Texas school district to let teachers carry guns

[JustaTexan]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080815/ts_nm/texas_guns_dc

WOW! What does everybody think about this? I'm very Pro-gun rights and I don't even know how I feel about it. I mean, what if one of the students gets ahold of one of the guns? You never know.

Looking at it from a teachers point of view might make me support it more. One of the reasons I am having serious doubts about continuing my education in teaching is because of the safety issue in schools these days.

Hmmm, don't know though.

[wdspeedbump]

i love it.

apparently, in my state educators believe a well-armed teacher is a teacher with the students' attention.

[DHK]

As long as they get TARGET practice and become certified as good "marksmen". The last thing we need was my old History teacher (with coke-bottle glasses) to try to fire a firearm in a crisis situation.

[bigswanging23]

I had a lot of really great teachers during my school years. But then I got to college and met "education majors".

There were, of course, the people who'd always WANTED to be teachers; the people who truly felt "called" to be teachers--a noble lot, really. I'm not talking about these people; these are the special people who truly make a difference in their student's lives.

I'm talking about the other type of "education major". These were the type of people who started their fish year majoring in electrical engineering. Their sophomore year they switched to something like construction science or marketing after realizing how hard engineering was. Their junior year, after realizing they weren't cut out for engineering or business, they switched their major to some kind of liberal art, like philosophy or art history. Inevitably, the fourth year in, they switched over to education.

These are good people, to be sure, they're just not the type of people I'd trust with loaded firearms.

Nothing good will come of this.

[Jackie2]

quote: "Teachers who wish to bring guns will have to be certified to carry a concealed handgun in Texas and get crisis training and permission from school officials, he said."

I don't believe many teachers will be bringing guns to school to begin with due to the needed extra training and requirements. 1st--they need to have a carry conceal permit. Which is requires back ground checks, ect. Permission from the school as well as additional training.

Those few teachers who do and are willing to go through the training still need permission from the school. If they get one or two teachers carrying concealed--they will fill their goal of having someone training in situations with a weapon in case a school shooting occurs.

Lets not let the aspect of a gun scare us the way the mainstream media has.

back in the 50's and 60's man public schools used to have shooting teams and gun safety was part of the curriculum. There were many days when teens on the shooting team would get on the bus with a rifle in their hands and ride to school with it. No one saw it as trouble, everyone knew it for the team. And they didn't have school shooting back then.

IMO video games like Grand Theft Auto and constant subjection to "cool" violence on TV, movies, media has desensitized not only our youth but us as well.

How many times do you see an aggressive driver on the road? How many time have you been PO and tail gated someone? A car is just as deadly as a gun and more people die from car accidents than guns in the USA every single day.

But a car is not demonized on the news. Though it can cause injury and death and does far more damage to the environment that any gun.

We, as a nation, can only blame objects for violence for so long...till the cold hard truth finally bite us in the arse. It is we who are our own worst enemy. It is we who allow our economy, our social stance, our crime rate to go down the toilet.

It's a sad sign when teachers feel they must have a loaded and concealed weapon in school to defend themselves. It's also a sad sign when we as a nation sit back and tell them we don't think they should defend themselves.

The cure for this social disease isn't more laws or more gun control. It's turning off the TV, tuning out hollywood and getting the kids to talk to their parents instead of going on line to chat rooms and finding bomb making equipment that only feeds the violent acts.

Violence in itself is a disease that affects all aspects of our society. Our arrogance and ignorance fosters it to the point of epic proportions.

I want my daughter to go to a safe school. The school has a lock down system, though nothing has ever happened there. I would hope that officials would never feel the need to allow teachers to carry weapons but if that need were to come to hand...I would want someone in that school who could stop a shooter.

[Freak]

Where is one place a gunman can go that he knows there will be no guns? Is it possibly a school, with my children in it – defenseless? No one with a CHL (that I am aware of) has ever "twisted" off and started spraying bullets. In fact, several people at Virginia Tech had CHLs, and could have acted to avert tragedy, if only they were allowed to have their guns.

There is no difference between a peace officer and a teacher except that they each choose different careers – You don’t have to have a special degree to be a cop. In fact, in a lot of places, you can be a cop with much less training/education than a teacher.

Most states with CHL provisions have lower violent crime rates in general that non CHL states. In Florida, if I remember correctly, the crime rate plummeted in Miami when the Legislature enacted the CHL law. In addition, the violent crimes are not being committed by CHL holders; who are law abiding citizens. Criminals don't care about the gun-control laws, and know very well that law abiding citizens do - So guess who has the upper hand if there is no CHL provision.

I am a firm believer in CHL laws, and the more places they are allowed, the better. If a criminal has a choice between a person carrying a weapon, and a person that is not, who are they going to choose? But, if they are looking at two people, and they are not sure, they may think twice - or possibly not make that mistake ever again.

I don’t understand why people will trust a teacher unquestionably with their children, then in the same breath, say that they don’t support giving that same person a tool(s) to protect said child from danger because they aren’t good enough/ don’t trust them. I have to scratch my head. I carry my weapon everywhere it is allowed. I have never felt compelled to shoot someone because of a tense situation. In fact, I believe I am more careful, and think things through, because I carry.

[Ravenous Wolf]

It depends entirely on the school...

For some campuses, not only do you need to pack heat, you also need a bulletproof vest and some body armor...

But then there are other school districts like the one where I live in which a teacher got fired because she defended herself when a student was beating the crap out of her... District policy said not to touch a student whatsoever even if the kid is in the process of kicking the [EXPLETIVE DELETED] out of you...

[wdspeedbump]

As long as they get TARGET practice and become certified as good "marksmen". The last thing we need was my old History teacher (with coke-bottle glasses) to try to fire a firearm in a crisis situation.

gives a whole new meaning to the "duck and cover" drills we had during the cold war.

[mariner]

gives a whole new meaning to the "duck and cover" drills we had during the cold war.

So true. Back then we were worried about the Ruskies dropping a big one on our heads, but we were much safer then schools are today.

[DocDon]

It's easier than trying to straighten out these F'd up kids and their screwed up parents, right?

That's our answer to every problem. Throw money or guns at it.

I knew some nuns who were deadly with an eraser. What's wrong with going back to that?

[someonesomewhere]

I'm very Pro-gun rights and I don't even know how I feel about it. I mean, what if one of the students gets ahold of one of the guns? You never know.

Same thing could happen out and about on the streets to any of the 3+ million, likely pushing 4 million, gun owners with a license to carry in the 40 Right To Carry states. Yet I have never to date read of even one single incident where a person with a license to carry got their gun snatched.

I'm not saying it hasn't happened and I'm not saying it cannot happen. Just that I've never read of it happening.

In a school, there's a higher degree of familiarity between students and teachers. People who snatch guns from cops, it's rare but it happens, are stone cold I-don't-give-a-flip sort of folks. Not likely to be any of them wandering about the halls of learning with a trig and history book under their arm.

I say the more the merrier. More guns, less crime.

[lovebug5]

It's easier than trying to straighten out these F'd up kids and their screwed up parents, right?

That's our answer to every problem. Throw money or guns at it.

I knew some nuns who were deadly with an eraser. What's wrong with going back to that?

I agree with you on this, Doc. I'm frightened by the direction our society is going in...