Post by Captain Serious on Jan 17, 2013 10:03:57 GMT -5
Bam, apart from everything else, Obama is still a politician, and has to sell his idea. "Whatever it takes to save even one life" sells a lot better than "whatever it takes, within our current budgetary constraints."
And yes. there is a vast difference between highly-trained Secret Service agents and forty hours' worth of training in school policing (which is what the current employment standard is in the state of Tennessee for school resource officers).
my H and i were talking about this last night and this is exactly what i was saying. i'd much rather highly-trained SS agents carry weapons than any jackass who has happened to take up school policing.
Bam, apart from everything else, Obama is still a politician, and has to sell his idea. "Whatever it takes to save even one life" sells a lot better than "whatever it takes, within our current budgetary constraints."
Yes to this too, even though I generally like the guy and his politics.
His whole schtick is catch phrases. "Whatever it takes" is a catch phrase that resonates. I guarantee you will hear it as bills, etc., get more solidified and proposed.
I've proposed to Nugget in the past. This just affirms my love.<object style="position: absolute; z-index: 1000;" id="plugin0" width="1" type="application/x-dgnria" height="1"><param name="tabId" value="{E9CECB46-B62D-4288-8A47-7788BF967A3D}"></object>
yes. you're "guessing." school shootings are not that common, really. they are horrible, they are tragic, and they really just don't happen every day. unlike, say, threats to sasha and malia.
if there was an active threat to a school, there would be police there. there simply aren't sufficient resources in the country to protect against "guesses", when we also have to protect against known and active threats. let's say we get a guard in every school. is that enough? there is usually more than one point of entry for each school. so, now we have to have a guard for every door. and, well, classrooms on the ground floor. so guards walking the perimeter to watch the windows. oh, wait, and recess and outdoor sports. okay. guards on all of the sports fields. ooohhh... and at the bus stops and blah blah.
all for the vague, uncommon possibility that maybe something could happen, we guess.
I believe the idea is that that it would detour people from the attempt in the first place. But I'm not sure.
Regardless - my point is not that I believe it's the answer and I'm heading over to storm capitol hill... I just felt like there was a very mixed message presented yesterday. This post has turned into a conversation about funding. Which is a real issue - no question, but that wasn't part of the conversation yesterday. It was all 'whatever it takes to save even one life - we have to do it!'
And, while funding is the practical secondary discussion in a more idealistic "do whatever it takes" stance, I fundamentally disagree that doing whatever it takes should include putting armed guards in every school or arming educators - regardless of the cost assciated with that. More guns isn't the true answer to a deeply rooted social problem
that the president shouldn't have expressed a desire not to see more children die because he's not also willing to remove the secret service detail from his own children and since we can't afford guards in every school?
that the president shouldn't have expressed a desire not to see more children die because he's not also willing to remove the secret service detail from his own children and since we can't afford guards in every school?
yes - exactly this.
i'm dead serious. what is your point? if you don't think that armed guards is necessarily the ultimate solution for a variety of reasons (including funding), and if you recognize the difference in threats to your kids v. the president's kids, what IS your point? no one should ever speak broadly about a desire to reduce threat of death?
But when he broke into the school with a semi-auto rifle, would 1 guard with a handgun have stopped him? That's not a level playing field.
My point still stands, anyway. Obama's plan addresses mental health, school safety AND gun control. I think it gets to all the core causes of these situations. Having armed guards would be a bandaid that might make some folks feel better, but wouldn't actually DO anything.
I can't imagine how this would act as a deterrent. Imagine you're seriouslly mentally unbalanced and planning on killing a bunch of children, then offing yourself. Is the fact that you might die 60 seconds sooner than you planned because a resource officer shot you really a deterrent?
Sorry, but there are kids out there more important than your kids. There are people out there more important than you.
While I strongly agree with your second statement, I just as strongly disagree with the first. I really don't know how you assign an 'importance factor' to children. Every one of them has yet to reveal how important they could possibly be to our world.
An armed guard can still be killed and unless you post one at every door and window, someone can still use other areas to access a school building.
However, if any guy off the street did not have access to military grade weapons, it would make it much harder for them to even carry out a huge attack........
No "guy off the street" has access to military-grade weapons. What many people don't realize is that these are not military grade weapons. Military grade rifles have a lever to toggle between fully automatic (continuous trigger pressure and continuous fire), three-round burst (three rounds fired for every pull of the trigger), and semi-automatic (one round fired for every pull of the trigger). These rifles are civilian legal rifles just made to look like military-issue. Just like camouflage pants. They even sell kits where I can take my deer rifle and outfit it to LOOK like a black rifle. It does not instantly make it more powerful/deadly. Just "scarier" looking.
Machine guns are already illegal and there are not many in circulation in the general population. There are already tons of black rifles in the general population. They are not military grade. Outlawing the sale of this specific rifle aesthetic doesn't accomplish much, but it does decrease manufacturing jobs.
For the record, I am much more willing to have my tax dollars go towards armed guards in each school rather than some of the things my tax dollars DO go toward.
Sorry, but there are kids out there more important than your kids. There are people out there more important than you.
While I strongly agree with your second statement, I just as strongly disagree with the first. I really don't know how you assign an 'importance factor' to children. Every one of them has yet to reveal how important they could possibly be to our world.
Because if you concede that the President is more important than you, by definition you need to protect his kids so that he can do his job. If his daughter is kidnapped and they make demands, that's a huge national security concern. If his daughter is murdered and he can't do his job effectively, that's a huge national security concern. I kind of don't understand how you can't see this? It's not that Malia Obama, on her own, is more valuable than her kids. But Malia Obama, daughter of President Obama, is.
I feel like once we've gotten to the point where we need an armed guard at every school so we feel safe sending our children there we've already failed as a society. Fucking guns.
This is exactly how I feel. This country will no longer be worth saving in my eyes if this is what it takes.
I never understand when people say "I am going to move if x,y,z becomes president" but I would be saying that if arming people in every school became the answer to this country's problem.
I can't imagine how this would act as a deterrent. Imagine you're seriouslly mentally unbalanced and planning on killing a bunch of children, then offing yourself. Is the fact that you might die 60 seconds sooner than you planned because a resource officer shot you really a deterrent?
I don't know the answer to that. But they claim that Lanza was still shooting people when he saw/heard the police in the building, and that is when he shot himself. So (if that is true) a police presence stopped him from killing more children.
Sorry, but there are kids out there more important than your kids. There are people out there more important than you.
While I strongly agree with your second statement, I just as strongly disagree with the first. I really don't know how you assign an 'importance factor' to children. Every one of them has yet to reveal how important they could possibly be to our world.
this is a charming and lovely sentiment. and wholly divorced from reality vis a vis distribution of protective resources.
But when he broke into the school with a semi-auto rifle, would 1 guard with a handgun have stopped him? That's not a level playing field.
My point still stands, anyway. Obama's plan addresses mental health, school safety AND gun control. I think it gets to all the core causes of these situations. Having armed guards would be a bandaid that might make some folks feel better, but wouldn't actually DO anything.
Very likely. These guns have the same rate of fire. An officer trained with his weapon could have it aimed and fired very quickly. It takes longer to swing a longer gun (the rifle) into position. Odds are actually in the officer's favor here. Even the mere fact that an armed guard is present is enough to deter most of these situations because these shooters historically avoid places with armed civilians or guards.
I think it's very awesome that teachers will receive mental health training and be able to help and advocate for troubled kids in that way.
I can't imagine how this would act as a deterrent. Imagine you're seriouslly mentally unbalanced and planning on killing a bunch of children, then offing yourself. Is the fact that you might die 60 seconds sooner than you planned because a resource officer shot you really a deterrent?
I don't know the answer to that. But they claim that Lanza was still shooting people when he saw/heard the police in the building, and that is when he shot himself. So (if that is true) a police presence stopped him from killing more children.
Bingo. It IS a deterrent because it take the situation out of the perpetrator's control. These people have targeted places where they will undoubtedly have the upper-hand, at least until police arrive.
While I strongly agree with your second statement, I just as strongly disagree with the first. I really don't know how you assign an 'importance factor' to children. Every one of them has yet to reveal how important they could possibly be to our world.
Call me when the kidnapping of your fucking children would create a global crisis.
ugh - you're so right. I can't believe I even give a brown shit about those fucking scumbags.
Sorry, but there are kids out there more important than your kids. There are people out there more important than you.
While I strongly agree with your second statement, I just as strongly disagree with the first. I really don't know how you assign an 'importance factor' to children. Every one of them has yet to reveal how important they could possibly be to our world.
I kept reading expecting this to be a giant internet punk. I can't even form an argument for this level of obtuseness.
Slightly off topic,maybe, but I think it is pretty fucking insulting when people say that had the teachers at Newtown been armed, that fewer children would have died or died at all. If my family member had been one of those adults, I cannot even express how angry and hurt I would be. No one knows how they would react in a crisis situation and to assume otherwise is ridiculous. all of those adults did do the right things in that situation and who's to say that had they been armed they would not have frozen in the moment or panicked at standing face to face with someone armed with an enormous gun?
And I have to say, for the first time since a shooting like this, I was actually bothered while watching a movie with a scene of men storming into a place of business, guns drawn. That feeling of terror and confusion must be unreal.