Talk Elections

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43149694


Perhaps we could start by focusing on the mental health of the sociopath in the Oval Office? Just a thought.

Republicans don’t want to pay teachers much, but they’d give them guns?  LOL

What about the majority of teachers who don't know how to use guns and have no interest in having them in classrooms? Will they be forced?

I don't in any way understand the reasoning behind this. You already have f'ing police officers across the country mishandling weapons & too many souls have been taken away from their carelessness and now you have people saying that you want teachers (most not even trained) to have guns in their possessions???

You're literally opening a door that leads to a flood of new problems, not fixing them.

Edit: One problem I could see happening is when students walk around campus with hoods on. Usually teachers understandably tell them to take them off, but what happens when a teacher who has a gun mistakens a student for someone else who is probably a suspect on the loose? How can you defend that? Deflect like usual or just say it was the student's fault or whatever?


That is actually a very solid point.

Why don't we give them crossbows, then we'll be able to bypass gun laws in school zones.

You win.

The 1400s called; they said these weapons seem outmoded.

A teacher might snap and do a mass shooting yes, this is one of the dumbest proposals

Will they provide teachers with free firearms training?

Will guns be mandatory for all school staff?  Lunch ladies?  Janitors?

Will they have one in the chamber at all times ready to go?

Safety on or nah?

Is this for all grade levels?  Kindergarten?

What if a student overpowers a teacher and takes his/her gun?

Not every teacher is physically capable of defending themselves against a teen(s) wanting to take their gun. Not every teacher would be willing to shoot said teen. Some teachers will be too willing.

Having authority figures walking around with guns paints a great picture for the future generations of Americans.

Putting guns in the classroom will NOT stop school shootings and school violence. In many cases it will encourage it. I knew plenty of kids in school who would’ve thought it’d be cool to take the teachers hypothetical gun.

At this point why not have mandatory gun ownership? It seems like the direction the GOP is going in.

Cyborg laser guns for everyone!

Dummy-in-chief

I'm just gonna agree with this.

What about school bus drivers?

What about little old lady teachers?

Special education teachers?

Counselors and those in direct one-on-one private contact with would-be school shooters?

Where is the proposed solution to improve mental health outreach?

I imagine that as long as the public education money goes into gun industry pockets, no one will care if the guns actually get carrier or not.

This sounds like a terrible idea.

My teachers are allowed to have concealed carry guns, and one of the two that does is a “little old lady” counselor, and the other one is a “little old lady” that works at the school entrance as a secretary. No one has been shot yet by either of these teachers, but good try.

I'll repost what I posted in the town hall thread:

This man is unfit to be President.

So many people are already atrocious when it comes to gun safety in their home, imagine now all the accidental deaths in a school. This idea is utter lunacy from people determined to talk about anything but the real issue

There are schools in this country that don't even have enough money to pay for heating. Is the GOP going to buy every teacher a gun?

Don't forget the 4-year degree (minimum), certification required, 2+ years teaching experience, validation test may be required depending on the state, will be attacked constantly by the same party that thinks you need to have a gun on school grounds.

Teachers with AR15's in the classroom will finally make those darned kids behave themselves, right conservatives?

These are the sorts of questions I need to see answered before I could make a decision on whether to support or oppose a bill.

Btw for another reason why giving every school worker a mandatory firearm could be a bad idea, see Philandro Castille, a lunch worker shot to death by police during a traffic stop for caring a legally-owned sidearm.

It only shows how totally disconnected Trump is from real life IMO.

Marco Rubio had at least the good sense of turning down that proposal in yesterday's town hall.

Third-grader pulls trigger on Maplewood cop’s gun, firing a shot (https://www.twincities.com/2018/02/05/maplewood-police-officers-gun-fires-at-school-no-injuries-reported/)

That was with a trained police officer. Thankfully no one was hurt.

Forcing teachers to have yet another job piled on their shoulders, where they may have to use deadly force, is disgusting and wrong.

Lot of anti-Sikh bigotry ITT

^^^ As a teacher, I couldn't agree more.

In retrospect, it now appears that one or more trained police officers failed to act in Parkland last week. Having trained police or security officers close at hand (not necessarily on school grounds at all times) would seem to be the best, at this time, of a rather bad lot of solutions.

I already have to balance teaching, classroom management, lesson planning, grading, continuing my education as required by the State and my accrediting agency, and overall work-life balance.

Would public funds pay for firearm training for teachers? Would teachers be required to partake? So many other questions about whether to keep it loaded, what about teachers who "snap", and what I might tactfully call the "racial angle": Black teachers who carry put themselves at added risk (remember Philandro Castle) and Black students may be at greater risk of being shot by an errant teacher.

A bad idea, on so many levels. We need to stop grasping at straws.

Those who can, teach. Those who can't, make laws about teaching.

If this were me, I'd play the Kim Davis card and say that it's against my religion to use guns.

And more heroin for heroin addicts will stop overdoses.

Yes --

1. Make the legal age for buying guns and ammo  21.

2. Put more funding into mental health.

3. Ban people who have issues of mental health, drug or alcohol use, or spouse/child abuse from buying guns or ammo. 

I would add

Prohibit people banned from buying guns and ammo in their state from  buying guns and ammo in another state.

Bad ideas:

1. Arming teachers or school administrators.

2. Armed guards at schools. That fosters a gun culture.

I would add requiring would-be gun owners to pass a safety class (just as we do for driver's ed-- we could require something akin to a road test and a written test). This would certainly cut down on both deliberate and accidental shootings, not just the more sensational mass shootings.

If you treat students like prisoners, they're going to act like prisoners.

And I'm sure that adding more sugar into our food will end the obesity crisis in this country.

Just like TDAS said, if the money exists to provide us guns, it would be better spent, you know, actually paying us the way other highly qualified professionals like doctors and lawyers are paid.

The deputies who failed to enter the situation are being unfairly treated. Think about it; if semi-automatic gun fire started in your neighbourhood, would you run towards it?

So then to ask teachers to run towards it is a stretch.

Whilst I agree that schools are attractive targets to shooters because they are gun-free zones, there should be other solutions. Secure door locks, metal detectors etc.

I just find it hard to blame everyone else but the elephant in the room - availability of military grade guns.

Teachers and other school staff with guns = bad idea.

Dear God, he's such an awful president.

True enough.  But kids are treated like inmates far more by their predatory peers (gang members, drug dealers, pathological bullies, and other head cases) than they are by school staff.

I have advocated arming teachers who are amenable to that for years in both high school and middle school settings.  Such teachers ought to be granted the status of LIMITED Law Enforcement Officers, going through firearms training, including training in tactical shooting, and giving them the status of LIMITED Law Enforcement officers, giving them the power to detain and arrest students and other persons who commit crimes on school campuses.  Not every teacher is suitable for such a status, but  corps of teachers in any school ought to be.  No, I'm not advocating concealed carry for any old teacher, but I AM advocating open carry of a 9 mm semiautomatic pistol for teachers who qualify for this special certification (which, in FL, could be designed and offered through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement).  I would also suggest that any police officer, correctional officer, or probation officer that wished to transition to teaching be afforded a plan for temporary certification (FL needs teachers BADLY!) as teachers, and they would be armed in class, with the special teacher's Limited Law Enforcement certification after some training that would be developed and offered through Law Enforcement Basic Recruit Academies.

I thought of this long before Trump came up with the idea.  Having my then 8 year old son beaten in school to the point of trauma and being unwilling to name his tormentors made me realize that my public school cannot guarantee my son's safety, even though they mandate him to attend public school.  I know a child who was sent to an in-school detention for being 30 secs late to a class, where a psychotic kid beat him to a pulp, leaving him with a lingering head injury, while an unarmed teacher did nothing to protect the boy.  Yes, the resource officer was a minute away, but a traumatic head injury was 10 seconds away.  (I won't even talk about that coward Broward Deputy that didn't even enter the school, or the three (3) others that didn't enter.  I'm too busy puking.)

I'm not real comfortable with my own idea.  It certainly flies in the fact of what I want a school to be.  But I can tell you that Florida's schools do not, and cannot, protect the students they are charged with.  They cannot protect them from external threats and they cannot protect them from their predatory peers.  That's just not acceptable.  And taking away MY firearms and my law-abiding neighbors' firearms isn't going to make the schools any safer.  So you tell me what's going to guarantee the safety of students in our schools who aren't in position to kick ass and take names.

He's doubled down:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/967472757025001472
()

I think we should start a petition to take away this genius's Secret Service detail, and replace it with a gun and an annual firearms course.

He's doubled down because no one else has a more sensible idea that will actually, and immediately, make schools safer for children that are forced to go to them.

A lot of folks here are for gun control because they don't like guns, and they don't like the NRA because it's a GOP interest group.  They really don't care about the safety of schoolchildren because they're now out of high school, but they don't have kids to think about yet.  It's mere politics for them now.  For some of us, however, this issue involves thinking of the safety of lives we are specifically responsible for.  We're playing for keeps, not just to win an argument that will help our favorite candidate win.

This is ridiculous. High school students don't care about their own safety? Come on.

Agreed. We just want to feel friggin safe. I'm not a high school student, but I teach. It's always lingering in the back of my mind, and my parents are pretty much perpetually concerned nowadays, seeing that they consider that the mainland is now "the place where they let their own children massacre each other over taking action."

Because a kindergarten teacher having a gun in the classroom is completely appropriate. This man is an imbecile.

Don't you even dare.

I care about school children. I care about one of my closest friends, who is a school teacher. I care about half a dozen of my other friends, who are also school teachers.

But I also care about the teachers I don't know, the students I will never meet, all of them. No child deserves to die, especially not one merely going through their daily routine.

I am for gun control because I truly believe it is the best way to keep children and those who care for them safe. I have nothing against guns themselves. I grew up in a house with a shotgun and rifle, both used for hunting. I do have something against people who believe their right to own any kind of gun they want without licensing trumps the safety of children. I do have something against people who want to continually increase the number of guns in the world. I do have something against people who think they should be allowed to pack heat wherever they want. I do have something against people who are so terrified of the world that they're okay seeing children die time after time if it's the sacrifice that has to be made so they can continue to hold on to their cold metal security blanket.

Don't ever assume that only those who agree with you care about others. In addition to being wrong, it's just disgusting. The reason I believe as strongly as I do is because I believe it the best option, just as you feel about your beliefs.

When I was in school, I was far more scared of teachers and security than I was of school shooters. An actual believer in the second amendment (as opposed to someone who thinks teenagers/antifa/Mexicans/Muslims/blacks/socialists are scary) would say that the students should have guns to overthrow tyrannical teachers, principles, superintendents, and school boards.

The argument that the Second Amendment is intended to allow the people to rebel against a tyrannical government is absurd on its face.  Note the wording:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Note security of the State.  Not against the State.

actually, it does.  As long as it's clean (ie, just heroin) and dosed, addicts aren't going to OD.  Free heroin to heroin addicts is probably the best thing for them.



as for the OP, anybody that tells you they can end school shootings is a liar or the worst authoritarian you'll ever meet and they shouldn't be anywhere near a position of power.

So school shootings are just a fact of life and can't be stopped? Why then do they rarely, if ever, happen in countries other than the United States?

can you guarantee they will never happen in a specific place?

I've already dared to question folks sincerity on this issue.  And I'll double down on what I posted earlier.  I can imagine you pounding the keys, posting your response, taking my screen name in vain, all because you could not provide an experience-based response to the issue, and because your political motives were called out.  

"Don't you even dare!"  I must confess that such a response, right there, is the giveaway of shallow motivation; the overly dramatic reply.  I'm sure you've figured out that this crisis bolsters support for your point of view on the subject, which will, I'm sure, please you no end.  Liberals are not unlike Conservatives in their willingness to exploit a crisis or tragedy for political gain; they just don't want to be caught at it.

When I was young, single, and knew it all, I was a politically active Democrat, and, believe me, I understand the purely political view of life.  I KNOW folks root for bad things to happen so THEIR SIDE can win.  Republicans cheered when the prime rate hit 20% during the Carter years, while Democrats cheered "Reaganvilles" during the recession of 1981-82.  I don't see you write how you have a child, however, and while that doesn't invalidate your point of view, I have, in addition to a 12 year old son, four (4) granddaughters currently attending public schools, so I'm personally vested in this issue.  You're an anti-gun crusader.  That's fine and good, but, quite frankly, I believe that your contempt for me far, far exceeds any compassion you may feel for schoolchildren.  That's fine, too; a number of people who have actively wished me ill post here.

And, no, you are NOT playing for keeps.  Kids in schools, yes.  Folks with kids and grandkids in schools, yes.  You, no.  It's academic and political for you.  That doesn't make you an HP, but I'm OK with bringing somewhat shallow motivations to light when it seems fit.

High school kids care about their safety.

Parents of high school kids care about kids' safety.

Childless anti-gun advocates care about their political agenda.  The "kids" are a talking point.

An unfair overgeneralization?  Perhaps.  But I've been at the place where I was politically active, to where all I could see in situations such as this is how such a situation could be exploited.  And most of the folks I was working with were the same way.  I was young, single, and childless then, so my world view was a Political Game worldview.  Marriage and family bring about a different worldview.  Becoming Saved, receiving Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord brings about a different worldview.  But I know folks who, to this day, view life's events as something that either helps or hurts their "side". 

Trump claims that schools are "frankly no different" than military bases.


Link: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/966740294556438528

P.S. Couldn't get the Twitter embed to work.

Is Trump wrong?

Believe me, this was not my idea of school when I was younger.  It's not my idea of school now.  But I am convinced that public schools (at least in Florida) cannot guarantee my son's safety, even while they mandate school attendance.  (My son has a McKay scholarship to a private religious school now where I believe he's safer.) 

Every state mandates children attend school, yet kids are not protected from folks like Cruz in Parkland.  That's what is publicized.  What is less publicized is that kids are not protected from being collateral damage for on-campus gang violence, coercion and tormenting by bullies and predators that are off the chain, to say nothing of sexual assaults endured by female students, and even male students who are unable to defend themselves.

Folks here wonder why so many "Deplorables" stand with Trump.  I'll state my belief on that; it's the fact that Trump has acknowledged the very legitimate fears ordinary folks have for their safety and the safety of their families, and he has made rectifying the problem HIS priority.  And he's willing to think outside the box and trash some previously unassailable ideas for the sake of enhancing public safety.  He has acknowledged maintaining public safety and domestic tranquility as government's primary function, and for that, he shows more awareness about what the Founders deemed to be the priorities of government than do those who lambaste Trump's disdain for certain niceties.  And he has made this a theme of his governace, at a time when millions of Americans are rightly concerned about this matter.

Travel Bans from dangerous hotspots?  "The Wall"?  Immigration Reductions?  Arming Teachers?  Limited Refugee Intake?  This is "America First".  This is what Trump voters, and especially Trump PRIMARY voters, had in mind when they chose Trump.  Whatever the merits and drawbacks of the above-listed proposals, they reflect the idea that Trump's primary concern is the safety and security of the American people, each and every one of them, and that the tut-tutters, critics, nay-sayers, and those who wish us ill, can go pound salt in a manner Trump would probably be unfiltered enough to suggest on camera.  This is what Trump's supporters wanted in their President, and what they considered long overdue from both parties' Presidents.  I'm not necessarily signing off on all of these ideas exactly as Trump puts them forth, but I will suggest that millions of Americans do.

Yes, and so are any supporters who find the idea of arming underpaid educators in schools attractive in any way. In fact, one of the teachers in the Parkland school is a registered Republican and voted for Trump, and she said that idea was way too much for her to support. His voters wanted "America First," but I'm sure they didn't want that reinforced through stupid policy ideas. Then again, maybe not, considering who they voted for.

yes, the average military base is way more important than the average school.

I should say that I had the idea of arming teachers before Trump espoused it.  I found it kind of amazing that a President would think, independently, of a controversial policy idea that no one I knew of, outside of myself, was advocating until Trump made his statement.  Some would argue that it's perhaps time for an Alzheimers checkup on my part if I'm THAT in sync with Trump.  I get that; the proposal, at first blush, seems over the top.  I have reservations about the idea myself (although I do have something of a coherent idea as to how to implement such a plan).  I do believe that lots of other folks have had the idea to arm teachers, but have viewed it as too over the top to fly until now, and didn't think any serious political figure would bite.  I certainly respect the opposite point of view on this question, but I don't think the idea should be dismissed out of hand.

I do think that parents have the right to believe that their children are as safe at their local public school as they are at a military base, and that they shouldn't have to factor in the dysfunctional and malevolent students into the equation before lowering their expectation.  We are so far from that ideal that it isn't funny.  And you won't get honest feedback about what actually goes on in public schools because everyone is shielded by privacy laws.  Yes, I get it that you don't want Mr. Jones to go over to little Bobby Smith's father and coldcock Bobby's Dad because Bobby coldcocked litle Timmy Jones in the cafeteria that day, but privacy laws do more to protect schools from litigation than they do to protect students from physical and psychological harm.  Trump gets it.  And he gets it that this event in Parkland is an opportunity for a gun grab by folks who have made disarming law-abiding Americans their goal in life.  

Is the life of a soldier in uniform on base more valuable than the life of a child in a public middle school or high school?

To quote Richard Nixon in 1968:  "I'll turn that question over to our TV viewers and allow them to decide the answer to that."

Trump (R-Moscow) is a blithering idiot and a disgrace to both our nation and the human race.

You're overusing this. Come up with something new

You may have been a shallow person who didn't care about others, but you are not me. I do care.

I also have no interest in interacting with someone who claims to know my motivations better than I do. Goodbye.

So the solution is more guns? You're a fool.

Such a bad idea.

that's not the statement I'm making, and no, a soldier in uniform on a base is not worth more than a child's life at school.  Quite the opposite in fact.  That doesn't mean a military installation is less valuable than a school.


edit-and society (and not just American society or even the West at large. This is, apparently, a human thing) agrees with me and shows it in very obvious ways.  I'd rather that not be the case, but such is life.

I agree with the consensus that this will not be a solution but some of the criticisms here are rather silly as well. Nobody proposed forcing teachers to be armed, only allowing those teachers who wanted to. So no sweet old lady teacher would be forced to have a gun. Also they surely would have to be locked up, it wouldn’t just like be sitting on a desk or in a holster for God’s sake. Get a grip people. Oppose a policy on its merits or lack thereoff, don’t just spout nonsense.

So, you're saying that the GOP's actual proposal to stop all school shooting is that some teachers and other school employees will have a gun locked up somewhere? So that when a shooting is in progress, they can just go mosey on over to their gun locker - while the gunman patiently waits - then, in a state of complete calm, open the locker, ready their weapon, and then fire some of those magic bullets that will find the prospective shooter and kill them (and only them), without forcing the now-armed school employee to conduct a frantic hunt for them.

Anyone who thinks "arm the teachers" is anything other than moronic is, themselves, so stupid they ought to be found legally incompetent to conduct their own affairs.

Learn the concept of nuance my friend. I never said it was a good solution. Actually I said it wasn’t. I just think a policy should be considered honestly rather than demagogued. You are correct in stating that it isn’t a practical solution. It might at the very least be something that makes shooters less brazen though. One of the reasons schools are chosen is because they are easy targets.

Fuzzy Bear’s moral elitism vs. jphp’s moral “outrage “


Stay classy, guys.

This won't be a "deterrent" since most of these guys don't care if they get caught/killed or just kill themselves afterward.

Add to that it's a big waste of money to try and train teachers to use guns instead of just spending more on regular security.

Most folks here have one agenda; to disarm law abiding citizens and take their guns, along with their right to keep and bear arms.  That's their bottom line.  

I'm willing to be proven wrong.  Much has been said about Trump being a demogogue over arming teachers, but there is a degree of demogoguing the gun control issue as well.  

High School kids are quite often immature idiots who don't listen to the teacher or openly talk back. I bet lots of teachers vent in the teacher's lounge about how annoying some of the kids can be. Dealing with teenagers is a very tough and stressful job. Eventually a teacher who has a firearm who had a rough day will snap and shoot a kid who talks back rudely. Or some punk kid will try to rush the teacher and steal the gun. Is the teacher going to shoot the kid? The Orange Clown is a complete moron on this, as usual.

I'm not sure who you're talking about, but I have NEVER advocated to disarm everyone. Of course, you're welcome to beat up as many straw men as you like.

Do you wish to disarm me?  If "yes", to what extent?

Unless you have mental health issues or a violent criminal record, no. I want control on what people can arm themselves with (thinking about bump stocks), how fast they do it (not immediately/waiting period), closing the ridiculous gun show loop hole, and making sure there are universal background checks.

I've never heard a pro-gun Republican even attempt to address the fact that the vast majority of teachers have no interest in carrying guns at school.

I have no doubt that's the case. 

I will say that this issue is so new, it's taken folks by surprise.

Republicans:

-> Give teachers more work which they're unqualified to do

-> Force teachers to give religious sermons in class

-> Pay teachers less

-> Teach their children not to respect teachers because they're just a worthless lot who needs the government to survive and don't provide anything useful to socity

Good luck with that, guys.

Zero tolerance for 'predatory peers' is a good idea. As a substitute I show no tolerance for bullying. Head cases? I have Asperger's, which by some definitions could make me a 'head case'.
Many kids have no choice about being 'head cases', and schools must accommodate kids with handicaps.  


Teaching and law enforcement are incompatible. A teacher with a gun would lose trust quickly, and teachers would be in deep trouble if they forgot to guard a gun while they instinctively responded to a questionable situation.


My sympathy to your child. Some schools have placed cameras in classrooms, and those are automatically on in K-12 classes in which the school concentrates trouble-makers and on if the teacher or an administrator so desires. I would turn one on in the event of a medical emergency.

It may be appropriate to have a second teacher (arguably an enforcer or deterrent) following the trouble-makers around, especially if there is a substitute or a new teacher.  


In my case I have gotten warnings from the regular teacher at the class in which I substitute, and I have no qualms about warning the student -- if with a little subtlety, as in "Bill, I expect you to be on your best behavior today because I don't enjoy writing referral notices". I love to write "NO DISCIPLINARY PROBLEMS TODAY!" on my report for my day's work.  

Nor have I. I am a firearms enthusiast (though I draw the line at spending the ludicrous amounts of money some people spend on their collection / obsession / hobby). A large part of the reason I am in favor of much stronger restriction is because of all the stupid and dangerous things I have seen people do with their firearms, mostly because they have no understanding of or practice with their expensive but potentially deadly toys.

I want to see guns available only to those who can demonstrate they can and will use them responsibly. That doesn't mean outright banning them, but I see no problems with registry, comprehensive but fair examination to get a firearms permit, or even the need to store ammunition or the guns themselves at an armory.

Wouldn't this open up the schools and the teachers to a lot of liability? For example, if a shooter grabs the teacher's gun, is the teacher and/or the school at fault?

Case by case determination, but the broad answer I would give any school district I was legal counsel for is "hella yes!"

I was thinking that whoever provides insurance to the schools wouldn't want to insure schools with armed teachers.