I'm sure it was. I've always agreed that an armed police officer at a school is a solid idea.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Sorry, I misinterpreted what you were trying to say.

I believe your hearts in the right place Sonic but the guns aren’t just going to disappear, nor does it look like we're going to run out of these lunatics. We need real solutions to protect our kids and we need them right now. The politics can follow, but like I said, the guns aren’t just going to disappear from our society.

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"Our Quarterback is a Bad Man!" - Michael Robinson

Why? Are guns so much less likely to go off by themselves when they're in the possession of a cop instead of a non-cop?

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It is their job to be law enforcement. It is a teachers job to teach. I don't expect a police officer to be a teacher and I don't expect a teacher to handle a gun.

And like I said before, even if you had a militia of teachers that were always armed that would have maybe stopped only a few of these school shootings considering most of them were 1-3 people shot.

Putting multiple guns in school is not the answer.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Learning more than one skill is hard!

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

It is for and according to Sonic, apparently.

Ok, let's work this out logically.

Ms. Sanders the first grade teacher has a gun. Where is it? Always on her? Separated into pieces? Locked up? Do you think a bunch of interested little boys and girls working together won't get into this? She's going to get everything together in a stressful situation, safely hide the kids, put the gun together and then put a nice well aimed shot at the head of the shooter (they do wear bulletproof vests nowadays)? Does that sound like something that works?

Let's look at the firemen's example. Do we equip teachers with a hose? Do we teach them how to be firefighters? No. We put fireproof materials, we have procedures. There are plenty of things we should do that have absolutely nothing to do with bringing more firearms into the school.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Do you think it would be a good idea to spend your company's money training for a situation like this? Give everyone a gun in your office? You know, in case someone goes postal? Do you think the problem in this country is that we don't have enough guns?

I don't teach my developers how to use photoshop/illustrator. I don't teach my designers .net, ruby or django. It's not their job, it would take away from what they do best and what they could improve on.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Sonic,

Do you believe that limiting the TYPE of guns out on the street, such as what will likely be pushed through Congress soon, will stop gun violence, or will it take a complete ban? I'm just looking for where you are at with this particular portion of the issue.

IMO any sort of gun ban is only agenda based politics. It won't make anyone any safer. There are ways to make classrooms safer, but banning certain types of guns won't do it, and banning all guns isn't an option.

I've already admitted in previous posts that any type of ban on a single type of weapon is purely symbolic in it's result. I mean, beyond the obvious grenade launcher/fully automatics.

What I want, which is a complete removal of firearms is unfortunately unrealistic.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

I guess then what i really am curious about is, are you going to press your senators/representatives to push for better school safety and forgo the push for gun control laws that will not do anything to actually protect the kids from another one of these incidents occurring?

What I'm saying basically, is I think we, as Americans need to write our representatives in Congress and tell them we want real solutions, not political ones. Banning a certain size clip or a certain gun won't stop an event like this, but making mental health more accessible, less a stigma, and making schools safer is where the focus needs to be. Do you agree? Or will you be happy if they just come out swinging with gun control legislation?

Honestly, our kids are pretty safe in most schools. An overreaction like arming teachers which only asks for more trouble is not the answer. Using heavier, locked doors may be an answer, who knows.

I'm not going to be happy with any kind of symbolic reform. Most of the things we do are half assed because anything that would really solve the problem would be exxxxppppeeennnsssssiiivvveeee.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Going back a few days to Sailor's posted article on Fire protection in schools. This isn't cheap whatsoever. In my job, I have to work with different scopes of government construction project. There is a lot of money spent on Fire Code safety in all government buildings, and there's a lot of security measures built into non school government buildings, so why not build security measures into the new schools? There have been hundreds, if not thousands of new schools built across this country since the "epidemic" of school shootings began, and even before that there have been other violence issues, why not build safety into the design of all new schools? This would add only a small portion to the overall cost, and when building the schools, there could likely be ways to work that cost so it doesn't actually increase the overall cost more than a very minor percentage.

Nobody's suggesting we arm ALL the teachers. As has been said, look for volunteers with backgrounds in military or law enforcement. I know of at least three in my school alone (myself included), and we're a tiny 170-kid operation in the middle of nowhere.

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GO HAWKS!!!

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Sounds smart to me.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

Well if we can come together to agree that this would be a good starter point, then it's certain to not even get brought up by the politicians in charge

Doing something "small" like that wouldn't be enough action for the droves of morons who want something huge done right away. Politicians know that unless they are asking for everything their constituents aren't happy.

Although I will say something like this will probably get passed quietly and we'll never know about it because it's not a huge overreaction.

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RIP ROAD WOES 12/2/2012

I agree, we can't force teachers into this. As has been pointed out, some districts already allow teachers to voluntarily carry on school grounds and there has yet to be any problem stemming from it. If a school district wishes to go this route, they should definitely be allowed.

I also think that there will be districts in areas where they won't want this. If that is the case, let them decide how to best protect them. They can pay for a police presence or security personnel.

The whole point here is that if we are to learn anything from this tragedy, it's that we can do more to protect the kids. Gun control laws aren't going to accomplish this. About the only thing that Congress can do about this is to open up availability of mental health care, and possibly create better building codes for building new schools to insure they are a safe place for kids to be.

Let's allow local school districts to figure out what combination of security protocols work best in their situations and let's have Congress not try to push their political agenda on us while pretending it's to protect the children.

People shouldn't need to hear anything from Congress on the actual protection in schools issues. They can work on the legislation as we've discussed, but let local districts discuss and implement safety plans with community input. Congress need not be involved for the best work to get done.

Whatever Congress does in the name of this tragedy, won't be for child safety, it'll just be to further one agenda or another.

I don't think you are capable of working this out logically, because your anti-gun bias blinds you.

In this scenario, Ms. Sanders has experience with guns, has volunteered, and has passed psychological and proficiency tests. She is very accurate. Now, where does she keep her gun? On her person, at all times. Hip holster or shoulder holster. And it's loaded.

Why do you even posit that her gun would be locked up or disassembled? Of course that wouldn't work! That's just idiotic.

We don't equip teachers with hoses, but we certainly equip teachers with fire extinguishers. Do you think teachers are incapable of putting out fires? Why do you have such a low opinion of teachers? Hell, I put out a car fire one time, about 10 minutes before a firetruck arrived. (Actually, I have done it three times -- twice with my own car.) It is exactly the same idea -- a civilian in a position to respond immediately can have a far greater impact on a situation, when the problem is still small enough to handle, than the professionals who can't get there until a lot more damage has occurred.

Seriously, this compartmentalization fixation you have is bizarre. Cross-training happens all the the time. I don't see you suggesting that firemen can't be medics, or that cops can't fight fires. Those are not their primary jobs, perhaps, but that doesn't mean they aren't fully capable of doing them.

You obviously have no military experience. Besides your irrational opposition to guns, your lack of military experience is revealed in your steadfast insistence that jobs be segregated. People in the military, if they serve for at least one full enlistment, are trained in multiple jobs, and they have to do those jobs in a competent manner. I have been a combat engineer, gas turbine systems tech, Russian linguist, analyst, firearms instructor, and classroom teacher. I also have training in firefighting and first aid.

If you apply this strict compartmentalization to all people in all occupations, then you need to learn that your perspective is highly abnormal. If you only apply it to teachers and cops, you are inconsistent, and not being logical at all.

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