Children & Holy Communion

By all means, list the reasons why you think armed teachers is "not even close to a real solution." In my state, school districts are permitted to have select, designated teachers on campus who are armed, however they first have to go through extensive training far beyond the normal 'concealed carry permit' 1-day course. A few school districts have been doing this for a while now, and there have been no untoward incidents or accidents (and no armed attacks) at those schools, so now in the wake of Uvalde more districts within our state are considering doing the same.

Currently, a school that is known to be firearm-free is basically a potential killing field full of sitting ducks. Whereas a school with signs on the premises warning that staff members are armed and prepared to use the force necessary to protect their students is going to strongly deter a shooter; killers tend to look for soft targets that don't shoot back.

I'm not saying that arming teachers is the only solution, but IMO it is the most effective solution. Anyone who says this measure is "not close to a real solution" should be prepared to present cogent reasons why it is not.

BTW, a number of members at our church (including myself and one of the deacons) go armed (concealed) to pretty much every service. The rector is fine with this. Churches may be thought of as 'soft targets' also, but anyone who takes a potshot at our rector or congregants will probably come down with a fatal case of lead poisoning.

 

But no one of any note seems still to be asking "Could the problem be too many assault rifles being too easily available to too many young nutters". and "What could be done about THAT obvious situation in the USA".

Your answer is "Give more guns to teachers". What about issuing bullet proof vests and helmets to all your school children in the USA?

If you don't want to reduce the number of guns available to nutters and are unable to reduce the number of nutters, flack jackets and helmets for kids might seem to be an even more effective measure than arming teachers, which, at best, might get rid of a few of the nutters after they have each killed a few more of your children and then got killed themselves by a teacher with a gun. Guns don't stop bullets killing children, particularly when carried by nutters who don't mind being killed themselves. How many child killing nutters in the USA have turned their own guns on themselves upon the culmination of a self satisfying killing spree, whether facing being shot by an armed teacher or by armed police? Guns and the threat of death are ineffective as a threat to a determined nutter, is that not yet understood?
.

 

I would like to point out that rifles only kill about 400 people per year I believe

 

ONLY!??? - Where? - In just the USA or world wide?

Although 'rifled' a semi-automatic assault weapon is not a Rifle, it is an assault weapon, designed specifically for killing human beings in an assault upon a defended position. Hence the name. They are weapons of WAR, not general purpose firearms like hunting rifles, pistols etc. Anyone that thinks to take on a nutter armed with an assault weapon, with a hand gun, is a suicidally, courageous idiot, trying to stop a better armed nutter. They might as well be armed with a catapult or a slingshot.

But to get back on the thread subject, little children LEARN from everything they see and experience. That's how learning works. What are we teaching them when they see armed teachers in their classrooms to protect them from their OWN countrymen while the church insists they are not old enough to know that Jesus is their friend and saviour until about 12 years old or older and can only then be confirmed in that knowledge?
.

 

For sure. Statistically, focusing on long guns when it comes firearm homicides is the equivalent of focusing on late-term abortions. The overwhelming majority of firearm-related crimes are committed with pistols, not long guns. (Most of these school shootings also occurred in small towns, not big cities.)

 

I think you'll find it's only Americans that believe the rest of us need America.

 

I suggest banging your head very hard against a brick wall.

I have found it more fruitful than engaging with Americans on the topic of guns.

 

What justifies that smugness? Your country would not exist had it not been for American Lend-Lease. Millions of Europeans would have starved outright had it not been for the Marshall Plan. America saved Britain from not one, but two, catastrophic wars that it blundered into. The Russians would also have fallen to the Nazis without Lend-Lease. The world - the British included - owes America a lot, despite our shortcomings. And we accomplished what we did without an empire that covered one-fourth of the earth’s land surface at its height. What do you think they conquered that empire with, Shakespeare productions? They did it with a bunch of guns.

Oh please. Plenty of Americans - myself included - are critical of the current state of American gun culture, and the social and political dysfunction that enables and sustains it. The British may be governed by an overly strict regime in this particular area - which many British don’t favor, BTW - but that hasn’t stopped your country from remaining one of the world’s top weapons exporters. Remove the speck from your own eye before parroting the usual anti-American talking points.

 

For you or anyone else here who may be interested, The Atlantic published a lengthy article decades ago that lays out the history of the AR-15/M-16 more thoroughly than anything else I’ve read. The story is in many ways a tragic one. While a huge technical feat, bureaucratic meddling which “bordered on criminal negligence” (in the words of the subsequent congressional committee findings) forced unnecessary and counterproductive changes to the original design, with the Army insisting on deliberately manufacturing the ammunition with the wrong type of powder, with the result that the weapon performed much more poorly than it should have in Vietnam, after it became the primary infantry weapon and was no longer limited to special forces, which had received an earlier iteration of the rifle without the ill-conceived design changes. Many American soldiers died as a result of being issued unreliable rifles. The history aside, the intended battle function of the rifle and the ammunition it requires raised certain moral questions related to jus in bello that were, in my opinion, never adequately raised, addressed, or resolved.

Ultimately, the design or appearance of the rifle isn’t the critical issue: in terms of how the weapon is designed to work (and does work), it’s the ammunition that raises the moral difficulties. It’s the .223 round itself that doesn’t have a legitimate civilian application, and it’s the ammunition that should be heavily regulated, restricted, and controlled, not the rifles themselves.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...-never-meant-to-be-in-civilians-hands/622311/

 

Even a "nutter" will usually want to do the damage before getting killed. Doing the desired damage, before dying himself, is his goal. If he just wanted to be killed, he could do that anywhere. So if he knows there's a good chance of being killed before he can achieve his objective, isn't that a deterrent?

If this were not a serious matter, I would laugh at the absurdity and impracticability of this. It ranks worse than the dumb blankets in the picture (which look useless because they're incredibly easy to shoot around). First, there must be class time spent drilling with how to properly put on the vests and helmets (taking away from valuable instructional time). Second, there must a place to store them in the classroom, a place easily accessible yet not so easy that kids will mess around with, take, or damage the items; most classrooms do not have space for that sort of paraphernalia. Third, school districts don't have enough money for all the instructional stuff they want, let alone to buy stuff like this for the off chance. Fourth, we're assuming that there will always be enough advance warning time for kids to get dressed in their vests and helmets (I'm trying to picture the Kindergarten teacher in this scenario; she'd probably have to help every student individually, and it would take 15-20 minutes). Fifth, the shooter will see the gear and simply aim for an unprotected body part.

But I can't expect to convince a person who lives in a country that even disarmed its policemen... Next war, maybe the troops should be sent in, unarmed.

 

Actually I was being ironic. I am well aware of the impracticality of supplying military style flack jackets and helmets to your primary school pupils, but it is no more stupid a suggestion than arming all your infant school teachers with revolvers.
.

 

Trust me, the majority of Americans, and certainly the majority of American school teachers, understand that arming teachers in the classroom is a bad idea, and are opposed to it. That’s why we haven’t done it, and aren’t going to. If just throwing more guns at the problem is the answer, it’s curious that they haven’t also proposed arming the students, too.

 

Maybe it's because I'm not an American, but I have never understood why it is a good idea to arm people to deter people shooting others, but it's not a good idea for countries like North Korea and Iran to have nuclear weapons to deter other countries attacking them. Surely if all countries had nuclear weapons no country would attack any other country and a God like peace would reign around the world.

 

I guess the NRA would definitely have to support this logic. After all, nuclear weapons don't kill anyone, its the people who press the button to fire them that do.
.

 

If Ukraine had nukes, I wonder if Russia would still have moved in on them....

 

I don’t think it would’ve made any difference. Nuclear weapons aren’t effective for preventing conventional conflicts.

 

When North Korea got nukes did the USA complain about it or congratulate them, quoting the second amendment?

 

I didn't say it would make me (or the USA) happy for Ukraine to have them. I simply speculate how it might have changed the dynamics. Obviously it's a matter of opinion and some will disagree, but I think it might have deterred Russia if they knew Zelensky could push a button and obliterate Moscow. Purely speculation on my part.

 

Are you familiar with the term "Mexican Standoff"?
.

 

There is an episode of Yes, Prime Minister that addresses this in a hilarious yet true way.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o861Ka9TtT4