Nothing could POSSIBLY go wrong with this

[smurasaki]

From my internet provider's homepage (where I first saw it).

ABC News

A school district in Texas has decided to allow teachers to carry concealed guns in school.  Sure, they have to be licensed to carry a concealed weapon in Texas, and the school district does have the wisdom to also require them to have "training in crisis management and hostile

Comments

[nenena]

That and an overreaction to a new problem that isn't new and isn't that much of a problem.

To be fair, when I worked at a certain high school in Minneapolis, we frequently caught students bringing weapons to school. Frequently as in once or twice per month, which is shockingly a lot.

I completely agree with everything in your post - and I think that arming teachers is a spectacularly bad idea - but. There are schools that are very chaotic and unsafe. I think it's important not to downplay the existence of violence in the schools where it is a very real problem

[smurasaki]

Yeah, that individual kind of violence (which isn't new, either) is a genuine problem, and, of course, there are schools with larger problems like gangs or just...bad groups of kids. The thing is, I don't think that is very well addressed by the usual measures, either. I don't know what you do with schools that have a large scale problem with violence or potential violence, but I have this horrible feeling that metal detectors and security guards just push that violence off campus, which may or may not spare the innocent bystander types, but which certainly doesn't spare the involved.

And most schools where it isn't a large scale problem have this horrible habit of ignoring the "minor" problems until someone does bring a gun to school. A lot of the student-on-student violence that gets reported seems to be the escalation of harassment, not some sudden event with nothing leading up to it. A lot of that school violence could probably be fixed by working to change the climate of schools, which desperately needs to be changed anyway

[jinnayah]

"What goes on in Texas? Opening fire on cops, killing presidents, the whole Bush thing? I mean, what the hell?"

Maybe it's just me, but I don't really want my child being taught by someone who is ready, willing, and able to kill another human being. And the cardinal law of gun use is that if you're not willing to use that thing, you shouldn't be carrying it. It just puts you and those around you in more danger than it not being there to begin with.

And the similarities between American schools and prisons are frighteningly many.

[smurasaki]

Indeed. And I fear that the people willing to be armed teachers are only willing to use their guns in the "I think I'm in an action movie" sense, which is probably the worst possible mindset. Having passing fear that someone could come off the highway and take hostages/kill people is understandable. That has happened. But most people realize that the odds of that are very, very low and move on to trying to prevent more likely dangers. The fact that this community didn't does not bode well.

[shininghalf]

...have to use ammunition that is designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls...

Hollow-points. Lovely.

American schools really bother me. They've always struck me as making that basic mistake of attempting to teach people to be citizens of a democracy while training them to be used to a dictatorship. I know people aren't very comfortable with the idea that kids are people and should maybe, just maybe have a few rights, but the complete lack of rights people have in school creeps me the hell out. I've been known to argue that schools appear to be socializing people for prison, and I really hate it when I get additional ammunition for that argument.

Wordy-freakin'-word.

I think that, just as prison makes convicts nastier, the problems we do have in schools from students (heck, the viciousness of British schoolboys is a long-worn trope) can be largely traced to the repressive social conditions they're placed in causing this destructive behavior in reaction.

[smurasaki]

Students also have very little recourse if they're harassed. It just isn't taken seriously. Hell, I've seen student harassment encouraged by teachers and school officials. It boggles the mind.