No. Like I already stated, the training and tactics should be the responsibility of the state police. They are the professionals. No amount of being “informed” is going to give a state lawmaker the equivalent of the 10-20 years of training and experience of an officer.
If or when a teacher is involved in a shooting, his or her instructors and the doctrines they taught will undoubtedly be thoroughly examined by the court. If those doctrines are flawed, the state police can make adjustments without having to wait for action by the legislature.
If better tactics or technology come along, the state police should be able to integrate those as quickly as possible, without having to wait for the state legislature.
Every defensive shooting, whether by the police or a civilian always gets dragged through the courts. Carrying a firearm is a huge responsibility, and liability. That seriousness should be in the forefront of every armed citizen’s mind, a weight on their shoulders. Anything that lessens that burden is a step in the wrong direction.
I’m for allowing teachers, who go through and maintain a very serious training regimen to be armed. But realistically I think the vast majority of teachers will not be up to it, and in the end there will only be a handful per school that qualify.
During World War 2 the French resistance “citizens” used arms at their disposal to fight regular troops. The most famous example being the liberator pistol. The US/Brits also supplied the French with some explosives and machine guns.
The French had placed all their faith in the Maginot Line, which the Germans flew right over, hence the need for the resistance.
You dodged my question. Will the US be the most powerful nation on earth forever, in your opinion?
NVA was an conventional army, first and foremost. Apples and oranges.
As for the second part, Viet Cong was a spent force after the Tet offensive and the NVA basically took over from the. Oh yes, the Vietnamese suffered around one million casualties until the US gave up.
All of which sounds cool. But day 1 of armed teachers has to exist. And I can’t imagine what level of irresponsible teacher it would take to take up arms without a clear-cut definition of when they are allowed to use lethal force and NOT abandon their families by way of going to prison.
The verbiage I’ve seen of the bill (quoted multiple times above) is so vague I’d be fuckin terrified if I was a teacher.
For point of reference, I’ve texted the 2 teachers in my local metro that I know personally. The woman works k-3 at a ritsy private school (and has no intention of ever taking up arms) and the man is a math teacher at a local ghetto HAS (and has no intention of taking up arms when he doesn’t know under what circumstances he’s in the clear).
I’m not positing these questions out of my ass. I’m echoing a local teacher and I couldn’t find a way to say “well you’re wrong about how vague it is, it means THIS” because tbh everything I’ve read is super vague
But they did endure that. What about the Mujahadeen vs the Russians? Same situation, different land mass. I’m not saying that anyone’s absolute best hope is untrained peasants with silly rifles. You’d always prefer a standing army right? But keeping the arms is at least a hedge against things going sideways.
The argument that arms can be used by citizens in the event of martial law or occupation seems odd when you live in a peaceful, prosperous nation. We will not always be a peaceful and prosperous nation. It’s important to preserve individual liberty (speech, arms, association etc… ) for the next generations. They are most important when the shtf. And it will hit the fan, if history teaches us anything. Maybe after our lifetimes. Maybe 200 years from now. But it will hit the fan.
That would be part of the training. Every state in the union already has laws about the use of deadly force in self-defense and the defense of others. It’s part of the training of CCW’ers get. Which is in my opinion not nearly in depth enough. There are books written on the subject, like Andrew Branca’s Law of Self-Defense, which I strongly recommend.
But there’s never been and never will be an easy cut and dry answer to when it’s ok to use deadly force. We’re talking about decisions of life and death that have to be made in a split second, under the greatest imaginable stress. There have been numerous videos of police shootings lately thar have been controversial for one reason or another.
So leave it up to the commandants of the State Police. They’re the one who carry this burden everyday they put on their badge and gun. They are already held accountable. And beyond that, it’ll be up to the juries. I would hope that any teachers who take on the responsibility of going armed would have the legal backing of their union, and their school district, but if I were them I would look at some of the private legal insurance options like USCCA.
LEOs can pretty easily look at the history of law enforcement and trials and get a damn accurate picture of what/when certain things are going to send you to prison.
If we’re applying that same judgement criteria to teachers, cool (although we don’t know). If we’re not applying that same judgement to teachers, also cool (although we don’t know).
I’m just not sure how Florida expects its teachers to pick up arms to defend schools with zero notion as to what’s acceptable. Leaving it up to state police (also not in the law to my knowledge) as far as criteria still just leaves question marks.
I’m yet to talk to a teacher who’s willing to accept these question marks given the alternative could be life in prison.
As someone who has experienced something similar first hand - went from worrying about the release date of Nirvana’s next album to drunken paramilitaries arguing whether I’m too young to be executed alongside others in less than a month - I can tell you that the myth of the armed populace doesn’t translate well into the real world.
The equivalent of tactical bros last hours and can only trade horrendous casualties for a little time. You’d be surprised, but personal firearms aren’t very effective against T-72s and 155 mm howitzers.
Even if the underdog starts offering effective resistance it’s always a nucleus of conventional forces (army, police, SWAT…) on which resistance hinges in critical moments.
Back in the Revolutionary days it was - “we’ve got muskets and the occasional cannon, they’ve got muskets and some cannons” but in the mean time it has evolved into a much more dramatic disparity in terms of firepower.
And the alternative is what? Immediate execution or internment.
300 million privately owned firearms Vs. 1 million active duty personnel at least half of which man a desk. I don’t think the disparity is as bad as you think. Even Adolf Hitler wouldn’t nuke his own country.
I’m sorry you had to go through that. I can’t imagine what society falling apart around me would be like.
The arms don’t just hedge against standing armies or “tyrrany”. They also hedge against looters and violent civilians basically eating each other (see Venezuela or South Africa).
Your point about factions of the police and military making up the bulk of any “resistance” is well taken. Most of our veterans own some arms, and I’m sure good cops would join up to. I hope to never have to worry about this crap in my lifetime.
Your point about T72’s and Artillery vs small arms is exactly what the Viet Cong and the Mujahadeen were up against. You can’t hold a country with an armed populace that doesn’t want held, without genocide.
If there ever comes a time where US troops actively kill US citizens it will be in another civil war not a totalitarian crack, imo. That being the case, the military will be split into at least two groups as well.
And I’ve been saying that we’re talking about giving those armed teachers 40 or more hours of training, continuing education hours, re-qualifying at the range twice a year.
If they want “more than zero notion” it would be acceptable to use deadly force, then read books, sit through many hours of lectures, read case law. You might have a clue then. And even then, in the heat of the moment there is no guarantee that their split second decision would be the right one.
Your teacher friends sound like they’re looking for the perfect, lowest common denominator answer, in a hundred words or less. Or a get out of jail free card. Sorry, there isn’t one.
Again. Put the state police in charge of training teachers who want to be armed. Let them design the training program and make the rules of engagement, which will evolve over time, with experience. I wouldn’t arm teachers until such a program is in place.
It happens extremely fast. Much, much faster than you’d expect.
Yes, but this is not a gun vs. no gun debate. It’s about a dangerous fantasy that AR-15s and other weapons gun lovers stockpile are somehow a bulwark against tyranny or, even worse, an effective method of resistance in case of an armed confrontation with a state or para-state entity. A criminal is one thing, an enemy soldier another.
If anything, with a handgun you’re aware that it’s simply a handgun, but an AR-15 with a drum provides a false sense of power in an armed conflict.
It’s never clear cut. No one, including the Nazis, didn’t announce their plans beforehand. “Dear Americans, we’ll be starting our tyrannical government soon and begin oppressing you. Prepare in advance”
And the military leaders throughout history have developed very established practices to handle a conundrum such as this. Always divide-and-conquer, trying to isolate specific groups and mete out draconian punishments as part of a carrot-and-stick approach.
Yes you can. Shitholes such as Yemen and Afghanistan can take huge military and civilian casualties and still resist, others cannot - as nations technologically progress their casualty taking capacity drops down dramatically.
In WW1 Ottoman Empire (Turkey) was taking absurd casualties in the Caucasus and in the Galipoli campaign. Now, a hundred years later the entire country is freaking out over 13 soldiers killed in a single day in Northern Syria.
No, of course not. I don’t expect an announcement, but there are always signs. That’s not the point, though. The point is, if you disarm now then it’s a moot point anyway as the check against this type of aggression is gone.
That’s fine, but that doesn’t change anything in my mind. You can be armed and prepared and probably die, but have a chance and, more importantly, your family have a chance. Or be disarmed and die immediately, or be interned, or be subjugated just to survive. Personally, I’ll take the former.
Are they? Or are they actually just asked to respond to situations most are not? A lot of Police shootings appear bad because the reason for intial contact is not one in which an average citizen would be justified placing himself.