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Posted on 01/12/2013 7:39:41 AM PST by marktwain
An Ohio school board has unanimously voted to place armed custodians on their k-12 campus in an effort to better protect their students from a future mass shooting.
Following Wednesday's believed unprecedented 5-0 vote in the state, four male janitors were the first to volunteer to arm themselves with their own handguns on the rural Montpelier campus, the Toledo Blade reports.
The vote will permit only non-teaching employees to carry the firearms on the campus, so long as they complete a weapons training course.
'It's kind of a sign of the times,' Superintendent Jamies Grime said on Friday.
The move comes as districts and lawmakers across the nation weigh how to protect students following the December school massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.
The school board's legal counsel accompanied the vote, Mr Grime told the Blade, who advised Ohio’s gun law which allows school boards to authorize employees to possess weapons on school grounds, should they pass the requirements of the concealed-carry law.
The school's decision would not be the first, at least in the country, however.
A school district in Harrold, Texas has allowed its teachers and other employees to carry weapons on campus since 2007, reports the New York Daily News.
Following the December shooting in Newtown, school districts in Oklahoma, Missouri, Minnesota, South Dakota and Oregon are also considering similar gun safety amendments.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The janitor at my elementary school used to double as our recess monitor. He was such a good man, he would have definitely taken a bullet to protect us, and he would surely like to have the ability to return fire if it would have come to that.
René Descartes said: “Common sense is not so common.” in 1637 AD.
One of the reasons I liked “Scrubs” was the fact that the janitor was one of the smartest people in the hospital.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5BQTKsa0w
LOL...”Nobody was thanking me so I quit cleaning them.”
In a brains contest, I’ll pick the janitor over union teachers every time.
Good idea. Custodians know the building. They know the routine. Their minds are not preoccupied with teaching. Most are men.
Agreed. You don’t have to “arm” anyone. Just repeal the killing zone creation law known as the Gun Free School Zones Act and allow those who want to carry do so. No killer will know who is or isn’t armed...like it’s supposed to be.
“The Gun Is Civilization”
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)
Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force . If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it .
In a truly moral and civilized society , people exclusively interact through persuasion . Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may
sound to some.
When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force .
The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.
There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations. These are the people who think that we’d be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job. That, of course, is only true if the mugger’s potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by
legislative fiat - it has no validity when most of a mugger’s potential marks are armed.
People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that’s the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly .
Then there’s the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury. This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.
People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don’t constitute lethal force, watch too much TV , where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst. The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier, works solely in favor of the weaker defender,
not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.
The gun is the only weapon that’s as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply would not work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn’t both lethal and easily employable.
When I carry a gun, I don’t do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I’m looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded . I don’t carry it because I’m afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn’t limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force. It removes force from the equation... And that’s why carrying a gun is a civilized act !!
By Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret.)
So the greatest civilization is one where all citizens are equally armed and can only be persuaded, never
forced !!
What other bloated government agency?
The NRA is calling for placing armed guards in schools. THAT would be another bloated government agency. This proposal arms the custodians that are already there at no extra cost.
In other campus news, littering is down considerably.
I’ve been suggesting exactly this for some time. An armed custodian would be the perfect foil for an active shooter.
Custodians know every inch of the school, they’re unobtrusive yet omnipresent and most are men and/or veterans. (I hadn’t considered placing a small gun safe in the custodian’s cart, but that makes perfect sense.)
A custodian is ALWAYS on hand if the school is open, from the doors being unlocked in the morning to the school basketball team playing a night game.
Another side benefit is that the custodian rarely enters the classroom when students are present. A teacher carrying in the classroom would either have to wear a holster or lock the gun in her desk, both of which might raise issues with the students.
The cost savings would be substantial. An official armed guard (or detail police officer) would have to be paid a separate salary, while the custodian could just do his regular job while also serving as a Minuteman for the school. (I’m sure there would be a stipend for his additional role, but nothing like the cost of hiring two or more shifts of cops or armed guards per day, per school. Of course the school would pay for any training required.)
Finally, I’d suggest the school superintendent keep this arrangement quiet. Parents might freak out at the thought of a sheepdog in amongst their little lambs, but no news is good news in this case.
I can agree with this proposal. If kept at a local level it would be a good solution.
God bless the janitors! Good move.
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