Arming Teachers? Yeah No Thanks

Someone's brilliant idea to arm teachers is incredibly dumb IMHO.  I am all for guns and firmly support teachers but those two things shouldn't be in the same sentence for several reasons...

• Schools are incredibly underfunded.  Do you think a whole lot of money will be spent on arming and training teachers?  I don't think so either.
• Teachers are already overworked.  It would be great if teachers could be paid to just teach but I know several teachers and they seem to provide a full slate of social services in addition to teaching in addition to student discipline issues in addition to, well, anything else their students need (up to and including feeding them, clothing them, and buying them school supplies).  Being an armed security guard too goes way beyond what should be expected of teachers.
• There isn't enough training to be had to teach a teacher how to be competent enough with a firearm to pick off one school shooter in the midst of hundreds of panicked kids.  If the teacher is a former SEAL that would be a different discussion but ten hours of qualifying range time would mean disaster--even more disaster--than is already unfolding.
• Weapon retention would be an issue.  There is enough violence against teachers that having them carry firearms would just add fuel to the fire.
• Providing the service of armed protection is a full time job, a job in which you want your armed protector fully focused on threat assessment, not switching back and forth from teaching physics theorems in between watching and responding to threats.

The bottom line is that if the government wants armed security on school campuses they first need to harden a campus much like they do military bases then hire sufficient, and sufficiently trained, professional armed security personnel (BTW there are plenty of trained former military personnel who would be perfect for the job).

Another Day, Another Mass Shooting

I've think I've reused that same headline several times in this blog unfortunately.  Today's mass shooting was at a Florida high school with several students reported killed and several reported injured.  It is still early in the process as they have just detained the shooter so more details will be forthcoming.

According to this Wikipedia page, it used to be pretty easy to catalog school shootings...by century.  In the 1700s (the entire century) there was 1 school shooting in the US, in the 1800s (the entire century) there were 28 school shootings, in the 1900s (the entire century) there were 226 school shooting incidents; now, in the first 18 years of the 2000s, there have been 211 school shooting incidents.  And the deaths: in the 1700s, 1 death; in the 1800s, 24 deaths; in the 1900s, 254 deaths; in the 2000s; 290 killed not counting today's shooting.

Which begs the question, WTF is going on?  Obviously no one knows the answer to this or we would not have ever-increasing shootings each year.  Years ago everyone had guns, kids got guns for their birthdays and Christmas, teenagers drove to school with rifles hanging across the window in the back of their trucks, people carried guns--both concealed and not concealed, no permit required--and most everyone (at least in rural and semi rural areas) had rifles behind the front and back door of their homes.  Yet no one thought to shoot other people, least of all teenagers.  Now kids are taking guns to school and shooting at other kids a few times a month or more.

I have no more idea about the whys of this situation than anyone else but I can tell you that over the course of my lifetime (many decades) there have been some significant changes in society.  Two parent families used to be the norm, now they are the exception.  The number of kids at school with severe food allergies was zero all through my school days, now food allergies bad enough to kill someone are quite common.  It was almost unheard of for any kid at school to be mentally ill (back in the day people with mental illness would be locked away in institutions), now it is said that one in five kids are medicated for mental illness and kept in school.  Bullies have always been a fact of life but apparently kids are not encouraged to fight back against bullies (?? what I've heard from the grandkids).  Suicide in young teens has grown exponentially, often due to bullying.

Kids are online 24/7 which both encourages attention seeking and opens them up to online bullying.  Kids are also allowed to stay in the house all the time with their digital entertainment.  Years ago no kid wanted to stay inside (if you looked like you weren't busy, chores would be found for you to do plus there was one TV with three stations that everyone shared but which never go turned on before the evening news) it was the norm to be outside playing, fishing, or wandering around the neighborhood with your friends.  Back then, everyone had a friend group (kids had their school friends or neighbor kids to play with, the parents had their bowling league or bridge club, etc); I recently asked a young teenage nephew how many really good friends he had and he said none, he said this was pretty much the norm for his peers (??).  Apparently the "go outside and find someone to play with" has been superseded by play dates set up with appropriate children?

Even military recruiters are noticing that recruits are fatter, sicker, and more prone to injury these days which is probably related to their crappy diet and lack of exercise.

It's a sad situation all the way around.  After these shootings people call for stricter gun control and tighter background checks yet these kids who are doing the shootings wouldn't be subject to any of these things because they aren't the ones purchasing the guns.  And while I realize we can't go back in time, the splintering of the family, lack of expectations for kids to live up to, overwhelming influence of online social media, and other changing societal factors (can we please get universal healthcare that includes comprehensive mental health services???) need to be addressed.

And Yet Another School Shooting

Again on the news today I heard of yet another school shooting.  I mildly wondered 'where?' as I caught the last bit of the news.  You know it is a sad day when a mass shooting barely raises an eyebrow.  Here's some random thoughts:

• As soon as I heard where the shooting took place I was pretty surprised.  I've been to Roseburg a few times. It's a very small town and a very small college.  Mass shootings can happen ANYWHERE.
• Cue the anti-gunners and gun control folks.  This happens every time there is a shooting yet people still fail to see that these shootings usually have a handful of commonalities that are never addressed, namely the shooting takes place at a designated "gun free" zone, the shooter usually has a history of mental illness (no info yet in this case), and "no one expected it to happen here."
• You know how social media is a great way to share useful information?  Apparently the guy's plans were posted on 4Chan and he was given all kinds of info on how to get a higher kill rate.  Lovely.
• And notice how even though he posted such a thing online, no one informed the authorities.
• And then notice how politicians hop on the bandwagon (never mind that there were 50 people shot in one weekend in Chicago and no one said a single thing about that).

So I toss up my hands.  Yes, I am keeping my guns.  No, I don't think more stringent gun control laws will make a difference (I mean the ones we have aren't really enforced now anyway).  Yes, everyone who is legally able to should carry concealed (shooting back is the only way to stop a mass shooter). 

Another Day, Another School Shooting

It's getting to be pretty ridiculous when a school shooting barely hits the news because such things have become so commonplace.  Just in the past month there have been three (here, here, and here).  While I have no idea how to fix society's woes, I do know that these children shouldn't have access to guns which means that gun laws don't work (obviously) and that, for whatever reason, kids aren't being raised right these days (spoken like a true old person).  Which means that all of us need to take responsibility for our weapons (and keep them out of hands that they don't belong in) and we also need to do a better job raising our kids.  'Nuff said.