If we’re lucky maybe he’ll eat a Tide Pod…
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Spitballin, and not to sound like Zeb, but if we could get the media to stop plastering the shooters face all over the place and demonstrate we’re not going to immortalize shitbags like this I’d put money down that shootings decrease.
Slight rant over
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I’d throw money down too, but it’ll never happen.
*I believe the piece of shit posted somewhere online he wanted to carry out a school shooting for the infamy.
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Seconded. Pie in the sky wish that media could reach an ethical agreement to not mention his name or show his picture.
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If people stop reading stories about the shootings, or just stop purchasing anything that publishes stories about the shootings, that would be done.
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Agreed.
I’m not one of those “Second Amendment people” (have never touched a real, working firearm) but I could get on board with a proposal that puts an honorably discharged and/or retired military veteran (presumably with some conditions on the person’s service record and current mental status) with an agreed-upon firearm in every public school building for a modest-but-reasonable salary (presumably, adjusted to the area’s cost of living, or could be fixed relative to the median starting salary for a teacher in the district, something like that).
As you said, however, giving any ground in either direction from either side of this issue tends to send the conversation straight down the shithole.
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Armed security is already actively employed in PA. Most local districts (mine, yours, a few others) employ retired police or “community outreach officers”.
Heck, in your district, they could literally run across the street.
You might be able to use volunteers as opposed to paid guards. Heck, use national guard units and other reservists. There aren’t that many schools.
There is already a police officer in many schools. Two issues with having one person designated to handle a problem.
One: in a twenty year career, the chance of this happening at that person’s school is just slightly better than zero. That leads to complacency.
Two: “shoot me first” problem
It would be an almost-purely “feel good” move(edited to add that having even one armed person is still an improvement over a guarantee of absolute safety for a shooter).
In the Marine Corps., and I assume the other branches, there are what’s called B Billets. These are temporary assignments for a specific purpose. There are three main ones; Drill Instructor, Recruiter, and MSG. Add a fourth across all of the branches or expand MSG to include school protection detail.
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I grew up in rural western Washington state (that area is not as rural now, though). I ran across a B&W photo posted online of two rifle-armed gentlemen, one a teacher, the other a student, at my high school, dated 1972 or something close to that. They were posted at the school entrance in response to a phoned-in threat. We all grew up around firearms. Kids had gun racks in their trucks parked in the school lot.
I’m all for training and arming teachers (all willing), taking trained parent volunteers, GUARDING the school. And not just one guy.
The horse is out of the barn on eliminating guns – won’t happen. There are already 500+million guns out there. The viable solution now is to guard the schools.
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How about these:
-Eliminate “gun-free” zones
-Allow a “gun culture” in which seeing a firearm isn’t viewed as reason to call police
Including other people’s private property or just publicly owned gun free zones like schools and parks?
Sent this to my rep. Feel free to use it if you agree.
Dear Mr. Harris,
I am writing you to express my concern regarding the recent shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and to offer a potential action that could be taken to help secure our schools.
I am a staunch supporter of the second amendment and I agree with the SCOTUS’ interpretation of the 2nd as an individual right. As a United States Marine (former), I also fully understand the power and responsibility that comes with firearms and their ownership.
That being said, I believe we have a responsibility to protect our fellow citizens from all threats, both foreign and domestic, and, in good faith, work together to find viable solutions to the problems that we face as a nation.
With that, I propose the following:
In the Marine Corps., and I assume the other branches, there are what are called B Billets. If you’re not familiar, these are temporary assignments for a specific purpose. There are three main ones; Drill Instructor, Recruiter, and MSG. My proposal is to add a fourth billet across all of the branches or to expand MSG to include all of the branches and a school protection detail.
By doing the above we would be able to utilize our highly trained servicemembers as a protective force providing our students, faculties, and administrations both a sense of security and a skilled response unit should the need arise. This proposition also has the added benefit of utilizing resources that we are already paying for limiting the need for additional resources from a budgetary standpoint.
I estimate you would need roughly 280-420 thousand troops, depending on the number of troops placed per in each school, at any given time to support this initiative. Perhaps you could augment any shortage in troops with veteran volunteers.
While the above won’t solve the underlying issues, it should help to mitigate the losses a deranged lunatic would otherwise inflict on our schools. It would also give our politicians a chance to analyze and craft effect legislation to attack the underlying root cause(s) of this problem.
Thank you for your time.
Regards,
Christopher
Semper Fi
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The latter, obviously.
Is the logic behind it that shooters will be less willing to open up on an area if they think the odds someone else is armed is higher than it is now? Or purely a “rights” sense?
Predators attack soft targets. Some potential shooters would be deterred by the likelihood of encountering armed resistance; the ones that aren’t would presumably be dealt with quicker.
People could support such without being presumed to generally support freedom.
I think your second idea is a solution looking for a problem.
Do you subscribe to the theory that there’s a chance things of that nature merely cause an escalation of the attacker to circumvent this new threat?
Eg, people use guns to beat knife fights, bombs to beat gun fights, etcetc
You mean, do I think like the people that leave their cars unlocked because an occasional thief will break windows instead of just looking for the unlocked cars? No.