Posted on 12/22/2012 6:18:20 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
California educators and Democratic politicians are rebuking the National Rifle Association for suggesting that more guns in schools would keep students, teachers and staff safer. The NRA broke its silence about the massacre of children and teachers last week at Connecticuts Sandy Hook Elementary School, holding a news conference Friday in Washington, D.C.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, said NRA executive vice president Wayne LaPierre in a quote heard around the country. He called on Congress to put armed police officers in every school in the country.
In the wake of last weeks tragedy, its disheartening that anyone would think the answer is to have more guns in and around our schools, said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson in an email.
California Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg echoed the sentiment in a statement on his website saying, The NRAs suggestion that we militarize our schools is not the solution.
But many California schools already have resource officers and armed police officers stationed on campus. A survey of about 300 school districts by EdSource last July found that 52 percent of the states high schools, 16 percent of middle schools and 5 percent of elementary schools already have police or resource officers. In high schools 83 percent of those officers are armed. That drops to 75 percent in middle schools and 59 percent in elementary schools.
In the San Francisco Unified School District, which has police or resource officers in all its high schools and middle schools, they arent really there for violence prevention, said longtime school board member Jill Wynns.
The real purpose of having the resource officers is to connect the police to the students and the school, she explained. We think its important for students to know the police in their neighborhood, and we think we need relationships with them for that to be effective.
Wynns said the San Francisco Police Department pays for the officers posted in schools, but regardless of who foots the bill the district, the police, the federal or state government the price tag is high. The National Association of School Resource Officers estimates it would cost between $80,000 and $100,000 per officer. With about 8,300 schools, the conservative estimate for California is about $668 million a year. The organization is also in general agreement with the NRA about the benefits of armed officers in schools. A well-trained, armed, school-based police officer is one of the best defenses against an active shooter in a school, wrote executive director Mo Canady in comments on the groups home page.
Decisions on how to spend the limited funds available for education shouldnt be made by the NRA, said Wynns. In my personal view, we should be concerned that someone outside of school districts would say, Oh yes, we should make a major investment in armed guards in our schools, but not in making sure that we have enough money for instruction.
Schools also are generally safe places for children; despite the unimaginable horror of mass murders like those at Sandy Hook and Columbine. In cities, the streets are the most dangerous place. Gun violence has haunted me my entire life, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told PBS NewsHour reporter Gwen Ifill in an interview that aired Friday night. I had a lot of mentors, good friends I grew up with, shot dead when I was growing up, said Duncan, choking back tears.
More recently, when he was superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Duncan said we buried a child killed by gun violence every two weeks. They werent shot in school, they were shot walking to school or, in one case, by a stray bullet fired by an automatic rifle that tore through a house one morning and killed a girl as she was getting ready for school.
When Ifill cited some elected officials, including governors, who said if teachers at Sandy Hook had been armed they might have been able to protect themselves and their students, Duncan disagreed. We cant fight evil with evil. We need less guns not more; we need schools gun free, he said. America needs to have the conversation, said Duncan, adding, I promise you, very very few teachers are asking for more guns in school.
I don’t care at all what Californa says or does. That state is dead to me. And I was born and raised there (but had the good sense to escape from it in 1979).
Saw and heard that scumbag just after a televised debate in sacto in 1998. He said at that time that he would not give an inch to anything the NRA said, and would work against them at every level.
Funny thing is, when one goes to the state capitol, one must enter the door, facing an armed CHP. Then turn right, walking down a narrow walk with two more guards standing there, then stop at the metal detector, empty the pockets into the tray, and go through the detector, while another armed guard stands at the ready, then pick up the stuff, and walk ahead, past yet one more guard, then can step into the rotunda.
Guess his on job security is worth 5-10 fully paid (by the tax dollars of school age kid's parents)armed guards, but spare one for the local school? Gots to be kidding!
Last week it was promoting ‘hero teachers’ willing to do anything to protect their students..
Now these teachers are too overburdened or unwilling(unreliable)to undergo CC courses.
Am I the only one who noticed this shift?
If guns in school to prevent gunmen is a dumb idea, I guess fire extinguishers in school to prevent fires is equally dumb.
Obviously, Mr. Steinberg doesn't feel the same way about "militarization" of the county courthouses throughout the whole freakin' state of California; if Nicolae Ceauşescu had hardened his palace to the extent the my local California courthouse is now defended by layers of armed security, he's probably still be in power.
All that seems to be missing these days are sandbagged machine-gun emplacements, aprons of barbed wire, and an interlocking network of claymore mines outside the main entrances.
Hey, Steinberg ... how about we just provide our public schools with the same grade of security that you and your fellow statists enjoy at that palatial Sacramento Statehouse of yours; works for me.
California Senator Barbara Boxer made essentially the same proposal two days earlier by calling for national guard troops in every school. Not a peep from the liberals then, nor do they mention her when criticizing the NRA.
And ftr there is a northern California school district (Richmond) that DOES employ armed securirty at all their middle & high schools and it has been effective.
California = Hysteria
Indeed no safer place to kill than a gun free zone.
I live in a up-scale community in Northern California. We have no violence in our schools, but at least at the high school level, all our schools have the town’s cops there each and every day. They are called “community resource officers, but they arrive in a police car, and carry weapons. I think that their main “mission” is drug interdiction, but they are still there with their weapons. So it’s just nonsense that at some level we don’t already have armed personnel in our schools. I am betting that in the poorer, more crime ridden areas of the state, there are cops at the elementary schools as well. Darrell Steinberg has always been FOS!
Remember, this the State that had a Ballot Measure to raise Taxes to add more Police. It was actually a Ballot Measure to add more Dues to the Police Union coffers, but I digress.
They ran a Commercial showing a Woman cowering in her Bedroom as an Intruder was trying to break down the locked door. She was dialing 9-1-1 and getting a Busy Signal. The fear on her face was meant to convey that she was doomed.
Of course, in my reality, the Woman would have reached into the Nightstand and pulled our a 357 Mag. She then would have waited for 9-1-1 to answer the call so she could tell them where to pickup the Body of the Perp.
Liberals are Idiots and there are more of them than us. That is the new Reality we have to live with.
They will never be satisfied until they control every facet of our lives. They are Nazis armed with Smartphones that are linked 24/7 to their Digital Propaganda Networks, Facebook, Twitter and Whitehouse.org.
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