You certainly make some good points but a couple of things. First we'll never know if a teacher's willing to use deadly force until faced with it. Claiming to be able to and actually doing it are two different things. Of one thing I'm sure. If you pull a gun on someone you had better be ready to use it or risk them takeing your gun and using it on you! And that in turn could set off a chain reaction we really wouldn't want to see. I certainly agree that it would be better to have WELL QUALIFIED people in the school with firearms than no response at all. Probally the whole thing could be over befor the SWAT team even got called. That would be great. but again, takeing a life, even a bad guys, can be a hard thing to do. We are taught from early life the value of life and it goes against the grain to do so.

This is a good subject and I'd hope theres an answer somewhere but I just don't know what it is for sure. I don't think arming to many teachers is the answer tho. Probally there is no good answer for this. It's a sad thing that these things do happen, but they do and always have. We just hear about it more now. Kinda makes me wonder just how civilized we really are.

Funny how all of these arguments have been used to try to block "shall issue" concealed carry permits in state after state. The argument always goes that Joe Citizen just isn't qualified enough to handle such responsibility, and that allowing carry permits will just increase gun deaths by having permit holders' guns used against them.

But as we all know, that's been disproven again and again. Concealed carry permits have driven crime down wherever implemented. On the other hand, strict restrictions on gun possession have increased crime. It's an accepted fact that criminals, like any predator, avoid the strong in favor of the weak.

If teachers are unarmed, potential school shooters know they have a defenseless population to target. This wouldn't be the case with armed teachers. Granted such a program introduces a gun to a classroom environment. But a potential shooter knows he has to fight the teacher for the gun before doing any shooting, and potentially deal with other students that might rush in during the struggle. Even if he gets the gun, he knows there's other armed adults nearby to stop him. This creates a lot more doubt about possible success and, by extension, provides a strong deterrent.

IMO, that's a whole lot better than pacifism.

On a somewhat unrelated note I checked some blogs in an attempt to ascertain the students opinions , not on gun totein teachers per se, but on their safety in general.

These kids are terrified to go to school. Some have faked illnesses because they are scared to death. Some have difficulty sleeping and the list goes on and on.

And I don't see it improving anytime soon

Uh... Yeah. So what? In those years, how many school shootings did you respond to? My guess is not very darned many. Probably none.

No offense, but these kinds of shooting are simply nothing like the typical police officer sees on the street. The people who go in to shoot up schools are not your typical criminal. Nor are they usually strong, mean, or dirty. They are psychopaths who want to die, and hope to go out with a big splash.

Do you really think that if a teacher had pulled out a gun, Harris or Klebold would have fought them for it? I doubt it. They would probably have been just as happy to be shot by a teacher as doing it themselves. Same thing for the nut-jobs last month.

Of course it's wrong. In fact, it's ridiculous! That's why I never said anything remotely of the sort.

What I said was that police officers do not lose possesion of their firearms THE MAJORITY of the time. See the difference? And private citizens, licensed to carry firearms, sometimes lose possession, but not THE MAJORITY of the time. I see absolutely no reason to believe that armed teachers would lose possession THE MAJORITY of the time, as you claimed they would. Is there a possibility that they might, sometimes, lose possession? Of course. But THE MAJORITY of the time? Not bloody likely.

As for teachers being trained to teach and not to shoot, well, yes, of course. But the ones who are allowed to carry in the classroom WOULD be trained to shoot. I mean, obviously we wouldn't just randomly hand out guns to teachers! "Here you go John, I know you've never even touched a gun before, but your name came out of the hat, so it's your turn to carry the pistol!"

The ONLY teachers who would be armed would be the ones who WANTED to be, were TRAINED to be, and were PREPARED to defend their students if the need should arise!

And yet, again, having said that let me reiterate that I do not think arming teachers would be a very effective solution to the problem of school shootings.

Fight the teacher? I doubt it. Walk in and shoot the teacher first, before anyone even knows what's going on is the more likely scenario, I would think.

That's the problem with arming the teachers, and why the comparison to concealed carry laws doesn't really apply. The criminal on the street doesn't know which of the citizens around him might be armed. The psycho who walks into a classroom would know absolutely that ONLY the teacher might be armed. Shoot the teacher first and he has taken out any threat of an armed opponent.

denverdOn,

Frustrating isn't it? You don't think arming teachers would be an effective solution. I think thats right, in fact I don't think there is any other effective thing to do other than take them out ASAP. They are not common criminals, they are nuts! I cannot imagine any reason why anyone would want to attack a school full of kids? Give me a good reason and I won't care!!!!

I do think that certain types in the school, teachers, with access to firearms will definately improve response time. That in itself would save lives. I would also think that these people should recieve the best firearms training avaliable and it should be on going. maybe a week or so a couple times a year at something like "Gunsight".

Now you suggested that in Hammers 27+yrs he had never responded to a school shooting. Your probally right. That get's back to our schools being very safe for the vast majority. Probally damn few officers have responded to one. Schools are safe! In very few instences some whack job walks in and starts killing people. Then every newspaper and TV station in the country blasts it all over the place, fear factor!!!! We probally cannot stop this stuff and a knee jerk reaction will certainly not work.

I know that this subject has hit a spot with Hammer, I can see it in what he writes. Lighten up on him just a bit if you would. If you think this is frustrating for you, think how it is for him. His job was to protect kids just like these and he was powerless to do it until after the fact. His opinions are based strictly on experience in law enforcement, law enforcement that cannot predict these things, only respond to late and wish they could have been there sooner.

And on that note, what if the police enter the school looking for a gunman and confront a teacher with a gun? That is a gunman, are we going to condem the cop for taking out an armed suspect? And everyone in the building not wearing a uniform or recognizable to police becomes a suspect! With Harris and Kliebold, what if a teacher had got a gun away from one but was severly injured in the process. Then a student grabs the gun and runs screaming out of the building. Think the student might get shot?

No right answers, just a lot of frustration!

I would like to get back to Hammer a moment with a different story. A very close friend of mine spent two tours in Vietnam as a field medic. Today he is retired with 100% disability from the Army. He talks about it very little but one thing he's said that really sticks is that he had to choose who lived and who died! Sometimes the guy he chose to live died anyway. He is certain that he is to blame for many of them because if he just could have done his job better.............His disability is mental. Very bad depression and PTS symdrome.

I suspect that those officers that have responed to school shootings, in fact have responded to many things and lost ,have somewhat the same burdons to bear that my friend Larry does. Kids die in a school and we the people are angry that our law enforcement did not protect them, we second guess them and AFTER the fact have all the ideas that MAYBE would have saved lives. Guys like Hammer get to go home thinking that if they had done their job better, they could have saved a life. God bless you Greg, your job really sucked!

Here's a few statistics and facts to consider These are police stats but lets consider them equal for teachers since no data exists at this point.
(1) In a rapid response where shots are fired the officer misses the target 8 out of ten times.
(2) Example:In the recent cop shooting in Florida, Swat members fired 110 rounds, hitting suspect only 68 times

One other thing I d like to point out is the difficulty teachers would have in protecting their firearm, with the simple close proximity to students at their desks, blackboards etc
Police Officers for example when fingerprinting.suspects are usually unarmed because Suspect is too close to The Sidearm.
No, I've never been in an armed confrontation in a classroom full of students but it would get real dirty, real quick butI've been in hundred of others....OH ! But So What ! as previously pointed out.!

I was outside working on the truck and a though hit me. While I don't think that schools can't be made all that much safer, we could easily drastically reduce response time. We would not have to have armed teachers running around. But there is one catch. Who's willing to pay for it? We are sitting here talking about arming volenteer teachers. The key word is volenteer. Someone needs to pay for it. We have no problem with paying to have our kids travel all over the place for different ballgames. We have no problem with building a new football field, improving the locker rooms, putting in weight training rooms ect, ect, ect. But we don't even put seat belts in buses! Everytime some school district wants more money we scream "No more!" We don't grouse around about the wages administrators get and look the other way on "bad" teachers and don't reward the good ones with so much as a thank you from time to time.

While in the service I was stationed on a mobile radar site in Europe. A very classified site where my extra job was NCOIC of Security and small arms. We had very very classified material there and did very very classified things. We also provided our own security. It was a given that at times someone that really wanted to could get in, it was also a given that unless he was with a big group of well armed people he would be stopped or killed. Absolute saftey is usually no obtainable, but security is. You would not make it to a classified area on our site!

Our schools are little different than that site with one big advantage, there are only so many way into a school and it would be possible to lock down all rooms and hall ways containing the problem to one area, IMMEDIATELY. Kids would maybe still die but most would would servive. And even a nut case might think twice befor trying that on a secure school. So again, who's gonna pay for it? You don't really believe the cops show up free gratis do you? Everything has a price. The problem we have is we don't know where it will hit next but for the most part schools are safe. So we don't spend money on security. Who would be willing to pay more and how much a year for security? Nobody, as I said, we won't even spend money for seat belts in the buses!

I wonder what the liability Insurance would cost ?