Hooray for dead students?

[bobquasit]

Someone posted a question over on Askville referring to a FOX News story which apparently urged that American students be armed in order to be able to resist attacks by random gun-welding maniacs.

I started by commenting:

Do you think that right-wingers are terribly insecure? They seem to need a lot of reassurance about the validity of their world-view.

The asker (a fairly active right-winger on Askville, I've dealt with him before) sent me a "compliment" asking whether students should just passively wait to be shot. Here's a copy of my reply:

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Subject: Hooray for dead students?

Oh yes, by all means; schoolchildren should wait passively to be killed by maniacs. Better yet, they should chant "We hate America" in unison and burn flags while politely waiting to be shot. That's the answer you're looking for, isn't it? From fatheaded bleeding-heart idiot liberals like me? Of course we liberals hate America, so the only answer you'll accept is that I would just LOVE to have schoolchildren killed by lunatics, rather than arm them.

But that's a ridiculous and stupid choice, and it has nothing to do with reality. So I reject it.

Did you ever actually GO to school? I did, and I can say with certainty that if schoolchildren are armed, there will be a lot more shootings and deaths than there are now. I can think of a few bullies that I wouldn't have minded shooting myself, back in the heat of the moment. One of them even ended up shooting himself; if he'd had a gun at school, what are the odds that he'd have decided to take some of his victims with him? Pretty good, I'd say!

Schoolchildren are children. Their brains have not finished developing - the brain doesn't reach full maturity until the mid-to-late-20s - and they are subject to all sorts of emotional swings. Particularly the ones who are going through puberty. Anyone who seriously suggests giving students guns must be stuck in adolescence themselves, I'd say. It's up to adults to take care of children, preferably adults who are trained in defense techniques.

It's ironic that so-called "conservatives" usually try to cut police and school funding, including funding for child safety. But at this point blind hypocrisy from Republicans is the norm, not the exception.

School and workplace shootings are usually the work of the insane. They're also pretty rare events, fortunately. No perfect solution is possible, but putting guns in the hands of students is probably the worst possible option.

When someone goes crazy in a school, students, adults, and the police all need to do whatever they can to stay alive and to keep their fellow students and teachers alive. Personally, I think running (serpentine) and staying low would be a damned good idea; that's what I'd do. Having armed police assigned to schools would probably be a good idea. They're the professionals, after all; the ones who are trained to deal with this sort of situation.

I find it sickening that some try to capitalize on this sort of tragedy to push their political agendas.

I also have to wonder why so many right-wingers - conservatives, neo-cons, Republicans, call them what you wish - seem to have an overwhelming need to believe that those on the left side of the political spectrum are morally degenerate, hopelessly confused, dim-witted, soft-headed, anti-American and intellectually bankrupt. Do you really need to believe that liberals want our schoolchildren lying dead on their classroom floors? Does that somehow validate your apparently paranoid world-view?

Would it kill you to consider the possibility that you might not have all the answers? That liberals have, historically, often been right about the issues? And that most left-wingers - who make up a substantial part of the population, by the way - are actually decent people who love their nation and their families?

Comments

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

Generally the folks who want to arm everyone are going for the 'quick & dirty' solution. See if everyone has guns, then it's their own responsibility to protect themselves and no longer that of society in their minds and that's what they want, frontier mentality.

In reality that doesn't work. What would be more useful is preventing weapons into the buildings, or providing fast and efficient means to deal with problems. Panic Alarms near the teacher desk/podium area that sound an alarm and open an intercom call to the administration so they can be warned would allow fast response. It wouldn't save every life, but would reduce the risk without putting everyone at risk of random gun play.

Arming teachers with Tasers in high risk schools would also act as a deterrent without endangering the population unnecessarily. (And putting in strict policies and laws to prevent their abuse by the teachers.... something that isn't done often enough with their use by police and security personnel).

Too many schools are already are part of the crumbling infrastructure thanks to the frontier mentality of how our school systems have been funded in this country. Lack of security comes as part of this in many places. The cost to make all public schools alone safer would probably run around a billion across the board for the appropriate security tools (including secure classroom doors that are capable of stopping common bullets, alarm systems, tasers, etc.)