

Texas School District will let Teachers carry Guns - kankana
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,404721,00.html

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bradleyland
This thread of comments is a great illustration of why we can't have a
productive conversation about guns in the US. Gun control advocates, and anti-
gun advocates, jump straight to "that's a dumb idea" without ever considering
it, or without giving the idea the respect of a reasoned rebuttal.

There are plenty of cases where having an armed "good guy" present at the time
a "bad guy" starts shooting has had a positive outcome. The good guy stops the
bad guy by shooting him. If you refuse to accept this, you are part of the
problem, not the solution, regardless of your stance on guns.

The down side to the "more guns" argument is that the very presence of guns
leads to a probablistic increase in gun accidents and gun incidents. A gun
accident is when a gun is discharged unintentionally, like in the case of the
DEA agent who shot himself in the foot [1]. Here we have a highly trained
individual who commits a cardinal sin of gun safety. He reverses the order of
the drop mag, clear chamber ritual. Whoops. A gun incident is when someone
decides to use the gun for evil, which also occurs all too frequently in the
US.

Humans are falliable. We're prone to mistakes and departure from sane thought.
That's the point that everyone should make in counter to the "more guns"
argument. It's not "dumb", it has additional negative consequences that we'd
rather not accept.

There in lies the problem with the entire conversation though. Each side looks
at the problem, proposes their solution, then the other side says "that won't
solve the entire problem!" Let's take a step back and re-frame our
expectations. Let's not try to conquer Rome in a day. Let's just say we want
to _improve_ the situation, and stop calling each other stupid for proposing
non-aboslute solutions.

1: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ufT_6Kgy0>

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Osiris
To be clear, gun accidents are not only limited to foot-shootings but to
fatalities as well. One happened just last week here. A father shot his 7 year
old in the chest in the parking lot of a gun store. While in high school one
student was shot and killed by a friend with a gun.

I don't disagree with your argument but if you want to be honest about it you
have to admit that there are a non-zero number of a accidental shootings that
result in death, usually among family members.

~~~
bradleyland
Absolutely. It wasn't my intention to represent that deaths don't occur.
Rather, I wanted to preempt the argument that training makes guns 100% safe.

------
zissou
"Published August 15, 2008"

Therefore, this is not in response to the recent CT shootings as the "will"
part in the title suggests.

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richo
Oh christ. Who do they think they're protecting themselves from specifically?

~~~
beatgammit
I think the intent of the OP was to address a possible solution to the problem
of school shootings as was seen recently in CT. The article explained this
quite succinctly as well.

I personally think it's a good idea. Texas has a strong gun culture, so it's a
completely reasonable solution to a potential problem. The kids would be
accustomed to it, and I'm sure the parents would support it. This type of
thing would most likely not work in CT though, given that they have a strong
culture of gun control:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2012/12/17/co...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-
fix/wp/2012/12/17/connecticut-gun-laws-among-the-nations-strictest/)

America as a whole has a pretty strong gun culture, so I doubt any bill that
tries to emulate the UK's gun laws or anything similar would ever be signed
into law. Since we can't get rid of guns, I think putting guns into the hands
of people who have been trained on their use isn't an entirely terrible idea.

I don't even own a gun, but I do think that gun-free zones can be more
dangerous than allowing trusted people to have guns if there's no mechanism to
detect guns. Adding metal detectors to all school entrances is not the answer,
so I think this article posits a very plausible solution.

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richforrester
Guns to solve the gun issue.

Great thinking, 'murrica.

~~~
niekmaas
Now we only have to wait for the respons of the "attacking gunmen"... will
they increase their firepower? Body armor? Hand grenades? Tanks?

Fighting violence with violence will only result into more victims!

~~~
abrown28
Spoken like a true Neville

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mercurial
I don't know how it is in the US, but as far as I remember, in France,
teaching is one of the professions with the most suicides. Not so long ago, a
teacher put herself on fire in a courtyard, in full view of the children.

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r4dius
How many months ago was it that Fox was calling Teachers overpaid, lazy, and
incompetent? Definitely within the past year, right? Yet now it makes perfect
sense to arm those same incompetent slackers who co-parent their children for
the school year? This level of hypocrisy and short-sightedness hurts my brain.

In gaming terms, this amounts to an egregious level of power-creep; the crutch
of overwhelmed and inexperienced game balancers.

~~~
addandsubtract
Fox runs whichever story fits their current agenda. Need to cut funds? Call
teachers lazy and incompetent. Need to keep guns unregulated? Give teachers
guns.

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islon
Next on line: let the children carry guns to protected themselves from
bullies. Sometimes I think The Simpsons is not really a parody.

