Why Armed Teachers WON'T Stop School Shootings

[Mad Man]

With the fifth anniversary of the Columbine shootings being tomorrow, we're going to hear a lot about gun control, school shootings, ad nauseam, etc. While I don't need to preach to the choir here about why the gun control aspect is wrong, I do want to address something that has become a mantra among those of us in the RKBA movement.

Many of us believe that allowing teachers to carry guns at school would stop a school shooting. But would it?



Given the following:

Number of students enrolled in grades K-12: 45,000,000

Number of teachrs: 2,600,000

Number of schools: 87,000

Number of school districts: 14,883


source: National Association of State Boards of Education at http://www.nasbe.org/Educational_Issues/State_Stats/usa.html
The numbers are a few years old, but that's not important right now.



Even in states with "shall-issue" concealed carry permit laws, less than 5% of the population actually gets a CCW permit.


source: Clayton Cramer and David Kopel
"Shall Issue": The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws
Tennessee Law Review, Spring 1995
http://www.claytoncramer.com/shall-issue.html
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/ShallIssue.htm
"The fact the permits are available does not mean that everyone will carry a gun. Usually only about 1% to 4% of a state's population will choose to obtain a permit."




1% of 2.6 million = 26,000

2% of 2.6 million = 52,000

3% of 2.6 million = 78,000

3.3% of 2.6 million = 87,000 (average 1 per school)

4% of 2.6 million = 104,000

5% of 2.6 million = 130,000



I'm going to speculate that teachers tend to be more politically liberal and anti-gun than the general population. If so, the number of CCW permits among teachers would be fewer than the general population.

If 3.3% of the teachers get a permit (and actually carry), there would be an average of 1 armed teacher per school. However, the teachers with guns wouldn't be evenly distributed among the nation's 87,000 schools. They would probably be more concentrated in "conservative" areas. Thus, one school with 5 armed teachers would mean that 4 schools wouldn't have any.

Even if teachers with CCW permits were allowed to carry their guns at work, and they actually did, the chances of one being present during a school shooting are probably less than we like to admit.

If one considers that some spree-killers are also suicidal, and therefore wouldn't be deterred by the threat of an armed teacher (or police officer), the picture looks even more dismal.


For information purposes, I'll point out that there are about 670,000 full-time law enforcement officers in the United States.


source:Crime in the United States 2002.
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Section VI - Law Enforcement Personnel
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html/web/lawenforcement/lawenforcement.html
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html/web/lawenforcement/06-NC.html



Divided equally among 3 shifts per day, there are about 223,000 LEOs on duty at any given time.

Assigning one LEO per school would require 40% of the available LEOs ( 87,000 / 223,000 = 39% ), leaving 136,000 LEOs available for other duties.

 

[treeprof]

The deterrent effect of students not knowing who/how many teachers or staff (we should add those folks to the numbers) carried would be of some benefit, even if no teachers were actually armed in a particular school. The odds of a teacher intervening once action was imminent or underway? Maybe not large, but there have been instances of armed citizens on or in close proximity to school grounds stopping these shootings/shooters: the Asst., Principal in Miss (Joe-something, I think), the armed students who stopped the foreign law student in Va or W Va who shot the place up, and the armed guy in PA who owned a business next to a school and intervened (a dance or something, I think). These are all within the past 10 years or less, and with these mass shootings only happening a coupla times a year, that's some indication that at lesst lives could be saved.

 

[mvpel]

An armed school employee already stopped a school shooting

I'm not surprised you never heard of it, because it wasn't widely reported - being contrary to the leftist media's anti-gun dogma - but a vice-principal in Pearl, Mississippi retrieved his pistol from his car in the parking lot and used it to apprehend a 16-year-old student who had slit his mother's throat that morning, then armed himself with a .30-30 rifle and pockets full of ammo and killed two and injured seven at the school.

He was on his way to a nearby junior high school to kill more kids when vice-principal Joel Myrick apprehended him and held him at gunpoint until the police arrived.

http://www.davekopel.com/2A/OthWr/principal&gun.htm

 

[treeprof]

Joel Myrick - that's the one.

 

[Mad Man]

I'm not surprised you never heard of it,

Why are you assuming I've never heard of that incident?

 

[Thumper]

I would guess the title of your thread might be a clue.

 

[mercedesrules]

As long as there are mandatory gov't youth concentration centers, students should be armed; not just teachers and principals - for the same reason that airline passengers should be armed; not just pilots and marshalls.

But, mandatory government schooling is a socialistic monstrosity that should be eliminated immediately.

MR

 

[DigMe]

Mad man,

If one armed teacher in one school somewhere in the United States stopped a student from killing just one other student either by brandishing or by shooting and stopping the aggressor wouldn't that be worth it? I don't see why it wouldn't. So I see that you're saying that the percentage would be very low...so be it. Why does that mean it shouldn't happen? Is there some downside to have teachers legally carrying concealed as long as the gun is secured somewhere on the teacher's body the whole time and as long as the students' aren't notified of who is carrying?

Your post never really states any reasons why we shouldn't carry in schools it just states that the number of people who would be carrying in schools would be low. So are you against teachers carrying in school or do you just want to illustrate that there wouldn't be a large number of teachers carrying?

I think at some point it would indeed stop a school shooting. It already has saved lives even in places where people AREN'T allowed to carry in school. IN some of those cases it might have saved more had they been allowed to carry legally.

brad cook

 

[pax]

I think every teacher in the United States should learn (at a minimum) the Lindell "come from behind" disarm and one frontal disarm.

And there should be no victim disarmament zones, anywhere.

pax

Because the state can no longer protect us from crime, it wants to take away from us the means of protecting ourselves. This is the logic of gun control. -- Joseph Sobran

 

[BowStreetRunner]

:::::Why Armed Teachers WON'T Stop School Shootings::::::

Well they MIGHT.....
but if you dont let them then they definitely WON'T

It aint gonna hurt to let some teachers carry....only so many schools have police or sheriffs on site all day every day (and usually only one of them)

BSR

 

[entropy]

Mad Man, I believe it was Mark Twain who said, "If you stand with one foot in ice, and one in boiling water, on average, you'd be comfortable."
Another quote come to mind: "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Da** lies, and statistics."
If even one teacher at one school carries, and is called upon to use that weapon to defend one child, is it not worth it?
No, teachers carrying will not stop such incedents from happening, even if every teacher carried, and was proficient with it. I do suspect these already rare incedents (despite what the media would have us believe, they are not that common), would drop off even further. More importantly, during those incedents where an armed teacher was present, the shooters would not be able to walk down the halls unfettered, picking off whom they will, at will. Student casualties would be decreased immensely, because the LE reaction time would be taken out of mix. Someone would be on-scene to contain and minimize the damages.
Since students aren't of legal age to carry, and the few minutes it takes for LE to respond are crucial, an armed responsible teacher would literally be a lifesaver for their students. An armed responsible teacher would be taking responsibility for his/her students very lives, their physical well-being, as well as their education. In a situation where they would be allowed to carry, what message is an unarmed teacher sending?
"My personal convictions will allow not only me, but also you to be killed or injured. My personal convictions are worth more than your life, or mine."
Israeli teachers are all armed. Do note Israeli schools are rarely targeted for terrorist attacks, and armed students shooting up the hallways are completely unheard of there.
If you believe we are not terrorist targets also, might I mention one thing:
09-11-2001.

 

[longeyes]

The "mantra" is based on the presumption that educators will educate themselves on this subject. The culture that hates and fears firearms and CCW must change; what better place to start changing it than from the ranks of teachers themselves.

 

[GEM]

There is the above Pearl Case.

In a PA shooting, the shooter was caught by an armed citizen.

In the California Jewish Day Care shooting, the shooter avoided another location where there were armed personnel.

In the TX Tower shooting, the killing stopped when local civilians returned fire on the Tower.

There was another case, where students retrieved guns and took down the shooter - crazed husband and the students were cops with guns in their cars? Can't recall the details.

Not a school shooting exactly but did you read the case of the NH stabbings of the two professors from Darthmouth? The killers first tried this at a house where the homeowner scared them away with a Glock. Later they went and killed the armed professors.

The odds of a police man being in your kid's classroom when shooting starts is very low - thus, police shouldn't care guns?

 

[Shane333]

Well, in Utah, teachers and other lawful CCW holders can carry on school campuses. I don't know how many there are, but they are there. Could they stop a Columbine-like crime? Maybe. Right now the criminals don't seem too anxious to find out.

 

[Norton]

As long as there are mandatory gov't youth concentration centers, students should be armed; not just teachers and principals - for the same reason that airline passengers should be armed; not just pilots and marshalls.

But, mandatory government schooling is a socialistic monstrosity that should be eliminated immediately.

Hmmm.....not sure I agree with you 100% on that one, being a career teacher and all. What is your alternative to public education? Granted it's not a perfect system....OK, let's admit it...it's a pretty screwed up system.....but just like a computer, it's crap in/crap out. What we get are kids who have been raised by a TV set and hands off parents who are too wrapped up in their own little head trips to take time to actually do the hard work of parenting.

Believe it or not, there are a LOT of us who actually give a darn about what we do and what we teach our students. Too bad we are hamstrung in doing our jobs by the 1% of kids who monopolize 90% of our time.

 

[Norton]

Back to the topic at hand.....

I would, for one, love to be able to be able to carry a firearm in my teaching position (OK...let's face it, I'm in MD and would love to be able CCW period ).

My room is on the ground floor near an exit on the back of the building. If someone decides to enter the building with the intent of causing bodily harm, I am the first stop on the tour.

Just today, we had a knife pulled on a student.....I know the kid that did it and had I found him (he ran), he would have given up the weapon to me. Some of the other thugs in the school however

We teachers are not ALL sheepy, communist, tree-hugger, left-wing, pinkos........just mostly

 

[joab]

Would armed teachers be able to prevent a violent act at school? Maybe Maybe not.
Could unarmed teachers prevent school violence? Definitely not.

 

[mvpel]

Soviet Bread Stores

Norton,

The way I usually explain this is to use the example of a Soviet-era bread store.

Soviet subjects would stand in line for hours to get their rationed loaf of stale, moldy, dark bread, the production and distribution of which was managed by the government "for the benefit of the people."

When Soviets visited the United States, they thought our grocery stores were propaganda put-ons staged for their benefit - after all, how could anyone possibly conceive of fifty different kinds of bread from two dozen different manufacturers, ranging from cloud-soft Wonder bread to gourmet crusty handcrafted baguettes, all of the utmost quality and flavor, piled up along a fifty-foot long aisle in a brightly-lit store and affordable to even the poorest Americans?

The answer is that bread, in America, is produced and distributed in a privately-owned system of profit-seeking competition, as opposed to being run end-to-end by the government.

We are running our school systems like Soviet Bread Stores, instead of like a supermarket.

We can't even imagine the innovation, variety, quality, and affordability that would arise in this nation's educational system if we demolished the public school system and threw it open to privately owned system of profit-seeking competition, just as the Soviets couldn't imagine a typical US supermarket.

 

[Norton]

mvpel,

I see your point and agree to some point, however without compulsory attendance where will we be? Heck, even with compulsory attendance I have 2 students that I haven't met this year...in other words they have skipped school around 140 days this year. Without mandatory attendance, you can figure on a 30-50% drop out rate...guaranteed. It sure would make it easier to teach the kids that want to be there but we'd end up paying the price for those kids' lack of education in some other manner.

I am in favor of allowing individual school pyramids (elementary, middle, high schools in a given neighborhood) have a greater control over how their school is run. If they want to have a great school, let them do it.....if they choose to not support the school, then so be it.

The highest level of what you describe is evident in Montgomery County, MD.....otherwise known as Moscow County. They have a cap as to what a parent may contribute to their child's school. That way no one school in a wealthy area can have too much more than schools in other areas

I'm frustrated with the anti-intellectualism, indoctrination and leftist leanings of the modern public education system too....in fact, so bad that I probably will end my 15 year career very soon. However, for the time being I think that trying to change the system from within is the best way to make things better.

 

[HBK]

They might not stop school shootings, but they will severely limit the casualty list. How can you think that armed teachers wouldn't be able to stop someone who is killing their students? I am not near the best marksman or shooter on this board, but I KNOW that if I were armed and someone tried to come into my classroom and kill kids, they would not get even one. On the campus they could do more damage, but if there were armed teachers around, the damage would be extremely limited.

 

[mvpel]

Compulsion

I see your point and agree to some point, however without compulsory attendance where will we be? Heck, even with compulsory attendance I have 2 students that I haven't met this year...in other words they have skipped school around 140 days this year. Without mandatory attendance, you can figure on a 30-50% drop out rate...guaranteed.

Maybe those two kids you haven't seen all year have gotten tired earlier than the rest of the stale, moldy, government-produced and -distributed bread that's being offered up to them by the State monopoly on education.

Maybe they'd prefer Wonder bread, or Pepperidge Farm, or Joseph's Medeterranian-Style Enriched Syrian bread.

That is to say, vocational training, apprenticeships, or some other approach to their education tailored to their individual skills, interests, and strengths, as opposed to the massive lock-step conformity factories that the government tends to run.

There was no compulsory schooling until 1852 in Massachusetts, yet in 1831, Alexis deTocqueville described Americans as the best-educated people in the world. But what have we to show for 150-years of compulsory government-run schools aside from widespread socialist indoctrination and illiterate high-school graduates?

 

[goon]

At the very least, it would free up alot of cops.
Theoretically, if you had to have a cop in every school, that would be alot of cops who couldn't be out doing other cop stuff.
So if you had a bunch of armed teachers, that would be that many more cops who could do other cop stuff.

I doubt that it would deter something like Columbine because they had already probably decided that they weren't living through it anyhow. But I know that I would rather have a teacher with a gun come to my aid than have a teacher with a pair of scissors come to my aid. At least an armed teacher could respond and stop the aggressor or pin him down until the police arrived.

 

[AZRickD]

The Israeli story is instructive in more than one way. Yes, after a series of PLO attacks on schools back in the 1970s, the socialist government of Israel decided to harden them a bit.

However, the teachers and teachers associations were highly resistant to the idea. Fortunately, the schools got their protetion. The PLO went elsewhere.

Speaking of elsewhere, many of you know about the story of the Israeli student field trip to Jordan's Valley of Peace as it is known by some.

Normally, the school would send them in, even into Jordan, armed. But the Jordanian government asked them to go in disarmed this time (just a few years ago). The Izzies agreed.

Bad mistake. A Jordanian soldier lit into the bus with his rifle, killing many.

Lessons learned.

Rick

 

[Norton]

Maybe those two kids you haven't seen all year have gotten tired earlier than the rest of the stale, moldy, government-produced and -distributed bread that's being offered up to them by the State monopoly on education.

Again, I get your point regarding free market economy creating innovation, etc, etc.....

But in these cases where kids simply never come to school.....is it REALLY the school's fault that a kid misses 145 days a year? Why aren't their parents kicking their butts out the door and either making them go to work or withdrawing them and fforcing them to get a job.

Not the case. These parents are letting their kids be raised by BET, MTV, UPN and the kids honestly believe that what they see on the TV is reality. Their brains are mush before the far-from-perfect educational system even has a chance to screw them up.

Are there bright kids who are stifled? Sure...and you know what they do? They get out. One of my best students of all time would be a senior this year and had pretty much done everything she could do as far as upper level courses (including AP Physics and Chemistry). She left school a year early and went to university.

You should visit some good schools....they are out there. Ours would be one. All of the kids are required to complete a research practicum in which they select a topic of their choice and spend a full year completing a college level in depth analysis of the subject. They are then required to present it before a panel of "experts" from the university, NASA and some other govermental and private industry entities.

They are also given the option of completing an internship in the field of their choice. Could be with the National Symphony, NASA, Northrop Grunmann. They decide....

Are there schools out there that are complete failures? Sure....but to paint all of them with the same brush is unfair to the schools that are successful.

 

[twoblink]

While teachers with guns MIGHT NOT stop school shootings;

I do know this:

Making our schools into "Victim Zones" ensures that there will be future shootings.. If you are a teacher and you don't have a gun, how are you gonna stop it, give them more detention??

goodness.. the stupidity of the "Gun Free Zone" as worked SOOOO WELLLLL, that the nations capital, Washington DC is a shining example of just how crime free a gun free zone can be..

I compare Washington DC a la 100% victim zone, vs. Vermont with Vermont Style carry.. and I see how well Gun Free Zones work... NOT..

Here in Taiwan, it's all "Gun Free" and the criminals still have guns....