I saw a TV news piece recently that asked this question. They were interviewing the principal of a school who brought teachers to a close combat school to go through the scenario of defending the school. The reporter pointed out that he shot a student in the training that wasn’t the shooter. His response was along the lines of it being OK if it caused other students to be saved. He didn’t see any issue at all with accidentally shooting the wrong person. It was just “one of those things” that happens.
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This is basically the trolley problem writ large. Certainly not something to be blase about. I would be horrified to have someone set me up to have to make that decision. I do not think a teacher should be in that position either.
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I agree.
Instead of creating scenarios that require solving the Trolley problem. We should be working to make sure those scenarios don’t happen in the first place.
There’s no need to make an impossible decision if you’re never in position to make the decision.
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There are a number of pistol models that - intentionally - do not have a safety. Fully clearing a weapon does require firing the action … however safely clearing a weapon also requires that the magazine be removed AND the action cycled AND the chamber be visually and manually inspected first.^
If you still manage to fire a round after all that, well, you really didn’t do all that, now did you? You fail at gunning, and you are a bad person.
I see what you did there.
^ and in that order … don’t cycle the action and then remove the magazine 
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Yep, what we need are double-blind studies to compile data, obviously.
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Can we use the children of legislators and gun industry members and advocates? It will be a special “private” school.
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This video makes me deeply uncomfortable. How is it that people think that more guns is a good idea when there is a significant portion of people whose JOB involves handling guns make mistakes with them (of which this is a rather mild example).
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I hear you, and agree.
Footnote: seeing the words “wiggle” and “NRA-fetishists” in the same sentence gives me a vague sense of nausea … perhaps like some people experience when they see the word ■■■■■ …
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I couldn’t make it past the first few seconds myself though i have seen the video in the past. For full disclosure i’m pro-gun (but not a gun owner) but my priority has always been sensible gun control laws. I might even be ok with strict gun laws much to the chagrin of gun owners, but i doubt the US would enact strict gun laws like in other countries.
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heh heh heh.
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The trained officers of the NYPD are proud to have an 18% accuracy rate with guns. These are trained professionals who practice on a shooting range regularly, who often use their weapons on the job, and who were hired partially upon a certain level of proficiency with weapons. That’s a miss rate of 82%. Some types of bullets from some guns can travel miles, and/or through multiple walls after being shot. Do you really want people shooting inside a building full of people, in a neighborhood full of families with 82% of bullets flying around into other classrooms, the playground, or buildings miles away?
As this story illustrates, bullets don’t just cause damage when they strike, they ricochet and cause things in the environment to become deadly.
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All this talk of allowable risk got me thinking…
At what point do we just call it all off and do it full on Battle Royale/Hunger Games? If we know X number of students are guaranteed to die a year, why not just randomly select them and have them battle it out. Controlled chaos instead of regular chaos. Make some money on the side, keep the workers happy. Win win all around.
So…you’re expecting a zombie apocalypse? Or maybe your just a trolley.
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No…?
What gave you that impression?
Uhm, no, why should I want that?
To spell it out for the literal-minded: I am not advocating arming teachers and students. I am asking at what point it would make sense. Once I know that, I can point out that the real situation is not like that, and that it does, in fact, not make sense in real life.
And suddenly I’ve got people explaining to me that guns are dangerous, or accusing me of expecting a zombie apocalypse. Is thinking in hypotheticals really that far-fetched?
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their entire mission is to see 700,000 firearms sold, and their guys doing the ‘training’.
If that happens, the NRA has achieved victory, And if they’re wrong their only suggestion will be moar gunz. Because there are now almost a million weapons IN OUR SCHOOLS, right?
FUD, pivot, FUD, pivot, FUD, pivot. It’s their thing THEY’RE IN SALES.
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A hypothesis should have at least some grounding in reality. Hypothesizing a zombie apocalypse is not farfetched, it’s an impossibility, because zombies DON’T EXIST.
Gun apologists are supposed to be the realists, aren’t they?
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Many pistols do not have this feature.
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Ahhh, the Republican/Ayn Rand dream!
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The stats will always favor the mass shooter over the people trying to stop him (and it’s always a “him”).
A psycho with an AR-15 doesn’t have to have good aim. He can just keep shooting in the general direction of a group of people until there’s a pile of dead bodies. A person trying to stop a mass shooter has to have perfect aim just to avoid making the problem worse.
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