It’s very polite of the school shooter in your cartoon to stand politely while the teacher draws a gun and… well I’m not really sure what happens next.
The thing about most people is they’re not killers, the thing about teachers is they’re even less likely to be killers than other people.
The teacher is not going to fire unless they’re absolutely certain it’s necessary to save other lives, and they’re going to take a but of time to build that certainty.
The school shooter is going to shoot the moment they see the teacher with a gun.
90% of the time the next panel of that comic is that teacher lying dead with their gun.
I’d also keep in mind that shooters are likely to be known by the teachers. So not only are we asking teachers to carry a gun and to make a snap decision to shoot someone, we’re likely to be asking them to make a snap decision to shoot someone they know.
I taught for about two years; I have at least one student in jail now for murder (not a school shooting). I have no idea if I could have shot him had he gone back into the school with a gun and had the district been stupid enough to give me one.
The common thread in the various NRA-Trumpist suggestions is SELL MORE GUNS. School shootings? Arm security guards. More shootings? Arm teachers. Shooting in a church? Arm ministers. Reluctant to leave your house for fear that you, your kids, your fellow parishioners, or the local cop might get shot? Arm everybody! The genius of the NRA is that they’ve successfully turned gun ownership into a culture war issue: effete socialist intellectual brown-loving libtards vs. unappreciated, disrespected rural White Americans. Ignored is the fact that the NRA doesn’t represent gun-owning people or some mythical “gun rights.” It represents companies that make vast amounts of money by selling guns. Spreading that money around has bought so much political influence that an organization with a membership of five million holds the safety, security, and well-being of the other 318 million Americans hostage. The NRA and its bought-and-paid-for politicians will do and say anything as long as it sells more guns. Dead kids, dead adults, dead cops, dead anybody doesn’t enter the equation.
Don’t believe the hype. Most cops never draw their weapon, and are never fired at. I know a bunch of cops, and the only one to ever fire was a Chicago beat cop. At a dog. (Who 100% deserved it)
Good point about teachers being paid crap, though. Teachers and garbage men are terribly underpaid… I’d like to live in a society where they earned top dollar. I suspect there would be fewer alienated losers murdering children in a society like that.
How is it that only 30 years ago moderate gun control could be assumed to exist in most urban jurisdictions in America? Perhaps in another 30 years, when firearms are universally mandated, seat belts and airbags will be seen as threats to individual liberty and thus be banned…
I’m sad all those kids and teachers had to die. Someone, anyone, standing up to that asshole and pulling the door shut, or throwing a chair at him, or going in with their weapon, or any of a thousand things to monkeywrench that bastard and none of it happened. He got to shoot for 5 minutes and then walk away. So fucking horrible.
Or upstream, he couldn’t get that weapon in the first place. Or his foster parents discovering his gun stash and telling him to fuck off outside while they clear out his closet. Or calling the cops on him. Or the FBI getting off their asses. Or or or or or… god damn. Yet another stupid, asshole white kid that got to rampage a bunch of kids trying to get through life.
God what a fucking country. What a pile of fucking morons, led by morons.
FWIW His gun stash wasn’t stored at his foster parent’s house. And the cops WERE called. Repeatedly. The police responded to at least 2 dozen incidents of violent or disruptive behavior involving Mr. Cruz over the last decade. His own mother called 911 to report him FIFTEEN times.
Many other people called police to report their concerns about him as well. Here’s the log of a 911 call made on November 30th 2017:
“Caller advised subject Nikolas Cruz is collecting guns and knives. Cruz wants to join the Army. Concerned he will kill himself one day and believes he could be a school shooter in the making. Caller advised Cruz was no longer living at the listed parkland address and is now living Lake Worth, FL. Believes the weapons are kept at a friend’s house at an unknown location.”
“No report was initiated…Deputy advised her referred the caller to the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office.”
One of the (many) things that saddens / confuses me about the US’s shooter ‘debate’ is how little attention seems to be given to the fact that this doesn’t really happen in other countries. Yes, there are exceptions, but they generally are isolated incidents. All countries have (to a greater or lesser extent): pathologically unhappy / ill / aggressive people; available guns; armed police; devoted teachers and gun-free schools*. Why does the USA have this problem to such an unprecedented level? I sincerely wish you luck in solving the problem quickly.
So if 4 Sheriff’s Deputies with handguns were “outgunned” by a single 19 year old with an AR-15, how is a Teacher with a handgun going to fare?
But lets assume that would work.
If we are going to arm the Teachers, then we can get rid of these redundant Sheriff’s Deputies.
Take the Sheriff’s Deputy pay and ADD it to the existing pay of the Teacher.
Also have the POLICE UNION cover the Teachers since they are now LEOs and will need protection in case they kill someone while on the job.
I see that as the point of stating this. Giving guns to people on campus will not make shooters less of a threat, as there were armed and trained personnel there. It invalidates the arming teachers idiocy (which is just a distraction anyways, something to keep us from talking about stopping the arms race).
Still, unlike the infamous “suicide by cop” you don’t charge a rifle equipped shooter front on with a 9mm handgun.
Between a high noon style shootout and hiding with the only other firearms in the area outside behind a car there a many scenarios this could have played out, even if the professional in this scenario wasn’t Jason Borne to keep the Hollywood analogies.
But this is accepting the given realities in the US. Of course guns shouldn’t have been in that boys hands. No guns would equal no school shootings. Period.
Still I can’t help myself thinking more about how to counter this problem in the long run. A “me vs you” society where everyone fences for himself or at the most for his “social mob”, where everyone is proud of minding his/her own business and pursuing ones happiness will always bring out individuals who DGAF about others and society, to the point of wanting to harm others.
This is not meant as some relativistic rant, but getting rid of guns - besides being utterly impossibly in the existing US - will always just mean closing gaps capitalist society will just open again in a different way.
This system cannot be reformed.
Ah. I remember being in San Francisco in the eighties. There were a small group of us from the UK who had gone over there for work. We were in the hotel, a floor or two up, when a car or two screamed past followed by police cruisers with the sirens going. Then there was a crash. Then there was a gun battle in the street. And there we were, on the balcony rubbernecking like idiots. “Hey, America is just like on the telly, you know?” Then the thought slowly dawned, that these are real guns, the sort where you don’t just get up afterwards Maybe we should get back inside.
Imagine being so unfamiliar with guns that you don’t recognise them. Okay, maybe we weren’t being particularly bright, but that is what it is like for most folks who are not American.
“Oh, you still need guns, here? How exciting. It’s like going back in time. I don’t suppose you are actually allowed to shoot at anyone, are you?”
So we need to factor in ‘middling’ guys with guns as well? This is too complicated. If only there was some way to address the ‘with a gun’ bit of the equation.
