Who could have guessed that having more guns in schools might not work out great? Perhaps having even less professionally-trained teachers is the solution. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sean-mccutcheon-officer-gun-suspended.php?ref=fpa Officer Who Fired Shot In New York High School Suspended HIGHLAND, N.Y. (AP) — A New York town that began assigning an armed police officer to guard a high school in the wake of the Connecticut massacre has suspended the program after an officer accidentally discharged his pistol in a hallway while classes were in session. Lt. James Janso of the Lloyd police department tells media outlets Officer Sean McCutcheon will be suspended while an investigation continues. McCutcheon was assigned to the high school in the Hudson Valley town of Highland in January. Janso says the program has been suspended for now. There were no staff members or students nearby when the weapon went off just after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Nobody was hurt. A message was left at a phone number listed in McCutcheon’s name. Lloyd is in Ulster County, 65 miles south of Albany. Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
People who back the idea that "more good guys with guns in schools will prevent shootings in schools" forgot one key element. Negligent discharges occur more often than school shootings.
Not opposed to having either armed guards in schools or an adjacent, dedicated police substation; and not sure how this story is anything but anecdotal, or even worthy of reporting outside of the local community. But before staffing the schools each district should probably make some statistical incident risk analyses with an honest eye towards income and demographics. This is the kind of thing private schools and for-profit education vendors (who make just as much off of home-schooling as they do online degree mills) probably just love.
Yeah, because normal people just "snap" for no reason. Anyways, we've had armed guards in schools for years. Nobody ever advocated hiring guards who are clumsy and/or inept for the job.
Normal people do snap, and it's far more common than some grotesque evil villain plotting to kill lots of people. The bad guys in real life aren't criminal masterminds like the Joker or Dennis Hopper in Speed - they're more like wounded animals who are snapping back at the world. I'm not excusing what they do (nor am I suggesting they shouldn't be punished), but the failure of gun nuts to comprehend the psychological profiles of most shooters is why their ideas for gun "safety" (more armed people, no purchasing restrictions) are going to fail.
The worst that will happen (besides the idea of someone just overpowering a guard and getting a gun that they didn't have already) is that these types of accidental shootings will get someone killed rather than just be a stray bullet in an empty hallway. And given how many accidental shootings there are annually, this will probably happen multiple times. And still may not stop a crazy person with an assault rifle, since they would probably target the armed guard first.
I thought of this right away. <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AmRN00KbCr8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> I am not philosophically opposed to having more armed guards in schools and think it makes sense in rural schools where police are not close at hand. That said there needs to be a lot of safeguards.
One question, if there's an armed guard in a school and some kid is determine to shoot up the school, wouldn't the guard be the first target?
This guy was a police officer. If he was idiotic enough to be handling his firearm in the hallway of a school, I hope he quickly becomes an ex-police officer. I suppose I don't have a huge problem with having trained police officers at a school for protection against the highly unlikely event that a lunatic comes to the school to murder people, but this doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the idea.
Am I the only one that went to a school district with a dedicated police force, including officers in the school? That was 15 years ago. In a suburban district.
I was pretty decided on this issue until a friend pointed out that nobody speaks out against metal detectors and armed guards in urban predominately African American schools. Most of us think it is a good idea. Hmmm...
This confuses me each time I hear it. Are they teaching economics, engineering, or history in the gun store?
