Posted on 03/02/2012 4:39:10 AM PST by marktwain
By now everyone has heard about the Chardon High School shooting that left three students dead and two others wounded this week.
Many believed it was just a matter of time before a school shooting reached Ohio. On Monday morning it happened. This just highlights the need to arm willing teachers to serve as the last line of defense of our children.
While a lot remains unknown about Monday's shooting, had a willing and properly trained and armed teacher been present, this could have prevented multiple children from being shot.
I don't know anyone who would argue against the notion that children are the most precious gift in life.
Nor would any able-minded parent stop at anything to protect their children. Having the ability and means to protect children should not stop when they leave the home or enter school where they will spend more than 10,000 hours to someday be able to graduate from high school.
While some may try to argue that targeting schools for massacres is a new phenomenon that began with the Columbine High School shooting in 1999 that left 12 students and a teacher dead, and 21 others wounded, that's far from the truth. Bath Township, Mich., still holds the unwanted title for being the deadliest mass murder at a school in U.S. history when a man, enraged over property taxes to build a new school, set off a series of bombs. Killed were 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber.
There also have been countless other school killings that did not capture national headlines. On top of that, numerous plots have been foiled.
One thing is clear from history: school massacres have happened for many years and will continue to happen. While teachers have received training in how to lock down their classrooms, and police have changed their strategy to have the initial officers on the scene go in as opposed to waiting for a SWAT team, more needs to be done.
It's time we arm teachers who are willing to stand guard between our children and someone willing to harm them. This in no way means arming reluctant teachers, but rather arming teachers who are willing to accept the responsibility.
A teacher willing to take the appropriate training and pass a qualification test could become the one who saves numerous lives.
My proposal would include psychological screening for teachers and a requirement for the teacher to always have a gun on his or her body, not in a purse or bag, but concealed on his or her person so only he or she has access to it.
Parents have a responsibility to ensure that their children are safe. When a child is at school, that responsibility lies with teachers and school administrators. To ignore the notion that a person bent on harming children can't possibly strike at "my school" is irresponsible.
To further ignore the chance to do something is even more irresponsible. Hoping or praying it doesn't happen will not protect the country against these killers. What everyone must realize is that a dedicated killer doesn't think like you or me. These people are ruthless and get a high off killing. These killers will keep killing until stopped and that includes by any means necessary, including deadly force.
In the days and weeks ahead people will line up to assign blame; politicians will try to win votes with rhetoric and anti-gunners will blame guns. People always want to assign blame, whether it's the parents who raised the shooter or teachers, counselors, television shows, video games, the suppliers of whatever weapon was used or the media. None of them is to blame. The blame lies with the person who carries out the violent crime and no one else.
It's time we stand up for our children and give teachers the ability to keep them safe, just like we would, so our children can grow up.
Jeff Thomas is a certified NRA pistol instructor and concealed carry instructor.
Teacher are already - and always have been - on an authority trip. I believe that if normal CITIZENS/TAXPAYERS would be allowed to carry on school property, then and ONLY then, teachers - but only NON UNION teachers - should then be allowed to carry on school property. It’s just like the Utah police chief admitted - it’s an “Intimidation factor”. Teachers CRAVE that factor. Not on my watch. Grossly overpaid and overbenefitted union scum.
you don’t necessarily have to arm anybody. there are a lot of teachers who already ARE armed adn permitted. all you have to do is let them carry on campus.
You are certainly correct, and theproblem took decades to come to the point we are at now.
Women in the workplace and not in the home is IMO basically the major problem.
Kids are tossed into day care and they get on the bus from the day care center, they are retirned to the day care center where the parents pick them up take them home and ignore them the rest of the evening, because the parents are tired from working all day.
The day care people are raising the kids. The schools are placing sex education and acceptance of homosexual sex in their minds, and teaching them to be good little communists. The good little communists we are seeing in the “Occupy” movement.
They know nothing of morals because Mom and Dad take Sunday off and do not take them to Church, nor tell them about morals, nor tell them about the faults of diversity, and the love of family.They are what they are because they do not know any better and are filled with the BS tauight in Day care and schools.
There are a lot of teachers who shouldn’t be within ten miles of a weapon. If you work out all the moves in your head, this is a really, really dumb idea. We’ve got teacher’s who grope kids, seduce them and in general are clueless. For all the teachers who are great, there are just as many if not more who aren’t. And you want to have them in charge of a weapon in a school? That is more dangerous than the chance of a random kid going nuts.
This is hardly a catch all solution. I get the concept, but in execution you have to deal with reality...and the reality is a lot of current teachers are also a product of our own educational system.
You can think of all the fail safes you want, but you know as well as I do it will not be carried out as intended.
I was born in the early sixties. Due to the “Supreme” courts foolishness, my folks put me in a Lutheran school for my first couple years.
Most public schools were probably still OK back then.
I thank God I was not educated on one of the Marxist moron mills pretending to be a school nowadays.
When I am at work- teaching- it is the only place I don’t have a gun handy. It is also the place most likely to be needed just based on sheer time spent there. If something goes wrong, having a gun around might only give you a .001% chance of survival, but that is still better than none, and its not just my life at stake either.
My kids have been out of school for a while, but they went to a rural school and at least some of the teachers, the secretary, and librarian were armed. When the Columbine shooting happened it was mentioned that the library of our local school would not be the place for some nutcase/s to try to shoot people. When I went to high school probably more than half of the students were armed, at least they had rifles in their truck in the parking lot. I imagine if a student had decided to go on a shooting spree at my high school someone would have managed to get their rifle out of the parking lot and put a stop to it ASAP. Things have not changed for the better.
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