America has had a large number of shootings over the past decades. Whenever there is a massacre of students, the public gets angry and mourns the horrific event. Politicians react along partisan lines. Democrats call for gun control; Republicans want to arm teachers and school staff.
Since the Supreme Court has decisively ruled against most gun restrictions, the Republicans have had the upper hand.
In Tennessee, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill yesterday to arm teachers and other school staff. This was a response to a deadly shooting at a private Christian school. Parents at that school gathered signatures against the bill, but the legislators didn’t listen.
Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill on Tuesday to allow teachers and other school staff members to carry concealed handguns on school campuses. The measure, if it becomes law, would require those carrying guns to go through training and to have the approval of school officials, but parents and most other school employees would not be notified.
The bill is one of the most significant pieces of public safety legislation to advance in Tennessee after a shooting just over a year ago at a private Christian school in Nashville left three students and three staff members dead. The attack galvanized parents at the school and many others in Tennessee — including the state’s Republican governor — to demand action that could prevent similar violence.
But many of them believed that restricting access to guns was the solution, and critics of the legislation have argued that bringing more weapons onto school campuses would not improve safety and could even amplify the danger facing students.
Protesters opposed to the bill packed the House chamber and the corridors of the Capitol on Tuesday, carrying signs that said, “Kids Deserve More!” and “Have You Lost Your Ever-Loving Minds?”
The demonstrators echoed fears that have been raised since the legislation was proposed.
“I ask that you don’t put our children’s lives at risk by putting more and more guns in schools,” State Senator London Lamar, a Democrat from Memphis, said during a debate this month as she cradled her infant son. “It is really hard,” she added, “even as a new mom, to stand here and have to be composed on a piece of legislation that I know puts my son’s life at risk…”
The bill significantly expands the current law, which mostly limits the carrying of firearms to law enforcement officers employed at a public school or to school resource officers.
The new legislation would broaden that permission to school staff members who have an enhanced handgun carry permit and who have the approval of their principal, district director and leaders of relevant local law enforcement agencies. The measure also imposes confidentiality rules around the disclosure of who is carrying a concealed handgun.
The staff member must also complete 40 hours of school policing training, undergo a background check, submit fingerprints to state and federal authorities, and submit a psychological certification from a licensed health provider. The handgun cannot be carried in auditoriums or stadiums during school events; during disciplinary or tenure meetings; or in a clinic.
Roughly half of U.S. states allow teachers or other school employees with concealed carry permits to have firearms on campus, according to Giffords, the research group led by the former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was herself among 19 people shot during a meeting she was having with constituents in 2011. (Six people were killed.)
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Such a stupid idea. The risk of a school shooting happening is infinitesimally small. If anything, this would increase that risk, because of all the extra guns in schools.
Agreed. More guns in schools will put more students at risk. The risk of a gun falling into the wrong hands is greater than the possibility of stopping a lone wolf with a gun. It is dangerous policy.
Flerp: precisely
Good morning, everyone! The cheerleading squad will be holding tryouts today at 3:45 on the North Field. If you haven’t not yet turned in your fee for yearbook photos, please do so by Friday at end of day. If anyone finds Ms. Greene’s Glock and ammunition, please turn these in to the front office. First baseball game of the season is tomorrow at 4:40 at Marjorie Taylor Bonehead High School. Go, Panthers, and have a wonderful day!
cx: If you haven’t yet
Most teachers have enough to do. They shouldn’t be expected to assume the role of law enforcement as well.
The Oxford Michigan School Shooting Event. Came on the heels of the school district paying Big Bucks to a company called ALICE Active Shooter Training. In the end, a Deeply Flawed Expenditure. All we need now are more of these programs popping up and taking advantage of poorly thought through legislation.
There are so many ways this knee-jerk response can go horribly wrong.
Oxford Michigan Investigators found that the school’s ALICE plan addressed two active shooter threats – inside the main office and in the lunchroom. But it did not address a threat within school corridors or classrooms!!!
And even the authored plans were incomplete. The report says that even though multiple scheduled and unscheduled ALICE drills had been run with both students and staff leading up to 11/30. Key elements of ALICE process protocols were not well defined and often left blank or noted as “if necessary.”
STAFFING
At the time of the shooting, both primary armed security staff members were all offsite!
“Protocols for security staff were inadequate in that they did not ensure that designated, armed security staff members were on campus at all times during school days. The fact that both primary security staff members were offsite during the shooting clearly impacted the speed and effectiveness of response measures.”
https://www.theoaklandpress.com/2023/11/01/security-lapses-and-deficiencies-contributed-to-oxford-shooting-chaos/
Only in the good olde USofA could there be business opportunities in the wake of school shootings.
Whenever there is a massacre, doing more, of what has yet to end them, follows. Killers, like rulers, “care nothing for clever word games, cute memes, tightly reasoned arguments or close readings of texts.” The afflicted don’t have an on/off switch, in reach of the law or the institutional bullies that negated their “intrinsic” core (self approval, self esteem, self reflection, self reliance) and filled the vacuum with external dependence. The afflictions can’t be cured with another dose of what causes them.
I have not studied shootings, so I should not be considered authoritative. But I have questions.
What is the time shooters generally have to carry out their intent before they are restrained by conditions?
How many times have armed amateur gun holders restrained violent encounters, and how many times have they aggravated such encounters?
These questions come from incidents with which I am familiar. A college friend of mine was in an attack on his church in Knoxville. The shooter was trying “to kill as many liberals as he could.” The attack killed one man and wounded several others before people wrestled him to the ground. My friend wrote that it took five seconds.
Similarly, the attack on the Waffle House in Nashville took only seconds before the shooter ran off.
Covenant, which took place in Nashville, was merciful in its brevity due to lightening response from a well-trained police force. I do not know how many minutes passed between the onset of shooting and the stalemate when the shooter was barricaded in a room.
These questions are pertinent. It is hard to imagine how arming civilians would have helped anybody in these situations. Given this, and assuming Republicans are smart enough to understand this, passing laws like this must be seen as a political act without any intent but to placate a group of supporters down at the Macdonald’s drinking coffee and sounding like they know all about everything from toads to terrorists.
The Covenant shooting is interesting in that it involves a conservative constituency. That side of town is Toward the Trump side of town, and, unless there is something going on I do not understand, their voices raised in hostility to the Republicans, who are dominant in state politics.
Too many guns!
A local example of this –
A police officer was a coach for a high school sports team. He changed in the coaches’ room and left his loaded gun in an unlocked locker. One of the players thought it would be funny to take the gun and run around threatening people. Luckily no one was hurt but the officer lost his job.
it’s really sad that in Tennessee schools are so dangerous to children that the state’s politicians have to pass a law that teachers can carry weapons to protect themselves and their students.
It’s a dumb bill. Case in point…
“Teacher accused of threatening to pull gun on another teacher, students at Nashville preschool”
Florida passed similar legislation yet there are zero armed teachers in schools. Turns out the insurance companies raised premiums so high the idea was scrapped.
That’s a good one!