More armed teachers or more armed resource officers?

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

SouthernDemocrat said:

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

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I don’t think saying “both” is a cop out at all. There may be very legitimate reasons why one school district allows teachers to carry while another would prefer a school resource officer, while another may prefer neither and yet another might prefer an armed guard who’s not a police officer

This isn’t a zero sum game if we’re talking armed security

SouthernDemocrat said:

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

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I'm for it if you have the budget for it. What we really need as a first step is to re-design the entrances to make them safe. That means an outer door, lobby, and an inner door, both on buzzers, and a guard station in between. I see this set-up everywhere now, in all kinds of office buildings, hospitals, etc. We used this set-up at my old school and had a campus police officer sweeping students with metal detecting wand as they came in. It worked. No more gun incidents after that system was installed.

It depends on the layout of a given campus. Both is a reasonable solution as well - simply because a town (or school) has police is not reason for its residents (or teachers) to be unarmed. It is also important to have the ability of classrooms or other campus spaces to be quickly secured from intrusion. Having students heading for open places on the campus grounds to "form up for a count" is OK for fires but a very bad plan when under attack by a mass shooter.

EMNofSeattle said:

I don’t think saying “both” is a cop out at all. There may be very legitimate reasons why one school district allows teachers to carry while another would prefer a school resource officer, while another may prefer neither and yet another might prefer an armed guard who’s not a police officer

This isn’t a zero sum game if we’re talking armed security

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For practical reasons, you cannot just have armed teachers as your security. Reason being is that a teacher is in a room, they are not looking at any security cameras, they are not monitoring entrances in and out of a building, and if a mass shooting did occur, they could be a long ways away from it, and would not be able to leave their students to confront the shooter as their responsibility is primarily the students under their direct supervision at that time. So you can't just have armed teachers, we got to pony up the money for actual armed resource officers.

Waddy said:

I'm for it if you have the budget for it. What we really need as a first step is to re-design the entrances to make them safe. That means an outer door, lobby, and an inner door, both on buzzers, and a guard station in between. I see this set-up everywhere now, in all kinds of office buildings, hospitals, etc. We used this set-up at my old school and had a campus police officer sweeping students with metal detecting wand as they came in. It worked. No more gun incidents after that system was installed.

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I think that should be done in middle and high schools where it isn't being done now, but that doesn't solve the problems of after school events like basketball games, band concerts and so on.

Just the same, as to having the budget for it, what the hell am I paying taxes for if we cannot pony up the money to provide proper security for our schools. Personally, if I got to pay a little more in taxes so that we can have well trained, armed resource officers in every middle and high school, I am perfectly fine with that.

ttwtt78640 said:

It depends on the layout of a given campus. Both is a reasonable solution as well - simply because a town (or school) has police is not reason for its residents (or teachers) to be unarmed. It is also important to have the ability of classrooms or other campus spaces to be quickly secured from intrusion. Having students heading for open places on the campus grounds to "form up for a count" is OK for fires but a very bad plan when under attack by a mass shooter.

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I agree with you about your town example, but I think its a bit different with teachers. Let's say a teacher was to shoot a student that threatened them, hell lets say they came at them with a knife in their class. Or lets say its a student that brought a gun to school and pulled it out in class, and the teacher ended up shooting them. Even if it were totally justified, you know how it is, that teacher's career is over. They will never get another job teaching anywhere. Too many parents would be raising all kinds of hell anywhere that considered hiring them. It shouldn't be like that, but that's how it is.

SouthernDemocrat said:

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

Click to expand...

Pretty sure a kid with a gun on a shooting spree is not advancing on a teacher returning fire even if they are missing everything...

SouthernDemocrat said:

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

Click to expand...

I think you should have added choice of Both, so did not select the incorrect answer choices.

Bodhisattva said:

Pretty sure a kid with a gun on a shooting spree is not advancing on a teacher returning fire even if they are missing everything...

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Pretty sure the psychopath with a gun is going to shoot the teacher with a gun as soon as they see them. Think about it this way. The kid on the shooting spree is a psychopath, he doesn't hesitate, he thinks nothing of killing. Hell as a profiler would tell you, more often than not, he is sexually aroused by what he is doing. That is the kind of person that is shooting at you. We call them cowards, but most of them, as sociopaths, have no fear at all in that situation. You do. Your not a psychopath. Your don't derive joy and sexual pleasure from watching people die in front of you by your hand. That is why these psychopaths do better in a gun fight than even a trained police officer and that is why you are probably not going to be very effective against them.

I see no reason why it shouldnt be both.

Any teacher qualified that wants to CC should be allowed to.

And armed *accountable, decently paid, well-trained* guards.

Plus other security measures.

Casper said:

I think you should have added choice of Both, so did not select the incorrect answer choices.

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The point is if you have to pick one, you can't everything, so you have to pick one. In this scenario at least.

SouthernDemocrat said:

I think that should be done in middle and high schools where it isn't being done now, but that doesn't solve the problems of after school events like basketball games, band concerts and so on.

Just the same, as to having the budget for it, what the hell am I paying taxes for if we cannot pony up the money to provide proper security for our schools. Personally, if I got to pay a little more in taxes so that we can have well trained, armed resource officers in every middle and high school, I am perfectly fine with that.

Click to expand...

Why can't the entrances to the auditorium, and gym be equipped with re-designed entrances, any time they are in use?

Lursa said:

I see no reason why it shouldnt be both.

Any teacher qualified that wants to CC should be allowed to.

And armed *accountable, decently paid, well-trained* guards.

Plus other security measures.

Click to expand...

They don't even allow a teacher to break up a fight anymore.

SouthernDemocrat said:

Should we have more armed teachers, or should we have more armed resource officers? You got to pick one or neither, no bull**** cop outs where you say "both".

In my opinion what we need are more armed resource officers like Florida Governor Rick Scott proposes (in fact I thought about all his ideas today were good). Trained police officers have an average hit rate of just 18% in a gunfight (Ready, Fire, Aim: The Science Behind Police Shooting Bystanders | TIME.com). No one on here, unless they are an active police officer, is going to be anywhere near that dismal number. I don't care how often you are at the firing range, I don't care how many years you have been hunting, if trained police have just an 18% hit rate in a gunfight, you probably would not even average 10%. Thus the problem with arming teachers. At best, it creates a false sense of security. Which is why I think we need more police officers in middle schools and high schools, but not armed teachers.

Anyway, what do you think?

Click to expand...

Someone has already stated that both is not a cop out. It amazes me how wanting both is something you deem a "cop out." I am a former police officer and I say both. You can call it whatever you want, but it's how I see it.

I'll take those whose job it is to protect the public and have been adequately trained to do so over those whose job it is to teach our children but have only taken a 4-day active shooter course and call that "adequate protection".

I get the argument that teachers are on-site and in some cases better positioned to respond to an active shooter situation, but being better positioned doesn't necessarily mean you're better equipped in all capacity to take on said shooter.

So, we arm teachers. Now what? Their first priority is to get the students out of harms way, but I wonder what those who are advocating for teachers to be armed will feel the first time a teacher leaves their students in pursuit of the shooter only to discover he/she left them at the mercy of the shooter? Or said teacher freezes and gets shot or allows a student to get shot? Or worse yet - shoots the wrong person?

I can understand arming teachers if the school is several miles away from local law enforcement (i.e., rural county school 25-30 miles from county sheriff's office), but it doesn't make sense to do this in large metro areas.

Pres. Trump has suggested paying armed teachers more. Well, why not take that same money and simply hire more cops at the school?

Or course, there's another solution: Design safer schools with entry points that are harder for the public to access while school is in session (i.e, double-entry with inner doors that lock automatically from the outside and require visitors to be buzzed in).

My point: There are alternatives to arming teachers. We shouldn't give in to our fear just because the gun lobby is putting out these wild ideas where the underlying motive is to sell more guns.

Waddy said:

Why can't the entrances to the auditorium, and gym be equipped with re-designed entrances, any time they are in use?

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Well they could, and probably should, but at the same time, I can't tell you how many times I have been up there our kid's high school and some other kid just lets me in another entrance. That's what your up against with this stuff too.

SouthernDemocrat said:

I agree with you about your town example, but I think its a bit different with teachers. Let's say a teacher was to shoot a student that threatened them, hell lets say they came at them with a knife in their class. Or lets say its a student that brought a gun to school and pulled it out in class, and the teacher ended up shooting them. Even if it were totally justified, you know how it is, that teacher's career is over. They will never get another job teaching anywhere. Too many parents would be raising all kinds of hell anywhere that considered hiring them. It shouldn't be like that, but that's how it is.

Click to expand...

Who is more apt to protect the students in their classroom from attack - the teacher in it or a school resource officer guarding the main school building entrance? If you are a mass shooter planning your school attack it would seem that step one would be to eliminate the (uniformed?) school resource officer. That may be as simple as breaching a fence and entering a building on campus that the school resource officer can be locked out of.

Objective Voice said:

I'll take those whose job it is to protect the public and have been adequately trained to do so over those whose job it is to teach our children but have only taken a 4-day active shooter course and call that "adequate protection".

I get the argument that teachers are on-site and in some cases better positioned to respond to an active shooter situation, but being better positioned doesn't necessarily mean you're better equipped in all capacity to take on said shooter.

So, we arm teachers. Now what? Their first priority is to get the students out of harms way, but I wonder what those who are advocating for teachers to be armed will feel the first time a teacher leaves their students in pursuit of the shooter only to discover he/she left them at the mercy of the shooter? Or said teacher freezes and gets shot or allows a student to get shot? Or worse yet - shoots the wrong person?

I can understand arming teachers if the school is several miles away from local law enforcement (i.e., rural county school 25-30 miles from county sheriff's office), but it doesn't make sense to do this in large metro areas.

Pres. Trump has suggested paying armed teachers more. Well, why not take that same money and simply hire more cops at the school?

Or course, there's another solution: Design safer schools with entry points that are harder for the public to access while school is in session.

My point: There are alternatives to arming teachers. We shouldn't give in to our fear just because the gun lobby is putting out these wild ideas where the underlying motive is to sell more guns.

Click to expand...

Well let's look at recent history. Unarmed teachers died protecting students while the police officer hid outside. I would rather those brave teachers be armed than a cowardly cop. I mean seriously officers are taught to wait for backup, but damn.

SouthernDemocrat said:

Pretty sure the psychopath with a gun is going to shoot the teacher with a gun as soon as they see them. Think about it this way. The kid on the shooting spree is a psychopath, he doesn't hesitate, he thinks nothing of killing. Hell as a profiler would tell you, more often than not, he is sexually aroused by what he is doing. That is the kind of person that is shooting at you. We call them cowards, but most of them, as sociopaths, have no fear at all in that situation. You do. Your not a psychopath. Your don't derive joy and sexual pleasure from watching people die in front of you by your hand. That is why these psychopaths do better in a gun fight than even a trained police officer and that is why you are probably not going to be very effective against them.

Click to expand...

The last sociopath put his gun done and hid well before police showed up...

How 'bout this. Give every teacher in every district a $20,000 across-the-board bonus. Then and only then, we'll talk about whether to arm them.

Until then, NO DEAL.

SouthernDemocrat said:

The point is if you have to pick one, you can't everything, so you have to pick one. In this scenario at least.

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Pass..........

Phys251 said:

How 'bout this. Give every teacher in every district a $20,000 across-the-board bonus. Then and only then, we'll talk about whether to arm them.

Until then, NO DEAL.

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Good thing you aren't in charge of **** huh.

Black Dog said:

Well let's look at recent history. Unarmed teachers died protecting students while the police officer hid outside. I would rather those brave teachers be armed than a cowardly cop. I mean seriously officers are taught to wait for backup, but damn.

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So, one old cop waiting for his pension to kick in means all cops will react this way? I get that this cop's non-action cost lives, but in a sense I can also understand one reason as to why he may not have been so eager to engage...

9mm Glock against an AR-15 equipped with a bump stock.

9-14 bullets -vs- a full magazine.

I'll take waiting outside for 50 pts, Alex.

I don't mean to make light of this cop's cowardice or the tragedy that was made worse by his inaction, but I can sympathize alittle with this law enforcement officer. However, I agree 1000% that it was his job to respond to the active shooter. It's his turf - his school! Among other local police, no one knows the school better than he. So, regardless of how armed the shooter was it was his job to go in and at least assess the situation and report back. But this is all for another discussion. Thus, I digress...

One isolated situation where a cop performed poorly in an active shooter situation on a school campus doesn't mean we suddenly arm teachers. I mean, by that rationale Black people should've been allowed to fire on over-aggressive cops who shoot first and ask questions latter long ago. (What? You say we're already doing it? Well, darn...:roll

Black Dog said:

Good thing you aren't in charge of **** huh.

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So you are opposed to teacher pay raises?