that you have a gun or that you would shoot to kill. They break into houses that look like low-hanging fruit–they’re dark, they’re set back from the road, there’s no one home. (I’m sure the odds of someone breaking in when they can see through the window that you are home are infinitesimally low.) And there is little chance that we will someday have whole communities that are gun-free. You can believe the hysteria, or look at the facts. We have far too much gun violence in the U.S. It needs to stop.</p>
<p>Oh, and look–here’s a perfect example of a “bad guy with a gun” being stopped by a teacher who was a good guy without one.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/11/justice/california-school-shooting-teachers/index.html?hpt=hp_t1[/url]”>http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/11/justice/california-school-shooting-teachers/index.html?hpt=hp_t1</a></p>
<p>Well, there are countries that don’t have guns the way we do. I wonder what the break-in rate is in those countries compared to here. I’ve been in England and I don’t recall it being total anarchy. Maybe there are other deterrents besides the fact that a homeowner might have a gun. Perhaps, going to prison is a deterrent.</p>
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<p>Huh? They don’t need to know whether I actually own a gun or not, it is the mere fact that it is legal for me to own a gun to protect myself and my property and that millions of us Americans own guns in our homes that is the deterrent. Get it?</p>
<p>England has one of the highest rates of robbery, burglary and rape in the civilized world, higher than the U.S., ostensibly because gun ownership is banned. Get it?</p>
<p>“Unless they know me, they don’t know if I own a gun. That is the point. There are millions of gun owners and millions of guns in the US, so the chances are pretty good that any given homeowner may own a gun. That is the deterrent effect!”</p>
<p>You home is likely not broken into because of things you do - like keeping your outside lights on, not because a burglar thinks you may have a gun. </p>
<p>Most break-ins happen when people are not home. </p>
<p>I also don’t think there are large numbers of criminals wandering around whose main objective is to break into someones home simply to attack the residents inside.</p>
<p>Home break-ins aside, someone upthread made the very good point that most school shooters do not expect to walk out alive. The presence of a trained individual with a gun may reduce injuries and deaths in the right circumstances but is unlikely to be a deterrent. “Gangbangers” who may perpetrate violence at school tend to go after one another not defensless classes of kindergarteners.</p>
<p>With that in mind, we might return to the idea that any adult with a gun - police officer or classroom teacher - is unlikely to get very far against a semi-automatic 30 round clip.</p>
<p>Bay, to prove your point, we would need to take every country in the world and then we’d have to try to isolate out the statistics on gun ownership and the statistics on break-ins and then rank each country and do a comparison. Even that is very rough and proves little as there are other factors that go into burglary rates – how well the criminal justice system works, the police force, poverty rates and more. Your point cannot be proved by one country. Get it?</p>
<p>Bay, no one is suggesting that we ban all guns. Get it?</p>
<p>As for the US vs. UK statistics, you need to look at the way the data is reported rather than just picking up talking points from extremist sources. For instance, the UK crime survey data shows that 37% of the “violent crimes” reported were “common assault (no injury)”. It’s not exactly apples to apples.</p>
<p>Well, it would certainly stop the discipline problems they are having in some schools if the teachers were standing up there with their holsters on. </p>
<p>I want to be against putting armed guards in schools. I want to get on this thread and tell you why I think this is a bad idea, only… if we are protecting our art work and our banks with armed guards? Why would we not protect our children?</p>
<p>I don’t know how to reconcile the fact that we already have armed police in many inner city schools with the idea that we should not have armed police in other schools. Do we have armed guards in the inner city schools to protect the kids or because people in inner city schools should have armed guards? </p>
<p>Anyway, as much as I wish I thought we shouldn’t put police in our schools, I think we should put the police in our schools.</p>
<p>The presence of a gun will never deter the actions of a person who wants to die. Duh.</p>
<p>Sally,</p>
<p>Is this an “extremist” source? [England</a> has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study - Telegraph](<a href=“England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study”>England has worse crime rate than the US, says Civitas study)</p>
<p>Sure, it doesn’t prove that gun ownership is the only reason we have a lower crime rate than England. But it does prove that gun ownership has not made our crime rate higher than England’s.</p>
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<p>Right! So why have guns as a “defense” against such people? They don’t care if you shoot them.</p>
<p>And since most school shooters seem to want to die or expect to die the discussion about random teachers with concealed weapons deterring school shooters might be tabled.</p>
<p>What is the actual objection to lawfully armed, trained professionals in schools?</p>