Posted on 12/31/2012 9:25:35 PM PST by Kaslin
The NRA’s executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, has been the subject of Beltway ire for his proposal to put police officers in schools across the country; the White House, lawmakers, and political analysts on both sides of the aisle have summarily denounced him. Rewind just 13 years, though, and many of these lawmakers were cheering a proposal that bears a remarkable resemblance to the one set forth by the NRA: President Clinton’s “COPS in Schools” program.
In October 1998, Clinton announced the $60 million grant program, which was housed in the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). “This initiative provides communities with a new tool to tackle crime and violence in our schools,” he said. According to the Justice Department, the program was intended to help police officers “engage in community policing in and around primary and secondary schools,” and the government spent over $753 million to hire more than 6,500 school police officers before the COPS in Schools program was cut in 2005.
In the wake of the April 1999 shootings at Columbine High School, Clinton intensified his efforts in behalf of the program and used the first anniversary of the Columbine shooting to announce additional funding. In his weekly radio address on April 16, 2000, Clinton said, “In our national struggle against youth violence, we must not fail our children.” He continued, “Already, [COPS in Schools] has placed 2,200 officers in more than 1,000 communities across our nation, where they are heightening school safety as well as coaching sports and acting as mentors and mediators for kids in need.”
Several of those who are now critical of the NRA’s plan expressed their support for Clinton’s program and benefited from it. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco district was one of the first to receive funding through the program: $3.25 million for 26 new police officers, to be exact. As a whole, California, also home of Dianne Feinstein, received $5.6 million in grants from the COPS in Schools program in 1999 alone.
Touting the grants set to be distributed to several New York state school districts in 2004, Senator Chuck Schumer acknowledged that “we live in a different world now than we did 20, 30, or even three years ago” and said that the new realities are forcing parents to think constantly about the safety of their children. “Getting more police officers on school grounds will go a long way toward making sure our kids stay out of harm’s way,” he said. Schumer assailed the Bush administration’s 2005 budget for doing away with the COPS in Schools program and, in doing so, attested to its efficacy. “Thanks to COPS, people feel safer with their children on the streets today,” he said in a press release in May 2004. “But now the Administration has proposed ending the program and taking away funding to hire thousands of police officers just when they are needed most. Why the Administration would want to rip a hole in that sense of security by slashing COPS funding is beyond me.”
Even one of the leading gun-control advocates in Congress, New York congresswoman and anti-gun activist Carolyn McCarthy, had kind words for the COPS in Schools program. McCarthy’s husband was murdered and her son severely injured in a mass shooting. “Our school safety officers that go in, that is probably one of the best programs I have seen in my underserved schools,” she told the House Committee on Homeland Security in 2007. “Relationships are made. The kids feel safer with them around, and we need to do a better job on that, too.”
On the heels of the NRA’s press conference last week, however, the tune from Democrats on Capitol Hill changed. “Now, trying to prevent shootings in schools without talking about guns is like trying to prevent lung cancer without talking about cigarettes,” Schumer told David Gregory on Meet the Press. If Schumer supports both more restrictive gun-control laws and putting police in schools, he failed to make that clear, and his office did not return a call seeking comment.
Pelosi’s hypocrisy was more blatant. “For the NRA and others to sort of shield themselves by saying it’s the mentally ill or something and therefore we have to have more armed cops in the schools or more guns in the school, it just doesn’t make sense,” she said of the organization’s proposal. Her office did not reply to an e-mail seeking comment. McCarthy, whose office also failed to reply to an e-mail seeking comment, charged that the NRA is “out of touch” with the American people.
As for Feinstein, she’s looking to team up with President Clinton in order to draft the gun-control legislation she plans to introduce on the Senate floor. “President Clinton called, and if there’s anything he can do to help, he will do it,” she said in a press conference. Perhaps the former president will refresh her memory about the solution that he and other Democrats embraced to combat gun violence when the political winds were blowing in a different direction.
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads, even using my name, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
?Your right it is much safer to just allow them to go to malls, churches, and movie theaters. there has never ever been any kind of mass shooting at any of those, NEVER, EVER!
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads, even using my name, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
This is neither polite nor respectful. it is rude. Polite and respectful would be to answer the question.
Now I politely and respectfully request that you address the matter.
Also note that you are not part of a ping list, but there are others that would like to see you actually address the matter.
If you do not wish to have a civilized conversation, you should not post on public forums.
Otherwise, YOU should be polite and respectful and answer questions posed to you in a civilized manner.
The other option is to simply ignore, rather than burn up band-width with a public refusal.
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads, even using my name, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads. You have permission to use my name on any thread or post, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
I suggest we do as she asks - in time she will be seen for what she is - an opinionated know-nothing.
Anyone who makes as outlandish statements as she does and then refuses to back them up doesn’t deserve anything but the same contempt we heap upon liberals who make outlandish statements and then seek to change the subject when confronted.
Firstly, responding to the thread:
1. I see armed police in private establishments all the time, such as the grocery store I once worked in and at the movie theaters;
2. I have seen armed police at public establishments, such as churches when they needed help with funerals, weddings, etc.
3. We, my school, have TWO fully licensed, sworn and trained deputy sheriffs with full arrest powers on campus, at all sporting events and activities.
These men are there to provide necessary protection to the student body and the school. It does not bother me in the least.
Additionally, I have a CCW, am fully armed and working on becoming an excellent shot with a rifle. If I can hit a playing card at 300 meters, I am good.:)
I do not and will not carry at school because of the liability and the fact too many students are involved. This does not mean I am opposed to teachers carrying, but I will not at school or a school function.
There - that part of this is settled.
The second part - dealing with the ravenous homeschool crowd (and I use the term crowd to mean a collective, not an individual entity) I feel the same way about homeschooling as I always have: if it is what is best for you and your family, I am for it. I have, to boot, several pieces of hard evidence to support its effectiveness based on state mandated testing, not anecdotal commentary.
My child’s physician is homeschooling their oldest child and I am in the process of helping them with her. She has a severe reading disability and needs help beyond the scope of our rural county (This, as an aside, is the same physician who referred my son to Atlanta and Egleston Children’s Hospital for myocarditis. He was/is wise enough to realize when he is out-gunned.) so I am trying to help them as much as possible.
I have personally offered my services to the homeschool community in my area as a language teacher, Latin, for their cohort. No answer yet, but I continue to offer.
So, where am I going with all of this? I refer back to my digression about my child and physician.
My child’s personal pediatrician admitted to my wife that Jake’s, my son, condition was *well* outside of the scope of his skill. Had he not referred us, the outcome was very, very dire - no, Jake would have been dead.
A medical professional admitted, honestly and forthright, that he could not answer a question. He did not equivocate, egress or ignore but instead handed us into the hands of someone who could help.
That said, this is directed to Dr. Wintertime.
Dr. Wintertime, you have, elsethread and on more than one occasion, commented on how professional teachers would not and do not need to avoid hard and serious questions with students. I fully agree. You are right; I do not avoid the hard questions. If I do not know, I am fast to admit it to my children at school and home. There is no run or ask to be ignored.
However, as a medical professional, would you ignore a patient who is seeking your medical expertise and experience? Would you politely and respectfully ask them to leave your presence and not bother you further?
Is it fair to ask difficult and hard to answer questions of teachers but not to do the same of medical professionals?
And as you consider/do not consider my answer, I leave you with this: I guarantee, and will provide empirical evidence, not anecdotal evidence, that the history of the medical profession is considerably more tainted with negativity and damage than the same of public education. However, this is not the topic nor the thread to discuss.
I await your response, keenly.
To Dr. Wintertime and the rest: Happy New Year.
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads. You have permission to use my name on any thread or post, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
As far as cops in schools, I'm not a fan at all. But then I'm not a fan of having a crazy person blast their way in with the intent to kill children.
In addition, I am even LESS of a fan of the current plan in our school system wherein teachers (including myself) will be stationed at the entrance to check ID's and to alert the office in case of trouble. I WILL NOT be standing such a post. In the event of trouble I am the last person anyone wants there. The early warning system will be me, dead on the floor. Not to mention, in the event I let someone in who did great harm, how would I live with that? I couldn't. Manning a security post is not what I'm trained for in any sense of the word. Will not do it.
As far as the rest of your post... somewhat surprised that Dr. Wintertime would refuse to answer a well-written, well-reasoned post. One that was polite, kind, and supportive.
This type of closed-mindedness is not typically seen among the intellectual elite, but rather those with lower intellectual abilities. As in, I cannot respond to you, therefore I will simply put my fingers in my ears and turn away from the discussion.
I, for one, have EXTREME doubt as to her claims of her previous profession. I DO NOT believe that she is or ever was a member of the medical profession beyond that of a basic tech. Her words, arguments, and even basic syntax, grammar, and spelling have never supported this claim.
I have pinged her in this post for the simple reason that it is protocol. I understand I will get the ‘cut and paste do-not-post-to-me-notice” and I accept that as the price of common courtesy. My level of courtesy is not reflective or determined by another, but by what I know to be right. It is not necessary to ping that to me, but of course, you may as I have no control over your actions.
In short, people who post on public forums should be open to discussion, or they should not post.
The next ‘cut and paste’ statement will most likely be brought to you by “Dr.” Wintertime
Enjoy
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads. You have permission to use my name on any thread or post, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
Got it...like the time you asked the moderator to tell me to NOT private message you, then you continued to private message me.
Just like that
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads. You have permission to use my name on any thread or post, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
Dr. Wintertime:
I will, following this post, certainly acquiesce to your request. It is reasonable and without a doubt fair. I am a gentleman, fancy myself a scholar (at least Florida State felt me worthy enough to award me a Masters degree in Latin) so it is only right to show deference to one that is my senior in age and education.
Henceforth I will:
* Not respond to vitriol and condemnation of the career I feel faith has led me to;
* Overlook previous threads of complaints to administration over inabilities to responds to posts/threads;
* Stand idly by and watch for anecdotal evidence that furthers absolutely no discussion;
* Bear witness to an obvious double standard of postings;
* Hear how I am destined to rot for my decisions to send my children to public schools and work in the same;
* Am Godless and ignoring the words of Christ (which is funny, because I do preach the Gospel on occasion)
* Read posts that seek to hear their own echos
* Be accused of Alinsky-like tactics;
* Called, indirectly, a Marxist and Useful Idiot;
* Ignore obvious cognitive dissonance;
* Be accused of a complete lack of professionalism, while watching the same unfold before me;
* Read how everything is wrong with public education but take no steps to resolve them;
* Try to see how a thing that lacks a soul can be evil;
* Accept anecdotal evidence as empirical;
* See there is but one way to properly educate all children, regardless of any extraneous factors;
* Watch those who are challenged in a fair exchange run and flee
* Realize that all bullies get what is coming to them in the end - especially when they are called out for who they are;
* Learn that good ideas do win, because people are not stupid;
* And lastly,
Read my tagline.
I respectfully request that you not ping me or send private mail to me. Please feel free to comment as you like on my posts or threads. You have permission to use my name on any thread or post, but, please, no contact.
Politely and respectfully,
wintertime
You’re good!!!!
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