Posted on 10/15/2006 1:32:49 PM PDT by SJackson
If we arm all our school teachers with deadly weapons, it should certainly put a stop to kids chewing gum and passing notes in homeroom.
Go ahead, you little creeps, make our day.
A proposal by Republican state Rep. Frank Lasee from Bellevue to respond to school shootings by arming teachers and principals has once again put the intelligence level of Wisconsin regarding firearms in the national news. It's the sequel to the stir we created around the country when our state's hunters voted to declare an open season on kitty cats.
The common thread seems to be a rather casual attitude toward the use of deadly weapons against anything smaller than we are.
"Sometimes when people are intent on harming others, the only reasonable response you could have is to confront them with the firepower to stop them," Lasee says.
Anyone who uses the term "reasonable" to describe armed adults shooting schoolchildren has invented a brand-new definition of the word.
Almost as absurd as the proposal itself has been the enthusiastic embrace of Lasee's idea by right-wing sites on the Internet. Owen Robinson, writing on the vaguely sado-masochistic sounding Web site Boots and Sabers, says: "Right now, we advertise to everyone that our schools are a soft target by declaring them 'gun-free zones.' "
Far better, in the warped world of these militaristic posers, would be to turn our schools into free-fire zones. The sick idea behind this proposal is the same one the National Rifle Association has paid scores of politicians to promote publicly - more guns equal more safety.
It's the exact opposite of reality, where a loaded gun is extremely dangerous and two loaded guns are twice as dangerous.
If politicians are going to argue with a straight face that flooding our streets with deadly weapons through concealed carry laws would increase public safety, why shouldn't they want more guns in our schools as well? If granny on the street packing heat makes us safer, why wouldn't we want to provide deadly weapons to kindergartners as well?
Oh, I know. Lasee wouldn't actually arm children, only their teachers.
But we already know children find guns stored in their homes and bring them to school. Teachers storing guns in their desks and supply cabinets simply give kids easier access to more guns.
These teachers whom Republicans want to arm are the same ones they are always trashing as incompetent. The only educators Republicans hate more than public school teachers are college professors. If they're going to give handguns to school teachers, will they make even more powerful weapons available to professors on our college campuses, where the students are larger and harder to bring down?
And are they ready to arm Kevin Barrett, the part-time instructor on Islam at the University of Wisconsin they have identified as Public Enemy No. 1?
Republicans don't trust school teachers to educate our children, but now they want to give them the ultimate power to decide whether children should live or die.
We already have a profession that we arm with deadly weapons and give power over life and death. They are the police.
It is not a power to be given lightly. Training in how and when to use deadly force is the first priority in the police academy. Constant retraining and practice is provided throughout a police officer's career in the interest of protecting public safety.
Despite the constant emphasis on proper training, we have repeatedly had police officers not only endangering public safety, but taking innocent lives. Some officers with a history of excessive use of force should never have been trusted with weapons.
So do we really want to arm the gym teacher who takes sadistic pleasure in humiliating the kids who can't keep up? If we give him a loaded gun, is he going to make the fat kid dance?
The truth is school teachers have a far more important job to do to protect public safety than learning how to blow away kids. That is the job of really educating children.
Who knows how many tragic school shootings have been averted as a result of good teachers doing their jobs and taking an interest in the lives of their students?
The real heroes aren't teachers who gun down children bringing deadly weapons into a school. They are the teachers who care. They are the teachers who know their students well enough to recognize when a child is isolated from his peers or showing signs of depression or explosive anger.
They are also the teachers who simply do their jobs of getting children interested in learning.
They are the ones who prepare children to graduate and succeed in college instead of dropping out of school and sinking into a life of hopelessness and violence.
Teachers are too full of mushy educational theory to be of any value in a crisis.
Seems to me Joel McNally is putting Wisconsin "on the spot". A gross exaggeration, the nation doesn't care Joel.
But to my knowledge, he misrepresents the issue. It isn't arming all teachers, rather allowing those teachers who are qualified and willing to take on the responsibility to be armed. It's common sense. My guess McNally would be happy to have armed security guards in schools. If so, I'm willing to hold teachers to the same hiring and training standards as armed security guards.
Would this guy rather that schools continue to be killing fields for psychos?
The Israelis armed their teachers (and some students) for a reason. It worked.
Somebody has some issues....
/johnny
"So do we really want to arm the gym teacher who takes sadistic pleasure in humiliating the kids who can't keep up? If we give him a loaded gun, is he going to make the fat kid dance?
Somebody has some issues...."
That's obvious. The writer is afraid of guns and seems to be comfortable with idea of just allowing armed predators to slaughter children and nobody fights back.
--you have hit the nail on the head. Mc Nally-as with anybody associated with the Captimes--is incapable of facing the truth--
/johnny
Yeah? Well go on, don't leave us hanging... What happened and how did the armed teachers respond?
And it just occured to me -- Israel has compulsary military duty so all the adult teachers know how to handle a gun and probably have been in combat whereas the only combat situations the teachers in the States faced was probably arguing the merits of teaching our kids liberalism.
The mind of the liberal scares me.
A simple reason, people want to harm your children, you defend them.
Hey, if that's what it takes to get rid of the gum chewers, then I think a case could be made for everyone being armed! (sarc)
Seriously, though, as a person who hates gum chewing (and many of its practitioners), I've often wondered how the h3ll you get them to chew with their mouths closed, much less just get rid of the stuff. I can't stand the sight, the sound, or the smell of gum chewing.
It's alleged that the gum chewer can concentrate better from chewing his or her cud... however, many of the people in close proximity (or even not-so-close proximity) LOSE their concentration and are really bothered, because the gum chewers are so d@mned obnoxious about it.
And I say that not as a teacher, but as someone who dreads taking college classes anymore, and who dreads any form of public transportation (up to and including airplanes) because of these obnoxious @$$holes.
Your earlier idea about cats was better.
I don't understand. This person thinks the gym teacher is a sadistic SOB who would use a gun to humilate children. But that's OK, he can stick around, as long as we really don't give him a gun?
What twisted logic!
We don't want to arm all the teachers.
Just some of the teachers.
Just the Republican teachers.
Say no to the NEA. Say yes to the NRA.
/s/
Two issues there. In Israel, schools were, and children and mothers still are, targets, but the terrorist attacks on schools stopped. Of course they moved to pizza parlors, restaurants places like that.
My guess most Israeli teachers haven't been in combat, but certainly they've served.
The issue isn't arming all teachers.
Personally, my standard would be security guards. Anyone qualified to be hired by a school district as an armed guard, those standards should be applied to teachers. If they qualify, what's the problem? If 5% of the teachers were armed, it would be a deterrant, but more important a force able to intervene.
We could go on to pilots, or bus drivers, or just you and me, but thus far America doesn't perceive that day to day threat.
The only line in this rambling screed that makes any sense.
See 17. The ones qualified, and willing. Which is likely a minority, which is all that is needed.
BTW, I know Democrats I'd be happy to see armed too.
Arm the teachers and watch your taxes go up to pay for the extra insurance.
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