a police officers office inside each school

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

I see police officers stationed at every bank, every walmart parking lot, every movie theater, and every mall.

Where do you live that those cities can afford to leave police officers stationed at movie theaters and Wal-Mart...? I've never seen police at any of those places, ever, unless they were responding to a call.

I have on the other hand, seen private security guards stationed at all of those places. Are you sure that's not what you actually saw?

 

[obm]

Chance of a child getting killed at school: 1/1,000,000
Chance of you getting hit by lightning: 1/700,000

So we want to spend scarce dollars in underfunded schools to fund security guards in all schools for an event less likely to happen than you getting hit by lightning.

Guys, let's not get caught up in the hype that gun violence pervasive in the US. If we do, we are falling for the propaganda that the gun-grabbers are producing.

http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/jpi/schoolhouse.pdf
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/06/0623_040623_lightningfacts.html

-obm

 

[David White]

I am more than happy to volunteer to be a guard on school grounds. Hell, I'll do it for free with the training that was talked about.
Stop bitching about the cost and suck it up! Do want to do something or would you rather wait for Obamma to implement his own solution instead?!

 

[Alaska444]

im not sure i like the idea of teachers carrying.. for liability reasons.. police officers are already trained not in carrying, but in police tactics, and procedures, and should an armed person on premises actually be needed no one could ever bring up an issue of gun control as it would be an officer and not a private citizen handling it

Utah already allows anyone with a valid UT permit to carry on public school campuses. No problems at all with that. Many Utah CCW instructors give school employees classes for free. Two other states OR and NH likewise allow this from what I have heard. This is essentially the Israeli model in many ways. It is also very cost effective in that you don't have to have a paid security force that is armed but certainly that would complement the CCW permitted employees and private citizens that volunteer in schools as well.

The solution is frighteningly simple yet America is not likely to secure the lives of our children with very simple policies.

 

[coloradokevin]

I apologize if this post sounds insensitive to anyone, but i do realize that we're going to have to look at the economic costs of any additional security measures that we may implement.

As some others have already mentioned, deaths in mass shootings are insignificantly rare from a statistical standpoint. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to prevent these events, but it does perhaps suggest that we need to be cognizant of the fact that we can't invest hundreds of billions of dollars to stop these incidents, when empirical evidence suggests that this money could be better used to ensure the safety of our citizens in areas that are costing far more lives each year.

I'm a police officer, and I do fully support the idea of having a full-time police officer in every school, at least when we're looking at this issue from a purely security-related standpoint. But, I also realize that staffing schools in that manner is not going to be cheap, and probably isn't the only answer to consider in every case. As such, I do support the implementation of a structured program to appropriately train and arm interested teachers in each school. I don't see why we couldn't pay these teachers a few extra dollars an hour for their specialized expertise, and doing so would still be cheaper than having a dedicated armed security employee, and would provide more security than you could expect by having no one in the school armed.

 

[somerandomguy]

I apologize if this post sounds insensitive to anyone, but i do realize that we're going to have to look at the economic costs of any additional security measures that we may implement.

As some others have already mentioned, deaths in mass shootings are insignificantly rare from a statistical standpoint. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to prevent these events, but it does perhaps suggest that we need to be cognizant of the fact that we can't invest hundreds of billions of dollars to stop these incidents, when empirical evidence suggests that this money could be better used to ensure the safety of our citizens in areas that are costing far more lives each year.

I'm a police officer, and I do fully support the idea of having a full-time police officer in every school, at least when we're looking at this issue from a purely security-related standpoint. But, I also realize that staffing schools in that manner is not going to be cheap, and probably isn't the only answer to consider in every case. As such, I do support the implementation of a structured program to appropriately train and arm interested teachers in each school. I don't see why we couldn't pay these teachers a few extra dollars an hour for their specialized expertise, and doing so would still be cheaper than having a dedicated armed security employee, and would provide more security than you could expect by having no one in the school armed.

hey kevin, thanks for protecting people, it's always good to have some law enforcement input on this type of issue.

I actually would be against paying them more for their expertise and training...some teachers already make 60-70k per year (even in chicago with failing impoverished schools), and training them to deal with an active shooter situation should be mandatory imo. I've been saying that ever since columbine and VT, some of the blame has to fall on the teachers and administrators for lax security. They should be doing everything in their power to prevent more school violence. It's not that I'm against giving them pay increases, it's that they should already have training for this and it should be required. Just some things to think about...

 

[DammitBoy]

Where do you live that those cities can afford to leave police officers stationed at movie theaters and Wal-Mart...?

New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

---

As to cost

 

[Fremmer]

The NRA is exactly right about this. We can organize and use volunteers who CCW in our schools. It doesn't have to be teachers. They can be retired policy or military. That would be an effective solution that doesn't involve banning guns, and it would actually work.

 

[Manny]

I like the OP's idea of having an office or substation for the police in the schools, couldn't hurt, would likely do a lot of good. I'm also for the idea of allowing those teachers or other school employee's who want to be armed while at school. I think that having a police officer in every school has a lot of merit, but I think that setting up a volunter system of civilians with active shooter training coordinated with the police has even more, just so long as there is adequate coverage.

At one time after 911 I was a civillian Deputy Sheriff here in Ohio, but other than two excercises we never did a darn thing. I would gladly donate time to go through active shooter training and take some shifts to offer coverage. It works for the Israelies, I can't see why it wouldn't work here. Instead of inventing another new and costly program through the government why not do it through the people?

Here in Ohio the Governor just announced a program to allow teachers & law enforcement to attend the state training facility free of charge to recieve active shooter training, I think it's the best idea he's had so far. To make it even better expand it to civilian volunteers. Equip all with communications so they could coordinate with the police & school and even if they weren't at a scene they would likely be able to respond faster. A volunteer system works wonderfully well in a lot of the country for fire protection coverage, a far more likely scenario, why not this?

 

[scaatylobo]

@ bikerdoc

I totally agree that if it works in a country under the threat of TRULY violent terrorist attacks = it should work here for sure.

Israeli schools have armed those that WISH to be armed AND trained.

As an untrained shooter will do harm,not good.

I would LOVE to see all schools have the security that the presidents daughters enjoy when they are in school.

I do not see them as being any more special or important than any of those killed in Ct.

At least one uniformed and rifle armed security personal at all schools ,AND at least a half dozen teachers/staff that are TRAINED and armed with CCW's.

I bet that ends the "gun free zone" problem at all schools.

 

[buck460XVR]

As has been mentioned, altho horrific, school shootings are too rare to justify a trained paid full time police officer in every building. In the area around here towns of 10000 have dozens of individual buildings. This would be a cost of $600000 or more to these small districts. This added on top of already stresses budgets. Once the buildings are all guarded, what keeps the crazies from attacking a loaded school bus at it's first/last stop of the day. Do we put a cop on all the buses too? I believe our district has around 50 buses. I believe that same monies would be better spent on proper security systems so someone in change can see an attack coming. Training for teachers to be prepared for such attacks. The allowing for teachers, administrators and bus drivers to carry and for authorized volunteers to be used. If folks still feel the need to have some kind of armed guards, I suggest bringin' our boys and girls home from the sandboxes and other hotspots in the world and have them protect our kids and not folks that would as soon stab them in the back. They are better trained than most small town LEOs for terrorist type attacks and are already on the payroll, and their time would be better spent at home, with their families. I believe the monies spent on their pay would be a better investment using them here.

 

[JohnnyK]

I am a high school teacher and I don't understand why I can be trusted to teach my students but not be able to protect them from a mentally ill person???? on my campus there are gang issues and we have 4 armed school district police... but in a campus of almost 3,000 people it doesn't take much to stretch them thin... I support Gov Perry's endorsment of letting the districts decide to allow teachers who are licensed to take additional training and be able to conceal carry... if it's concealed... nobody should know about it anyways. I know and trust my personal weapons and training more than another's... I'm used to shooting under stress during competitions...

 

[rallyhound]

The Nra has a huge potential upside here by announcing a new program, funded with Nra money to either donate money for school cops or provide a specifiic training program for armed school employees.