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this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2023
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There are issues with the other points as well. A school classroom isn't actually inherently riskier than say a store, in fact it's easier to defend in a given active shooter scenario. Defenders have a huge tactical advantage over an attacker, the point isn't to have a dozen armed teachers running around in the chaos trying to chase down the shooter. The same shelter in place/lockdown is still the best move. The difference is that if the shooter makes it into a room that happens to have an armed teacher, they are now challenged and very likely to be neutralized. The goal and training programs still have teachers lock the doors and hide the kids out of sight in a safe corner, the difference is the teacher then takes up a different point with a clear shot on the entrance so that if an attacker comes in they can be instantly engaged from cover. The biggest challenge here is figuring out the best location for the students and the defender, but this can all be sorted out long before an actual attack occurs, once an ideal location is chosen for each teacher all they need to do in the moment is follow the plan.
As far as preventing terrorist incidents, this is literally the point of terrorism. To find a soft target and create chaos and fear. If you harden the target and let it be known that it won't be easy or successful to their goal, it is an extreme deterrent. There are numerous mass shooter manifestos that specifically state their targets were chosen based on being gun free. There are tons of other things that can and should be done to prevent them from happening at all, but in the moment during one that is actively being committed, the absolute best outcome is for them to face in place resistance as soon as possible.
I'm not sure I agree with that. Generally speaking, the biggest risk is a crowded room with out-of-control people. Considering many school shooters are former or current students as well, it's a real hogan's alley mistake waiting to happen with live people. There's a reason that people trained to shoot in crowded areas are very highly trained on picking targets and temperament control so as not to make a tragic split-second decision. Police, in general, are trained NOT to shoot into crowded areas, though they sometimes do and sometimes tragedy ensues.
But I'm not sure we have to agree on this. My point was that *they are not apple-to-apple comparable scenarios. *I think I have shown this fairly well. You're describing some very specific tactical training (that teachers may or may not be receiving) that clearly depict the differences. If I owned a small store in a small town where only one or two customers are in the store at a given time, it's simply a different scenario even if you think it's more dangerous. If I live alone, anyone forcing their way into my house at night is a definite risk. No false positives. That leaves out some legal complication (which I might actually agree with you on), but the point is depicting the differences.
So you do not believe the "terrorism" variable is different in any way between a school shooter and someone coming to murder you for a gay pride flag?
The issue with that point of view is that it's based on a limited knowledge and understanding of a topic. It's a fair hypothesis but the thing about general hypotheses is that they should be updated when challenged by a more in depth understanding of the topic. In real world scenarios when shit hits the fan it isn't quite like in the Avengers when alien portals open over the street and people run in every direction. The basic shape and function of schools makes them highly compartmentalized. Short of being in a cafeteria, gym or assembly hall there really isn't much room for people to be running in all directions. Even then, in both cafeterias and auditoriums the natural response to an event like a shooting is to drop lower for cover, unless you're the shooter. Add in the fact that a single teacher shooting back at the primary person standing that has everyone moving away from is likely to end in a better outcome than not having a teacher there to do so and the tactical risk analysis tips heavily in favor of allowing properly vetted armed bystanders. In real world events armed bystanders are actually very effective with only a few cases of the attackers out gunning or police misidentifying the actual shooter.
While armed intervention is somewhat rare, it's because the vast majority of non gang related, random public shootings specifically occur in gun free zones. Take an extremely rare statistical event and then filter out >90% of events where a legal armed intervention is even possible and the data pool is close, but not quite zero. In cases where an armed bystander is present and able to engage they are highly effective. I do not have links handy but last I saw it was greater than 90% of cases with armed intervention available they were able to neutralize or impede the attacker appreciably. Now with schools, like airlines, having unique challenges that make them sensitive, I am all for offering advanced training as part of the process for allowing faculty to carry. This training absolutely should include tactics to avoid the hypotheticals you are concerned with. That being said, a large portion of people that carry every day don't just strap on a gun and go out into the world. We are the ones that do train and learn tactical scenarios and learn how to maximize defensive advantages. I don't carry a gun because I'm scared of the world, I carry one because I want to be as prepared as I can be for any situation. It's why I have a first aid kit, fire extinguisher, tire patch kit and jump start battery in my car as well. None of those things are useful without training and understanding of how they work. When it comes to guns I have had both formal and informal training in basic usage, function, repair and tactical employment. I have carried while around town in restaurants, bars, hospitals, amusement parks and movie theaters. I have also carried on airplanes and at airports and have specific training on how to defensively use a gun on an aircraft. I'm likely much more trained than the average, but I am not alone and the vast majority of my experience is purely voluntary and with the people I meet along the way I am by no means an isolated case. Armed teachers shouldn't be the primary method of preventing school shootings, but they absolutely are the best option to stop them.
Terrorists are bullies that take it to truly evil levels. They prey on the weak to force their opinions on others. A school shooter and the asshole in this news article are both evil, it's just a matter of how they chose to exert their evil on others. Who knows what his actual thoughts or motivations were, something tells me that the lack of any info on him from authorities means he doesn't meet the cliche MAGA asshole they would love to pin it on so they're just letting the shock of the crime run its course rather than diffuse what is a powerful political tool for furthering their own goals. Whatever his motivations or demographic were, he's a monster that society failed to allow him to develop those views, as a last resort I just wish that for someone that evil there had been enough of a deterrent to prevent him from trying once he got the idea in his head.
You seem to be letting the topic drift from "whether these two things are different" to "I think teachers should be armed". I'm not really here to discuss the latter topic. Everything you said here, whether I agree or disagree, reinforces the only point I'm trying to make - that the two scenarios are not apple-to-apple and should not be compared as such. You appear to agree with me, fully.
Tangentially, I find it interesting you think teachers should not need specialized training after you have now twice described very specific tactics you think they should employ. But as I say, I'm not really here to press my opinion on teachers being armed because I think it's a nuanced and complicated issue. Also as YOU say, it is far more important to focus on steps that keep potential shooters from choosing to walk into a school with a gun in the first place.
Just out of curiosity what part of my slightly rambling response gave you the impression that I did not think they should get specialized training? I intended to state the exact opposite so I would genuinely like to know which part of my phrasing failed to convey my intent. I was merely explaining that real world results without training are highly successful in the limited scenarios where they have been able to play out, and with that as a basis proper training can mitigate or eliminate the unique risks associated with schools.
Anyway, sorry for the long rant. I genuinely believe that gun control is 100% based in ignorance and lies, with a small group deliberately lying to the public to create ignorance and generate support for their own goals. As such, whenever I find someone genuinely willing to read and discuss it I try to do what I can to show the other side of the argument. A specific act of targeted violence is not the same as a cable news shooter in a school, but there are more similarities than you would expect at face value. Both are committed by damaged people who society allowed to go without proper support and moral guidance. Both should be prevented by proper upbringing with human kindness as a core value and both can only be stopped in the moment after tragedy strikes with equal or greater force. The right to be armed with whatever may be used against you is only the final measure rather than the ideal way to prevent it.
My misreading on the second paragraph, which is 100% on me. I thought you were just pointing out airlines as needing specialized training (implying that teachers did not). I went to quote it back to you and realized the mistake was mine.
I'm genuinely not sure how I feel about that. I tend to like reduced situational volatility, and I'm not quite sure how much training (for teachers AND for responding police) would make me consider armed teachers at a school-shooting to be an asset instead of a liability. It seems like it might be more than is reasonable to give the teachers. Weeks, months? Hogan's Alley was notorious for a reason. Being able to differentiate between an innocent and an active shooter when startled at high stress is not easy. It requires enough training to change one's subconscious. And then, yes, the odds of that training ever being used are very low. But I would be more comfortable with that kind of training than with no training, for sure.
I genuinely believe that gun bans are based on ignorance and lies, but gun control generally works in most countries, virtually all countries that use it. Gun control can (and should) be about minimizing risk with the least cost of freedom, as opposed to about fear and reactionary behavior. For guns in schools, there's only a couple countries that actually allow armed teachers. In fact, the only other one I could find is Israel, which is debunked in a fact check. To me, that is a risk because, as much as you accused me of ignorance on the topic, I would dare suggest EVERYONE is ignorant on the topic since we don't have enough background to quantify it.
Risk mitigation would be to have dedicated armed and trained security, like many public buildings have. But many schools already have that, anyway.
Properly executed defensive carry does not add much volatility. Having in place defenders also results in situations being ended almost immediately which reduces the actual volatility. Most cable news shootings only last a few minutes and end the moment the asshole doing it is challenged. Once the shooting stops the situation is much easier to work through with a calm and collected demeanor as first responders secure the area and assist the wounded. As I said earlier, defending is far easier than assaulting. Making the primary response an assault team that needs to enter and clear the building adds complexity and volatility. Having multiple faculty in defensive positions waiting for the shooter to enter their zone is a much safer tactical solution. While clearing the building is still a tactical challenge, if there is no threat that presents itself it can be done in a much safer manner with each room being cleared one by one based on pre-established protocols that are already in place nationwide as part of the existing lockdown planning.
Gun control always results in a ban. The US thankfully has it built into the Constitution as the fundamental right that it is. The issue is that "reasonable" gun control is rarely reasonable and even bans aren't effective so no matter what concessions are made, when the results don't match the aspirations it progresses. The other part of this is that it doesn't generally work in most countries and correlation does not equal causation. The US is a far more heterogenous society than any of its peers and as such has an exponentially higher degree of societal tension. It is an unfortunate by product of the diversity that makes us as strong as we are. While you say that gun control works everywhere else it has been enacted, that is simply false. What actually exists is countries that have always had lower crime than the US, that at some point in the past enacted gun control and saw little to no effect. In order to support the hypothesis that it was successful, you would need to show examples of places where it was enacted and led to a reduction in crime following implementation. The only two near peer examples in a modern time frame would be the UK and Australia who both enacted draconian restrictions in the 90s. It just so happens that the 90s also coincided with a worldwide reduction in violent crime (normally attributed to the removal of lead from gasoline). Virtually every single developed country saw the exact same reduction, except for two. The UK and Australia bucked international trends during the decade and saw spikes. Immediately following the UK's strict gun control, their murder rate nearly doubled. While the US's rate was nearly 10x the UK's at the beginning of the 90s, during the next 20 years the US's was cut in half while the UK's doubled and eventually stabilized at its pre-gun control rate. Australia saw similar results while the rest of Europe saw declines similar, but not as pronounced as the US. During these years the US expanded access to guns with the number in circulation consistently rising despite the extreme reduction in violent crime and murder. Also, using fact checks alone really don't tell the full picture, they are wildly biased and when it comes to politically charged topics they go out of their way to get the result they want regardless of the truth. When it comes to guns they often straight up lie. Israel does have a lot of good lessons to be learned about effective self defense but it is nowhere near a 1:1 example. There really isn't anywhere close enough to the US to compare us to. There are plenty of schools in the US within states that allow armed teachers and so far none of them have been a target of an incident so there is no data. It's a catch 22 where they are already extremely rare and if an event doesn't occur or is prevented it doesn't count as an event so there is no data for it. Armed teachers won't do anything for gang shoot outs in the street across from frat row or people in their 30s committing suicide at 2AM on a Sunday in a parking lot of a building that used to be a school, so things like the school shooting tracker won't show any appreciable difference based on its enactment (the second scenario was literally one of the first events loaded into it when reddit started the tracker). There is plenty of actual information out there, but normal primary sources are deliberately hiding it from the masses because both the media and tech giants have a strong bias against it and are forcing the ignorance.
Dedicated armed and trained security is great to take over the police's clearing duties, but from a tactical point of view, allowing teachers to be armed is still a superior option. Being embedded and able to self protect is a far stronger advantage, even over a response time of essentially zero. Just like counter-insurgency vs guerilla tactics, not knowing which door is defended is a far better deterrent than just specifying which expected opposing force you will be encountering. Either way, addressing the causes of cable news shootings is by far the best approach versus trying to restrict a single means of accomplishing one or debating the best way to stop one that has occurred.
I've got a few disagreements on this. I really swore I wouldn't get into a 2A argument here.
Allegedly. We just don't have enough school examples to know if that's really the case.
Except that (in non-dystopian situations) those assault teams will have dramatically more training. You are correct that breaching is more dangerous. That's why I pitched a security team stationed inside schools. I don't agree that, from a tactical point of view, you want that many disparate defenders who are not even part-time trained for that role.
There are hundreds of countries that prove this wrong. A supermajority of countries in the world have gun control, and a near unanimity of those countries do not have absolute gun bans. I'm sure you can find a definition for the term "gun ban" where that's the case (say, if any weapon is banned for any reason, you call it a gun ban), but there seems to be no evidence of a real slippery slope between gun control and gun bans. Guns can be strictly regulated without a ban, similar to how we strictly regulate alcohol.
This is also strictly incorrect, or at least incredibly nuanced. The 2nd Amendment does not add it as a fundamental right at all (Barron v. Baltimore, or merely the laws passed/defended by the very same people who penned and signed the Constitution). The 14th Amendment does add it as a fundamental right based around the Equal Rights clause (specifically, regarding Southern States banning guns from Black Americans and not White Americans). Despite SCOTUS being extremely creative (good and bad) with the 14th Amendment the last 40-50 years in general, there are still teeth to some gun control laws for that very reason. Prejudicial gun control is unconstitutional, but (on strict interpretation, not on how a future SCOTUS would rule) gun control with a defensible reason is not. Non-gun weapons
Fair enough, I'll let you get on with your night. It was just refreshing to have someone genuinely willing to read and have a civil discourse. More than anything I just hope I was able to give you more perspective. It's rare to change someone's opinion outright but I have had surprising success many times with just the right nudge that started the thinking down a different path. Have a nice day.