(my default stance is that all teachers should have concealed carry permits and mandatory shooting range time requirements)
Even assuming that this eliminates all school shootings and doesn’t result in even a single child getting their hands on a teacher’s gun which isn’t properly attended, or a teacher lacking in self control using one irresponsibly, I think this would probably still be a poor use of time and money with respect to lives saved relative to other equipment and training (emergency medical, for instance,) that teachers could receive. It sounds like much more a response to Bad Guy Bias than lives-saved maximizing.
Presumably those teachers would be armed in situations outside school. Throwing a few million people who carry concealed on a daily basis onto the streets would probably have some major effects outside of schools. (Whether net-positive or net-negative is left as an exercise for the reader)
Partially that. Partially, I don’t want to presume to answer in a parenthetical aside a question that this thread is about figuring out how to answer in the first place. I figure LW is about the worst possible place to vomit cached thoughts on controversial issues onto the page.
(Also, I get a kick out of playing the neutral moderator in Internet debate—it always cracks me up how much people flip out on you when you make no statements of opinion whatsoever and merely posit viewpoints and mock bad arguments. Abortion is especially good for this.)
it always cracks me up how much people flip out on you when you make no statements of opinion whatsoever and merely posit viewpoints and mock bad arguments.
Some probably would, but many would probably only carry the guns at all under sufferance, so it’s worth considering also what impact it would have on the population that’s interested in teaching.
True, adding an irrelevant-but-mandatory criteria for taking up a job is bound to have some effect on the population in that job. I wonder what the result would be on the perceived leftist bias of the education system if you forced the system into 100% gun ownership(which is, these days, one of the strongest Republican indicators).
Is it? I’ve read recently that 40% of gun owners are Democrats, although I couldn’t remember where at the moment. I could think of more reliable indicators.
Well, actually, I thought I could, but in fact I could think of more reliable Democrat indicators but I’m not sure about R ones.
I was thinking about this a couple days ago. It seems to me that stationing one or two police at schools would be more effective than this idea if we’re interested in taking an active defense approach to stopping school shootings or minimizing their harm, though I hasten to add that they’re a tiny fraction of total homicide and probably don’t deserve this kind of attention.
My thinking is that uniformed officials with the weight of authority behind them would probably have a more salient deterrent effect than whatever armed schoolteachers would imply, and also that forging non-confrontational links between police forces and civilians would have substantial positive externalities. Though this latter would depend greatly on style; a scare-’em-straight approach might backfire, and I’m almost sure that using cops purely as glorified security guards would. Arming and training teachers might put shooters down faster, but I can’t see much deterrence or any substantial externalities, and it would be an expensive program.
Though on the other hand I don’t see many negative externalities either; last time I looked at data on shootings (accident and murder inclusive) attending trained and licensed bearers of firearms, the rates turned out to be quite low.
Some schools already do this. My high school, for instance. But that was a school with a particularly low level of threat to begin with. Not that there was never any crime for him to deal with even in a well off suburban school; the worst case I ever heard about him having to deal with was a stolen laptop.
Even assuming that this eliminates all school shootings and doesn’t result in even a single child getting their hands on a teacher’s gun which isn’t properly attended, or a teacher lacking in self control using one irresponsibly, I think this would probably still be a poor use of time and money with respect to lives saved relative to other equipment and training (emergency medical, for instance,) that teachers could receive. It sounds like much more a response to Bad Guy Bias than lives-saved maximizing.
Presumably those teachers would be armed in situations outside school. Throwing a few million people who carry concealed on a daily basis onto the streets would probably have some major effects outside of schools. (Whether net-positive or net-negative is left as an exercise for the reader)
In the standard I-have-no-idea-either sarcastic sense?
Partially that. Partially, I don’t want to presume to answer in a parenthetical aside a question that this thread is about figuring out how to answer in the first place. I figure LW is about the worst possible place to vomit cached thoughts on controversial issues onto the page.
(Also, I get a kick out of playing the neutral moderator in Internet debate—it always cracks me up how much people flip out on you when you make no statements of opinion whatsoever and merely posit viewpoints and mock bad arguments. Abortion is especially good for this.)
I used to do that on WP:Requested moves.
Some probably would, but many would probably only carry the guns at all under sufferance, so it’s worth considering also what impact it would have on the population that’s interested in teaching.
True, adding an irrelevant-but-mandatory criteria for taking up a job is bound to have some effect on the population in that job. I wonder what the result would be on the perceived leftist bias of the education system if you forced the system into 100% gun ownership(which is, these days, one of the strongest Republican indicators).
Is it? I’ve read recently that 40% of gun owners are Democrats, although I couldn’t remember where at the moment. I could think of more reliable indicators. Well, actually, I thought I could, but in fact I could think of more reliable Democrat indicators but I’m not sure about R ones.
I’m getting my data from http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/in-gun-ownership-statistics-partisan-divide-is-sharp/
Also, I meant demographic indicators—if opinions count, “I am a (Republican/Democrat)” seems the most accurate.
Advocacy of teaching Creationism or Intelligent Design in schools? Opposition to both gay marriage and civil partnerships?
Yes, probably. Homeschooling, perhaps, as well, though maybe only if you stick to a D/R dichotomy.
I was thinking about this a couple days ago. It seems to me that stationing one or two police at schools would be more effective than this idea if we’re interested in taking an active defense approach to stopping school shootings or minimizing their harm, though I hasten to add that they’re a tiny fraction of total homicide and probably don’t deserve this kind of attention.
My thinking is that uniformed officials with the weight of authority behind them would probably have a more salient deterrent effect than whatever armed schoolteachers would imply, and also that forging non-confrontational links between police forces and civilians would have substantial positive externalities. Though this latter would depend greatly on style; a scare-’em-straight approach might backfire, and I’m almost sure that using cops purely as glorified security guards would. Arming and training teachers might put shooters down faster, but I can’t see much deterrence or any substantial externalities, and it would be an expensive program.
Though on the other hand I don’t see many negative externalities either; last time I looked at data on shootings (accident and murder inclusive) attending trained and licensed bearers of firearms, the rates turned out to be quite low.
Some schools already do this. My high school, for instance. But that was a school with a particularly low level of threat to begin with. Not that there was never any crime for him to deal with even in a well off suburban school; the worst case I ever heard about him having to deal with was a stolen laptop.