A tiny Texas school district will allow teachers and staff members to carry concealed firearms to protect against school shootings, provided the gun-toting employees follow certain requirements.The small community of Harrold in north Texas is a 30-minute drive from the Wilbarger County Sheriff's Office, leaving students and teachers without protection, said David Thweatt, superintendent of the Harrold Independent School District. The lone campus of the 110-student district sits near a heavily traveled highway, which could make it a target, he argued.
"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in a story published Friday on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Web site.
Damn straight, Bubba!!! Ain't no commie psycho's gonna mess with Texas!
UPDATE:
Imagine you're in History class, dozing off as Mr. Gagliano yaps on about Ghandi and the British East India Company. But while he scratches away at the chalkboard, he's got a shiny 57 magnum resting in his desk. Just in case.Would you be OK with your teacher keeping a gun in the classroom? Wisconsin state Congressman Frank Lasee is.
In response to recent school violence, he introduced a bill into his state legislature allowing school officials to carry concealed weapons on school grounds.
His plan looks likely to fail before becoming law, but so begins the flood of proposals that inevitably follows any wave of school violence.
The above quote dates to October, 2006. Now, I know many of you hate to be informed of things that are more than 24 hours old, but I thought it appropriate that it is not really fair to say "Texans = Morons" ... unless we add "Wisconsinites ... you'all elected a moron to your state house!
Trustees approved the policy change last year, and it takes effect when classes begin this month. For employees to carry a pistol, they must have a Texas license to carry a concealed handgun, must be authorized to carry by the district, must receive training in crisis management and hostile situations and must use ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricocheting bullets.
Well, hell, every single soul in Texas got that shit! Yehaw!!!!!
It isn't clear how many of the 50 or so teachers and staff members will be armed this fall, because Thweatt did not disclose that information, to keep it from students or potential attackers.
Fear!!! Fear!!!!!
(story at CNN ... hattip Lou)
11,127, you fuckers.
Politics
Comments
Imagine that many years ago, in response to the fellow who parachuted from a commercial plane with stolen money, that the national response had been to request that members or ex-members of the police and military and other qualified people carry handguns on airplanes. We would have had no more hijackings, none of the years of hassle leading to the current TSA clownship.
Nice to see those folks in Texas getting real.....
Posted by: radigarius | August 16, 2008 12:51 PM
So, what I learned from the video is that Americans are a bunch of meddlesome buggers who the rest of the world could do without. And, gun deaths are apparently the most accurate measure of violence in a society. I guess if I beat my wife and knife my neighbour that's not so bad then?
Posted by: Lorne | August 16, 2008 12:56 PM
That's just wrong on so many levels, I cannot begin to cover it.
Re radigarius: that hijacking is famous primarily because not only was no one harmed, unlike every other hijacking, no one was arrested. This is almost certainly because Cooper plummeted to his death and was unavailable for arrest. Please also note that police carrying firearms is fundamentally unlike teachers being armed in school, eh? Apples and oranges.
*sigh*
Posted by: KillerChihuahua | August 16, 2008 1:26 PM
I give it a month before some 'weird' kid pulls out a calculator and a teacher shoots him for having a gun.
I've been shooting pistols my entire life and I'm a damned good shot. I cringe at the thought of having to fire down a hallway full of panicked kids.
Even if a teacher does whip out a gun in a school shooting situation, the amount of chaos happening around them will make it far more likely they'll hit random innocent people than the actual shooter.
They'll be pouring gasoline on a fire to try and smother it.
I wonder if the teacher that kills six people standing behind the shooter will get as much press as the student shooting other students. I wouldn't bet on it.
Posted by: JThompson | August 16, 2008 1:41 PM
God Bless Texas! Finally a school district that got it right!
Posted by: Michael A. Butler | August 16, 2008 1:43 PM
Way to go Texas!!!! Its about time that government understands it can't protect us or our kids from every bad guy out there and if you outlaw guns, only the outlaws will have them.
While I understand some peoples uneasiness over this, think about this, the police are 30 minutes away from the school. Would you want your kid unprotected from a gunman for 30 minutes?
The problem in today's society is that people rely too much on the government to "PROTECT" them, and the SCOTUS has said time and time again, that the police are NOT responsible for our safety. So what if it takes them 3 hours to show up in a shooting death, or a rape? They aren't liable. The only one who can protect you (besides God himself) is yourself.
Think about that before you start spouting off about teachers being armed.
Posted by: David Harris | August 16, 2008 1:45 PM
It is worth a try. So far the opportunity has not presented itself yet. Now maybe it will. But this is too small a school to matter, most likely.
Posted by: Rick | August 16, 2008 1:46 PM
This is not a question of what teachers could do in a shooting instance. It is a matter of what is right and wrong. Arming teachers is wrong.
Posted by: Timothy J | August 16, 2008 1:48 PM
Isn't there some loophole or technicality we can use to put Texas back into Mexico?
Posted by: vitale | August 16, 2008 1:50 PM
I'd rather have my kid "unprotected from a gunman" than invite some 50 untrained crackers to be gunmen on the spot. Or to put it another way: given the choice of a very slim possibility of a gunman in the school and ensuring there are lots of guns in the school, I choose the slim chance.
also, what is this nonsense about God protecting people? That isn't his job, either. God protects no one.
Posted by: KillerChihuahua | August 16, 2008 1:51 PM
But seriously ... forget the guns, but tasers would work. They would have a broader range of uses as well. Homework would get done. Spit balls would not get thrown.
Posted by: xavier | August 16, 2008 1:53 PM
"Arming teachers is wrong."
Right! Arm the Bus Drivers! Much easier to contain the mess.
Posted by: petier | August 16, 2008 1:55 PM
I have yet to hear of a case of an armed citizen in a public place stopping a killing spree with a gun she or he is packing.
Posted by: horace | August 16, 2008 1:57 PM
Does it seem weird that conservatives want to go back to wild west law enforcement as if the wild west wasn't violent and crime-ridden.
If you are that worried about the distance to the school why not post a police officer at the school. I generally support teachers. They have a tough job, but there are a lot of teachers who certainly shouldn't be wielding guns around children.
Posted by: penn | August 16, 2008 2:03 PM
I know many teachers and I doubt any of them would carry a gun into their school even if asked to do so. It will be interesting to see if these Texas teachers pack or not.
Posted by: horace | August 16, 2008 2:16 PM
Penn: You assume that conservatives are interested in reducing violence.
Posted by: Timothy J | August 16, 2008 2:19 PM
I like the pun in the title.
Posted by: Elizabeth | August 16, 2008 2:20 PM
Tim, I'm taking them at their word that the only way to reduce gun violence is the threat of more gun violence. This also blatantly ignores that fact that these shooters generally expect/want to die during their attacks. The threat of more guns may make it seem more exciting. They may get to generate more chaos.
In the end I think a stronger mental health infrastructure and more social services would help more than arming everyone. Someone losing their job shouldn't become so desperate that they going on a suicidal shooting rampage.
Posted by: penn | August 16, 2008 2:26 PM
put Texas back into Mexico?
What have you got against our friendly neighbors to the south?
Posted by: petier | August 16, 2008 2:26 PM
Texas was dumb enough, on average, to believe that pansy East-coast frat boy GWB was "one of them".
What the gun-solution advocates are overlooking here is that school shootings are vanishingly rare, even in 'murika. At least, so far. Teachers are not a special class of unusually virtuous people. Give enough of them guns, and sooner or later you'll get an armed angry nut in a classroom, only he'll be taking attendance.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | August 16, 2008 3:07 PM
What makes people think that "one size fits all" when applying the law is a good idea? Outlawing guns in urban districts makes a lot of sense, but in these more remote locations, perhaps there isn't such a cut-and-dry answer to the problem.
When you think of just one teacher having a gun in a school, it seems like a bad idea. But there would be 50 teachers with guns, each trained and qualified to use them. I think that would be much more intimidating and aversive to any potential gunmen.
But, then again, what happens when a teacher has enough from little Billy in the back, who just won't shut the hell up? There are going to be unforeseen side effects of this implementation, like teachers going crazy or - even worse - stifling an academic environment that is supposed to encourage individuality rather than oppress it.
Posted by: Will | August 16, 2008 3:15 PM
Too bad they didn't allow guns in Mt. Vernon Middle School in Ohio - Mr. Freshwater could have given kids a firearm stigmata.
Posted by: chancelikely | August 16, 2008 3:30 PM
Here we go again. One tiny school district out of hundreds does something crazy, and all us Texans get blamed for it.
Texas : U.S. :: U.S. : World . Its citizens are stereotyped as backward rednecks while its government puts on a freakshow.
Maybe y'all should come here and meet some Texans (not the GW Bush fake Texans)?
Maybe "Forget all the arguments for it, teachers with guns is wrong, QED" is about as mindless as saying "Goddidit".
For the record, I'm an atheist Ph.D. student who has never touched a gun in his life, despite having lived predominantly in two of the biggest gun-wielding red states we've got.
To those of you who have presented good arguments, thank you.
Back in 1966, a US Marine sharpshooter named Charles Whitman climbed the clock tower at my university and killed about 15 people. In those days, professors had guns in their offices. Many shot back at Whitman, and it's believed they kept him from killing quite a few people, since it took over an hour for police to reach him. The mere fact that some professors had guns in their offices in those days says a lot about how we've changed in the past 40 years.
Finally, regarding the video, how many of those 11,127 murders were committed by people with a "legal" gun? We've certainly got a bunch of criminals with guns. No one thinks this is a great situation. It seems to be just a matter of whether you believe taking away guns for the rest of us will solve this problem.
Posted by: Steve P. | August 16, 2008 3:42 PM
Must I lay the smackdown on you yet again Mr. Laden?
Texas is a large state and as such you'd expect the Gaussian tails to trail on a little further than other places. And yes, Texas has its share troubles (Don McLeroy, James Leininger, Bob Perry, John Hagee) but tarring the whole state because of a few idgits in some dust bowl town within spitting distance of Oklahoma is not helpful.
My guess is that it's just some reactionary stunt, though you never know what kind of problems they have up there (meth + boredom + ???) I'd prefer the teachers spent their time actually teaching kids and maybe learning to disarm and immobilize hypothetical K-12 gunslingers without resorting to firearms. The problem is redneck rural yahoos regardless of state or country. I'm sure Minnesota has its share - they just don't get the press Texas does because they don't fit the meme.
Posted by: Bob | August 16, 2008 3:42 PM
What makes people believe that the only useful employment of a handgun is self defense and stopping mass murderers?
When I was in high school, a well-respected elder teacher got fed up with the disruptions of a student in his class and beat the kid into unconsciousness with his cane. A week later the kid was back in school, probably disrupting other classes. Think of all the subsequent troubles that could have been avoided if the teacher had been carrying a gun.
Posted by: Will TS | August 16, 2008 3:45 PM
Hey, Bob, how's it going? Man, it took you long enough to get here!!!!
Well, now that you point out that this town is so close to OK, that kinda explains it....
But seriously, you should know that Minnesota is the state that elected a governor who, moments after being sworn in (seemingly), proposed that teacher carry guns to avoid school shootings. Now, the fact is that the rest of us shouted him down so fast and strong that he actually publicly changed his mind (it helped that his lt. gov. was a teacher who slapped him down over this proposal). I don't know if Texans are reacting appropriately (aghast, embarrassed, etc.) or not, but the fact remains that not only did MN elect such a governor, we would probably have elected him as our senator had he decided to run this year against Coleman and Franken.
Doesn't mean Texans aren't morons. The fact that we are morons does not absolve you!
Posted by: greg laden | August 16, 2008 3:48 PM
"No true Texan?" Hey, your state elected him governor. Twice. He rode a budget surplus into office and implemented tax cuts for the rich.
(Note... this line of reasoning does not bode well for Americans generally. In defense of our nation, it is not certain that we actually did elect him president. But there is no doubt about the Texas elections.)
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | August 16, 2008 4:02 PM
Horace,
There was a recent incident in a Colorado area church where a civilian did end a shooting spree. So maybe you have not heard of an incident where a public citizen ended a shooting spree in a public place, but it made national news in the US.
Personally, I have mixed feelings on arming people. I like shooting at paper targets. It is a lot of fun. I have no desire to own a weapon or aim a weapon at anyone. I would have a very difficult time aiming a weapon with the intent to kill even in a clear case of self defense.
Posted by: jim | August 16, 2008 4:03 PM
Hasn't that ignorant school district board now increased the odds that someone will be shot in their school? I hope some statistician will calculate the odds of a school shooting in that district both before and after this wacko decision and publicize the results.
Posted by: Ski | August 16, 2008 4:24 PM
The only case in Colorado that I have heard of involved a security guard who was armed, not a private citizen. Not really the same.
Posted by: horace | August 16, 2008 4:56 PM
The case in Colorado was a private citizen working security at the church. 'Security guard' usually does apply to private citizens acting in a non-governmental capacity.
Regarding training, all concealed handgun licensees in Texas must go through a course and test. The test includes knowledge of applicable laws, anger management, non-violent management of situations, and the application of possible lethal force only when life or limb are immediately threatened. A shooting test is also required in which the individual must shoot accurately enough to pass. Applicants must not be felons nor may they have had any recent Class A or B misdemeanors. People with a history of family/domestic violence are also prohibited from concealed carry.
The teachers in the school, in order to comply with state law, must have a valid CHL obtained as above and get written permission from the school district in order to carry on campus.
As a result, it is not going to be a bunch of untrained vigilante yahoo teachers packing heat to keep kids in line. Saying such is just a bunch of unnecessary alarmism. Kinda like 'OMG the Mexicans are getting all the jobs that belong to us Americans', or 'Holy Bat Particles, Batman, the LHC is gonna make a black hole and we gonna die in sudden worldwide suckage!'
Teachers may not be an especially virtuous class of people through the whole set, but neither are police officers, firefighters, scientists, pastors, doctors, etc. The only group of people that I can think of that is total virtuous is the 'set of virtuous people'. I will leave it to you to argue how big that set is. Nevertheless, I think people should have a right to protect themselves from a threat to their life. Taking away a right because someone might 'do wrong' is no different than taking away the freedom of speech because someone 'could do slander'.
Posted by: Alien | August 16, 2008 5:23 PM
As I said, the Colorado incident was NOT a case of a private citizen who happened to be in the vicinity and who happen to be packing under the assumption that he might run into a criminal. He was (they were, if I remember correctly) security guards who were packing semi-unofficially. That simply does not count.
If the training everyone gets is so good, why are 11 thousand people shot to death per year in this country? Someone has dropped the ball on this one, and there is no doubt about that. Please don't tell me that everything is fine.
Posted by: horace | August 16, 2008 5:32 PM
The clip is a bit disingenuous since all the countries Moore lists have a smaller population than the US. It would have been better to list the ratio of murders by guns to the population. If this is done (assuming the numbers Moore provided is accurate) than the US has a rate of 36.6 murders per million people. Germany finishes second with 4.8 muders per million people. So the US still finishes alot higher.
Now, the US has 83-96 guns per 100 people. France, Canada and Germany each have about 30 guns per 100 people. I don't think it's shocking to suggest that less guns means less death by guns.
Posted by: Feynmaniac | August 16, 2008 5:50 PM
Actually, Moore does not conclude that fewer guns = fewer gun deaths IIRC.
Posted by: Andrew | August 16, 2008 5:56 PM
Christians have been killing each other for hundreds of years, it seems impossible to stop them. Just put up a fence around Texas and let them do unto each other. When they are done the rest of us can live a civilized life.
Posted by: Doug | August 16, 2008 5:59 PM
This is a scandal.
This is a fucking scandal.
What for are you Americans paying taxes when your police doesn't come within 5 minutes?
Hire and train more police. Lots more police. Hey, what could it cost? Half a day of Iraq occupation?
Posted by: David Marjanović | August 16, 2008 6:05 PM
I doubt the police are 30 minutes away from the school.
Posted by: Greg Laden | August 16, 2008 6:10 PM
Horace,
Quoting that 11 thousand people are shot each year hardly makes an argument one way or the other. Maybe it's police doing all the shooting and if we just disarm them we will all be safe.
Really, I imagine that many if not the vast majority of those deaths are unlawful deaths. I did not claim that everyone who owns a gun has had any sort of training. I was addressing the concern regarding the school and was pointing out that the only teachers who will be allowed to carry are people who have had training. CHL holders are less likely than the general population to commit most crimes.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/ConvictionRatesReport2006.pdf points to the official DPS records of total crime counts and crime counts of CHL holders. Approximately 1% of the population of Texas is a CHL holder ( http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/PDF/ActLicAndInstr/ActiveLicandInstr2006.pdf points to the DPS counts of licensees - 258,162 for those who don't wish to click, and Texas has a population of almost 25 million - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas ).
Looking at the first link, you will see that the only crimes committed by CHL holders at rates of over 1% all have a count of 1 CHL holder committing the offense (with one exception I will get to in a second). I seriously doubt that with those numbers that the single case in each of these categories is of any statistical significance. The one crime that falls outside of these parameters is 'unlawful carry of a handgun by a licensed holder' - this crime applies only to individuals who are licensed by the state (some of which will be CHL holders, others may be law enforcement or allowed by law to carry a handgun under another statute). The general population CAN'T be charged with this crime.
If I wanted to make a joke that I thought would not be taken as a serious statement, I might claim that everyone should get a Concealed Handgun License as it would reduce crime. However, I think the more reasonable conclusion is that CHL holders are a selected group - general responsible people + the fact that known criminals are excluded.
So, in conclusion, don't worry, Horace. Everything is fine.
Posted by: Alien | August 16, 2008 6:18 PM
And the American tendency to just make up things to support whatever assinine thing they want to do shows itself again:
When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started.
No evidence for that whatsoever. The guy who said it probably can't even give a general idea of when the wave of shootings started. He just "feels in his gut" that it's gotten worse because there aren't guns in schools, so he comes up with a "fact", probably learned on one of the immensely popular right-wing radio or TV programs so many Americans are devoted to.
I agree with the comment above that the world could do without Americans because of stuff like this.
Posted by: deang | August 16, 2008 6:24 PM
Indeed, our county just put a police officer in prison for multiple stalkings and rapes at gunpoint. In the years I have lived here we've seen a retarded man gunned down (he forgot to pay for gas), a distraught man shot holding a knife (no mace was used and the police were never in danger), a drunk student shot through the side window of his pickup (the officer claimed the student was trying to run him down. I wasn't aware pickup trucks could roll sideways from a standing stop), a man perished in a hail of bullets outside a grade school a few blocks from my house. A little further north a man was swinging a crutch in a threatening manner, gunned down.
And our county is typical. Actually, our police are good guys, but even they get heated up and wind up having to "explain" why they shot some guy, often without first using less-deadly force.
The news media loves school shootings, but they are extremely rare, and should be put in perspective to other causes of death in schools that receive less press attention.
Posted by: decrepitoldfool | August 16, 2008 7:15 PM
Once you start arming teachers for the express purpose of shooting students, the school has ceased being a school and started being a prison. While a gun would be handy to stop a school shooting, those are incredibly rare, depite the hype. Also, most school shooters are looking to die. It's not like they are shooting up schools for profit. Therefore, detterance will not work. The best you can hope for is lowering the bodycount. If you implemented this nationwide, I can't imagine saving more than or two lives a year even if all teh teachers had guns due to the relative rarity of the event you're trying to prevent. When you have a million or so teachers with guns, how many accidents do you think there will be? It seems to me the chances of a teacher accidentally shooting a kid are far higher than stopping an actual school shooting, therefore this sort of policy would lead to more people being killed.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | August 16, 2008 7:23 PM
Alien:
Several years ago my brother was shot to death in a robbery. He had a firearm behind the counter. The firearm that was used to kill him was legally purchased and owned by a person with training and a permit. But that person's house was robbed (while the person was there, as it turns out).
The firearm my brother had, and had training for, and that was legal, did not help him, and the firearm that killed him entered the system legally and appropriately according to the way things are normally done.
Don't worry. That was a long time ago and I am as over it as one gets, I think, so your foolishness does not bother me. But it is nothing other than foolishness. If we keep adding guns into the mix, there will be more guns, and the more guns there are, the more killing with guns will happen. That is all we need to know.
Posted by: Horace | August 16, 2008 8:15 PM
Horace,
I am sorry for your loss. However, I don't believe the problem is with guns, per se, but rather with violence and the fact that some people have no respect for others. Even if there were no such things as guns, there would be swords. If not swords, then clubs. If nothing, we would still have teeth, nails, and fists and the weak would be subject to the whims of the strong (not that isn't true on some level even now). If people followed laws, then a law such as "No person shall cause harm to come to another person" would suffice.
But people don't always follow the law, and technology, such as weapons, won't disappear just because we want them to and have everyone live in peace. Please don't think that I _want_ people to come to harm and as such support a right to self-defense. Rather, should the unfortunate situation arise where someone broke into my house (or otherwise came upon me and my) and wished to do harm to us, I would want an effective means of defense. Some people aren't fortunate enough to have superb physical prowess and, frankly, I would stand little chance in a hand-to-hand fight with someone.
Posted by: Alien | August 16, 2008 8:50 PM
@Alien: The issue is the relative ease of killing and emotional distance guns allow. There's a reason countries without guns rarely have slashing sprees.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | August 16, 2008 9:01 PM
I predict there will be only one incident where a teacher fires a gun in a school and hits someone.
The legal liability that will cause on the teacher, the principal, the school distric and the municipality where it is located will so increase taxes to pay for it that the voters will revolt and make schools gun-free.
It might even happen sooner, when the insurance companies increase liability rates for schools and municipalities that allow teachers to carry guns.
But it being Texas, it will probably be one incident per school.
Posted by: daedalus2u | August 16, 2008 10:02 PM
Clearly, we would ignore the fact that guns are a superior killing technology and the lack of spatial and temporal distance they provide between rationality/emotion and action and so on at our peril. A gun lover who is also in denial (or evil, or stupid) can make this argument as many times as they wish. The rest of us simply know it is wrong.
daedalus2u: Indeed. What the gun nuts very rarely mention (in fact, never ever mention) is that when you take the NRA course or other similar training, you get a pamphlet suggesting the levels of liability insurance you should have if you plan to carry. This sobering link to reality is usually ignored when the arguments are being made.
Posted by: greg laden | August 16, 2008 10:39 PM
@Greg:
"Clearly, we would ignore the fact that guns are a superior killing technology and the lack of spatial and temporal distance they provide between rationality/emotion and action and so on at our peril."
I think this is a big part of the problem of pro-gun vs. anti-gun arguing. Clearly, guns ARE the superior killing technology. This may be oversimplifying, but I think pro-gun people want to be able to match firepower with someone who would do them harm. The risk is, what happens when the 'good guys' screw up or someone gets the gun that shouldn't have it. On the other hand, the anti-gun people think that there would be fewer deaths if there just weren't any guns (clearly someone intent on doing harm could just turn to an axe or knife, but your point is people who have a sudden impulse to do harm are less likely to kill in a split second with a knife than they would be with a gun, the superior weapon). The weakness in the no-gun solution though is for people who wish to do others harm and will plan for it. The rash decision makers may be thwarted, but the planners are helped. A planner can obtain a product such as a gun even if it is illegal (doubters should note the ease of obtaining recreational drugs despite their illegality). Then what are you going to do if they come after you? Tell them that their gun is illegal and you are gonna call the police in the split second before they shoot you? Pull out your baseball bat, which is still legal? I don't think so.
As an aside, in rational arguments, loaded words (e.g. 'gun nuts','gun banners','abortionists','Darwinists') subvert logic by trying to persuade listeners in a non-rational manner. I think more neutral phrases (e.g. pro-gun/anti-gun) are more intellectual honest and don't automatically impugn people who honestly hold a different opinion (as opposed to hypocrites such as Larry Craig or Eliot Spitzer who deserve our scorn).
Finally, as someone who works in the medical field. I would like to point out that we were trained in liability issues, too. Perhaps we should outlaw medicine... Liability insurance simply recognizes a risk one may get sued, though as you astutely alluded it indicates a danger (in this case with guns). If you ever find someone pro-gun or anti-gun that thinks guns AREN'T dangerous, then you have met a liar or a fool.
Posted by: Alien | August 16, 2008 11:21 PM
A good friend of mine introduced me to an interesting conundrum regarding school violence, bullying, and weapons. If you had the genetic and environmental background to make you a big dumb violent kid who tended to brutalize those smaller and weaker than you, you tended to get in a lot less trouble than the smaller, weaker kids who figured out how to level the 'playing' field by defending themselves with a weapon. Ostensibly, being armed made it an 'unfair' fight as if it was some kind of goddamn game.
Compulsory education puts those who have no desire or aptitude for it into a nice fishbowl where boredom, brawn, and status games devolve into a culture of acceptable violence, refereed by teachers and administrators. As long as it's only fisticuffs and cattiness, it's acceptable. Everyone eventually drops out or graduates - the geeks nurse their wounds and fly off to college, the goons get jobs at the mill or the police force or go to prison, the remainder get jobs in real estate or politics. That's the common wisdom which is by no means wise.
Really, the handgun angle is another weak canard - the real issue is finding the cultural (or possibly genetic) root to violence. How much of a right should education be? Should education be segmented earlier to avoid internecine conflict? There are strong issues of culture and class at work, questions of egalitarianism and elitism, etc. that are far deeper than the Nixon-era meme of gun control. Guns don't make people violent any more than porn makes men rapists or contraception makes women promiscuous, but guns certainly do let people express their violence far more efficiently and effectively, and conveniently for geeks, they do so at a distance.
I'd like to see some effort put toward understanding the roles of parenting, Western religion, and the social model of the modern classroom on school function and student behavior with an eye toward making the experience positive, safe, and educational for everyone involved. The handwringing weepfest over guns is tiresome; stats show that school shootings have been declining for years even though reporting of them has risen dramatically. The problem is setting up an environment where choosing violence as a common and approved (tacitly, and only within certain bounds) means of conflict resolution. Solve that and your gun problem is reduced to the mentally unbalanced (cf. the VATech shooter.)
That's a hard problem to solve and besides, it's easier to score some cheap points blaming guns for the problem, as if nobody was murdered in the pre-handgun era (hell, with the lack of guns, you'd think that prison life would read like a McGuffey Reader...)
Don't get me wrong - I'm actually on your side. Guns don't belong in a school unless carried by a peace officer. As I've explained before, bashing Texans and blaming guns for all the evil in the world makes good blog fodder but it doesn't move us towards a solution. Can we try to find that solution without the geographical ad hominems?
Posted by: Bob | August 17, 2008 12:08 AM
Now my town's high school is small, only 600 or so students from 6th grade through high school. It has a police officer, armed as a police officer is expected to be, and I don't think people are too uncomfortable with that. That is a reasonable response, not arming the teachers for an event which most likely will never happen.
Instead, they think scaring the crap out of students and making them feel more like prisoners than many schools already do with metal detectors, bag searches, etc.
Posted by: Noadi | August 17, 2008 1:04 AM
Posted by: Alexandra | August 17, 2008 1:25 AM
On the contrary, that's precisely the justification for limiting one's property rights to exclude, say, nuclear warheads. Indeed, most people would consider that fairly obvious when talking about almost any form of lethal weaponry. It's only when you get certain Americans talking about guns that it mysteriously ceases to apply.
Posted by: MartinM | August 17, 2008 6:40 AM
Back in the 70's when I was in Jr High and High School here in Austin, Texas the hall monitors carried pistols. They never killed anybody but students would occasionally do so. Fear, fear indeed.
That a rural school would have armed teachers is little different than urban schools who have armed police on site on many occasions.
Posted by: Zed | August 17, 2008 6:53 AM
And yet apparently they were! According to the figures, there were 22 convictions in Texas, and only 10 of those were of CHL holders. From the document:
The obvious explanation of the discrepancy is that not all convictions reported to the state criminal history repository were also reported to the Concealed Handgun Licensing Bureau - but if that's the case, then the two sets of figures can't be legitimately compared.
Posted by: MartinM | August 17, 2008 7:00 AM
The risk is, what happens when the 'good guys' screw up or someone gets the gun that shouldn't have it.
In the area of violent crimes of passion, YOU CAN'T TELL WHO THE GOOD GUYS AND THE BAD GUYS ARE. Sorry for shouting. You cannot say in advance who, once armed, will use a handgun or other firearm to kill another person.
As an aside, in rational arguments, loaded words (e.g. 'gun nuts','gun banners','abortionists','Darwinists') subvert logic by trying to persuade listeners in a non-rational manner. I think more neutral phrases (e.g. pro-gun/anti-gun) are more intellectual honest
You know, honestly, a lot of my friends are gun owners and gun users, I respect the whole idea, and I would respect gun ownership if it were not for the denialist gun nuts who have ruined it for everyone.
Gun. Nuts.
Bob: I don't blame guns any more than I blame land mines for dismembering children in Angola. But where there is a material thing related to a habitual or serious crime, we do regulate (always) the thing. We dont say to teenagers with cars "oh, you can drive around in the car with an open half full bottle of Jack Daniels. Just don't drink from it.." Gun laws are like open container laws. We don't say to industry "As long as you don't WANT to dump the chemicals in the river, and don't actually do it on PURPOSE, you can put the chemicals wherever you want. Gun laws are like safety and environmental regulations.
Yes, an overall social cure IS what is needed. And part of that is having a society in which we don't fetishize gun ownership as the kind of god-given fundamental act of patriotism and family values that is seems to be. Rather, we should fetishize guns as the EXTRAORDINARILY DANGEROUS OBJECTS that they are, and promote and respect non-violent dialog and confrontations.
If the trope "Everyone has a right to have the best gun they can afford to match the gun some bad guy might have" then you are supporting a culture of violence. That is the problem, that is the solution. It is not that hard to get this.
Unless one is a gun nut and thus can't see beyond the blue steel barrel of one's own rod.
Noadi: Yea, as far as I know, here in the sensible upper midwest, every school has a cop. I don't buy this bit about the texas school having the cops 30 minutes a way. More gun nut lies.
Alexandra: Right. The kids are trying to kill each other with their fingernails all the time (this is well known to all teachers). They just never manage to do it because fingernails are not dangerious like guns are.
Gotta go...
Posted by: Greg Laden | August 17, 2008 8:24 AM
Ah. I apparently managed to completely miss the part where you stated that people other than CHL holders could still be convicted of this crime. Sorry, too early in the morning.
Posted by: MartinM | August 17, 2008 8:42 AM
Let's stop and think about it a different way for a minute. Most of the stabbings in the United States occur with screwdrivers rather than knives. Many traffic deaths occur because of drinking alcohol and then driving. We will never ban screwd