No, Let’s Not Turn Schools Into Garrisons

By Scott Galupo • December 17, 2012, 4:02 PM

The Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, about which I’ve refrained from commenting for lack of anything useful to say, has occasioned a debate about the need for renewed gun-control legislation at the national level. That’s fine. I’m doubtful that advocates will have much to show, legislatively speaking, after this outcry subsides. And with any luck, mass shootings will continue to be a rare occurrence and schools will remain the statistically safest place children can be.

Such, at any rate, is the reasonable, conservative/civil-libertarian case against overreaction.

Here’s a conservative version of the case for overreaction (via the blogger Econophile):

Arm some teachers and staff members so they can protect themselves and our children. I know this will get a big reaction from those against firearms, but think it through in light of the reality of the issues that I have outlined. It is not possible to prevent these tragic shootings before they happen, so should we leave our children unprotected while some maniac walks around and shoots them at will?

BigHollywood’s John Nolte agreed, tweeting: “Why are schools not treated like airplanes as far as security? Are we going to ban mega-clips and then remove air marhsals [sic]?” And: “Why are airplanes secured with armed personnel but not schools? We’ve stopped hijackings and terrorism. All Left wants tho is gun control.”

So let me see if I have this straight: more gun control is tantamount to creeping tyranny, but succumbing to hysteria and fear and calling for armed teachers is a blow for freedom.

Okaaaaaay.

Posted in Crime, Culture, Politics. Tagged gun control, John Nolte, Sandy Hook.

17 Responses to No, Let’s Not Turn Schools Into Garrisons

TomB says:

December 17, 2012 at 5:15 pm

Scott Galupo wrote:

“And with any luck, mass shootings will continue to be a rare occurrence and schools will remain the statistically safest place children can be.”

And:

“So let me see if I have this straight: more gun control is tantamount to creeping tyranny, but succumbing to hysteria and fear and calling for armed teachers is a blow for freedom.”

So let me see, Scott, if we have *you* straight: Because it’s not simply sitting back doing nothing and relying on the “luck” that you yourself are willing to take your chances on, it’s “succumbing to hysteria and fear” to do something that’s merely along the same lines of what’s made other locales so demonstrably safer.

Okaay then right back at you.

Did it ever strike you that maybe at least in part it’s *because* schools are places where these nuts are least likely to encounter immediate effective resistance (so allowing them the maximum time to act out their fantasies) that this may well have contributed to *why* they have taken their acts to schools?

And why ought we not take your logic where it leads and dispense with air marshals and armed guards at malls and sporting events and entertainment venues and etc. and just go back to trusting to your “luck”?
icarusr says:

December 17, 2012 at 5:21 pm

You mean Nick Nolte, right?
TooManyJens says:

December 17, 2012 at 6:09 pm

“Why are schools not treated like airplanes as far as security?”

Nothing says “FREEDOM!” like modeling normal everyday activities on airport security.
Bob Jones says:

December 17, 2012 at 6:21 pm

Ironically, from what I have read on this particular case (and granted it may be inaccurate, I haven’t had the time to check it thoroughly), the gun control laws of the State of Connecticut did prevent the shooter from obtaining a fire arm. He apparently refused to fill out the paper work for a background check and walk away. However, his gun-loving, survivalist mother, who had guns freely available in the house, made the massacre possible.

If these facts hold true, then how can you argue that gun control laws are useless, and more weapons will stop the problem?
YIH says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:07 pm

On a friend’s blog he posted a pic of an Israeli grade school showing what appeared to be a teacher with a rifle slung over her shoulder.
I commented ”this is standard operating procedure in Israeli schools since the early 70′s because they were being shot up by maniacs”.
But I also noted ”and she likely had training in the IDF in how to effectively use that rifle” and ”saying ‘oh just let teachers carry’ would likely mean they would have little or no training and would be ineffective at best” which is likely what would happen.
But the title of this post is the issue isn’t it? The idea that we will have to live in an ”armed camp America” (schools, malls, even movie theaters).
Mark J says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:22 pm

@Bob Jones Given the facts you pose, my question is this – given that the shooter could not buy a gun but managed to obtain the firepower necessary to work his evil in any event, what good will more gun control laws do?
DavidT says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:23 pm

Let’s see: public school teachers, according to the Right, are parasitical union goons who are ruining education. However, we can trust them with guns in the classroom!
EngineerScotty says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:28 pm

A big difference between airliners and schools is that public schools cannot be hijacked and crashed into skyscrapers…
Rob Bright says:

December 17, 2012 at 8:56 pm

Interesting perspective. The presence of guns turns a school into a garrison? What’s wrong with that? The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have thought there was anything wrong with it:

Richard Henry Lee, Virginia delegate to the Continental Congress, Initiator of the Declaration of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights: “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”

Patrick Henry: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”

George Mason: “I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.”

James Madison: “A WELL REGULATED militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”

Richard Henry Lee: “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms.”

George Washington: “Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference — they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”

Thomas Jefferson: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government”

I could go on… but few in this country want a position as “extreme” as the Founders took. The issue is not the relative rarity of the event – it’s the fact that the event could, in fact, occur at any time. Are you going to be prepared for it, or just hope that it doesn’t happen at your school?
William Dalton says:

December 17, 2012 at 10:04 pm

I don’t think schools will be better off with armed guards on every hallway, and allowing teachers to keep firearms in their classrooms will be either useless in case of attack (hold on while I unlock the gun cabinet) or will result in more mayhem committed by students playing with what they shouldn’t than by armed intruders.

But neither do I think it necessary to continue the current rule of “no tolerance” for firearms, even those kept in a student’s car trunk, which results in a year-long suspension and criminal prosecution. Years ago, school rules forbade loaded firearms in the classroom, but no one thought to bring in the police unless a student actually offered violence. Show and tell of daddies’ trophies of war were commonplace. Incidences of mass killings were not.
Russell Seitz says:

December 18, 2012 at 12:18 am

As with DHS, the policy reaction is disproportionate to the threat.

In the last two decades, lightning strikes have claimed twice as many lives as school and college shootings, yet calls for grounding chains for aluminum softball bats and Faraday cages over soccer fields are few.
Bob says:

December 18, 2012 at 1:15 am

@Rob Bright:

Just because the Founding Fathers believed in the right to bear arms does not mean that they believed that everybody should possess a firearm, wherever they go, and act like everyone else around them is not to be trusted.

But that’s exactly what people are asking for when it comes to comparing “teachers must carry guns” to “but we have airport security screenings.” The fact is, the way airport screenings are handled basically says, “Everyone is a possible terrorist threat.”

And if the Founding Fathers were alive today, I can safely say that many of those you quoted, while they would find school shootings disturbing, would find heightened airport security just as disturbing.

I absolutely believe banning all firearms would do no good but “arm everyone, no matter what” does no good either. When the Founding Fathers talked about the right to bear arms, they did not envision the idea that every single public place needed the equivalent of armed guards or soldiers walking around. Yet that is the road we will start going down if we start insisting everyone who works in a public place… be it teachers or anyone else… better carry a gun at all times because we think it’s the only way we will “feel safe.”
Charlie says:

December 18, 2012 at 1:53 am

Interesting perspective. The presence of guns turns a school into a garrison? What’s wrong with that? The Founding Fathers wouldn’t have thought there was anything wrong with it

Those “quotations” from Washington and Jefferson sounded phony to me and, sure enough, a couple minutes of Googling confirms that they’re well-known fabrications. So I’m reluctant to trust you as an authority on what the Founding Fathers would or wouldn’t have thought.

Leaving aside made-up “evidence,” there’s a difference between widespread gun ownership (which the Founding Fathers saw no problem with, and which doesn’t bother me, either) and treating public schools like prisons or airports. Do you think we’re going to instill a spirit of liberty in our children by having them go to school under the watch of armed guards? That’s what the commentators Galupo’s quoting are advocating–there’s a vast difference between that and possibly allowing people with concealed carry permits to legally bring guns onto school property.
EliteCommInc. says:

December 18, 2012 at 7:28 am

When the first hots were fired, most people thought it a series of firecrackers nobody moved. There was a universal and collective reflex jerk of a head, a sudden hunch from the waste or the knees, a quick shimmiee behind a rack of clothes . . . but soon it was quite apparent that the sound was not firecrackers. From the north end of the mall, a wave of people stormed south. As if wild horses they came. And as they moved south, their numbers grew . . . fathers clutching wives . . . fathers, dragging their childen. People of every age, leaping over benches, crashing into kiosks . . . saddled with purses, shopping bags . . . the firecrackers continued in the background. Just past Nordstrums, the wave dissipated into a small mob as people split left and right exiting left and right.

Of course they weren’t firecrackers, nor cherry bombs. It was the unmistakeable clat, clat, clat of gunfire. As the mob raced forward. It became apparent that not everyone was running in the same direction. Dodging between the fleeing patrons, north with equal speed about twenty headed toward the sound of the gunfire. Which had now become a constant reverberating echo of clatting, and backfires . . . The sound no longer did the clattering and backfires come from the noth section. But the bounced along the walls of the second and third floors. And what had been unnoricedd before — now competed for space — the sceams and shouts and cry, and groans, and swearing, and condemnations, and pleas and pleading, and dispair and commands . . . and prayer.

It took more than a week for authorities to understand the basics of what occurred that December 20th, at the Schoefield Mall. But one thing was certain, no one had a clue who initiated the shooting. Was it Mrs Swanson in the Toys R Us, Miss Simms in TJ Max, Bill White in Macy’s, there seemed to be an endless list of possibilities. And it seemed unikely, the accounting exec, Tom Hickees, who apparently shot Science teacher Kalene Myers, who may or may or may not have shot Justine Crowely was a terrorist or even knew Rick Tensil who was the boyriend of 20 year old Susan Dale both armed and both lying dead on the second floor in front of Boots for Tots on the opposite causeway from Rick tinsel.

But almost everyone had a valid gun permit. It appears everyone was standing there ground.
Wes says:

December 18, 2012 at 12:54 pm

YIH,

The teachers would have concealed-carry permits, which means that they would most likely have gone through firearems training and safety courses and as teachers would hopefully also receive extra advanced training.

William Dalton:

“allowing teachers to keep firearms in their classrooms will be either useless in case of attack (hold on while I unlock the gun cabinet)”

“Concealed carry,” usually means that a person carries a gun concealed on their person. A principal might keep it in his or her desk, but a teacher who has to walk around the classroom would hopefully keep his or her gun on their person.
SnowCrash7 says:

December 18, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Arming selected, volunteer teachers and staff is the ONLY solution to the issue. When you ‘ban’ guns the only thing created is a self-defence free zone. The current ‘guidelines’ for an active shooter in the schools actually tell the teacher to ‘throw a book’ at the criminal. Seriously?
The police response to active shooters has greatly evolved since Columbine and they now assume a much more aggressive posture when responding. Its time that school staff follow suit.
The selected teachers would have to be able to acquire or already possees a concealed carry license, undergo constant training in not only shooting but first aid and crisis management and be privided with special non-richochet, minimally penetrating ammunition.
Place an armed guard in the school and he would be the first taken out. So keeping the gunman guessing as to who might be armed is the best way to go. Israel implemented this in the their schools some time agao and a previous active shooter crisis completely dissapeared. A Texas school district is doing it and a sherrif in St Louis is advocating it.
It does occur to me that this also might be a good way for districts to employ combat experienced veterans who could be placed in the schools in civiian dress and carry concealed.
George says:

December 18, 2012 at 5:23 pm

I hear that the bodies of teachers were found protecting the kids….tell me, was that part of their contract, along with collective bargaining or were they negotiated separately?