Legislation on school security, aka arming teachers.

There's been a fascinating discussion over on Rep. Liz Pike's facebook page concerning a proposal she's considering to offer up a version of the Federal Flight Deck Officer program that would allow some teachers to be armed in the classroom, much like flight crews.

While I don't think it goes nearly far enough, I do see it as a good first step.

On the issue, I believe that legislators are likely to get three main responses:

1.  Arm all teachers.

2.  Don't Arm any.

3.  Leave it to the school districts.

4.  It costs too much.

5.  I didn't sign up to do this, I just want to teach.

Arm all the teachers.

I strongly support requiring all teachers to be armed.

In the military, I learned the concept of "backplanning."  One plans for the mission, backwards, from mission completion to where you're standing tight now.

In this case, I am planning for a Newtown, backwards, to determine what, precisely, could have been done to stop it from happening... and keep it from happening anywhere else.

Oddly, one of the more popular responses from those of the leftist bent is to do absolutely nothing.  Teacher's teach, and, well, if a few dozen school kids get slaughtered, that's tough.

Don't like it?

Home school.

What that does, precisely, to avoid further incidents like Newtown, however, is less clear.  The answer is, of course, nothing.  But then, those advocating this position have always been very big on the Ostrich-head-in-the-sand approach to planning... which is why we get idiocy like assault weapons bans and so forth.... which also accomplish absolutely nothing... since, for example, Columbine was dead in the middle of the LAST assault weapons ban... and how'd that work out for us?

We could turn all of our schools into prisons: build barbed wire fences with armed guards in each room.

Hardly practical, and cost prohibitive.

Or, we could do what I advocate: arm the teachers.  Because for me, it is inescapable that, had the teachers been armed, this would not have happened.

The first option changes nothing and everyone remains an inviting target for the nutjob.  The second object transforms the school into a hard target but adds horrific costs to the already astronomical costs of education.

The third choice also turns schools into hard targets, making it less likely that schools will be attacked.  The costs are minimal, the time required to up-armor is very short, and beginning next year, the training could be added to all college curriculum as an additional requirement to get a teaching degree.

In short, this is a new era.  This is a time when sickos want to go out in a blaze, causing as much pain and suffering as possible. 

Their choice is between hard targets and soft targets.

Unarmed, "gun free zone" schools are, of course, about the softest targets you can find.  You can go there, kill a few dozen people, take your time, reload, do it right, and just about turn any school into a slaughterhouse.

Right now, just about every school in the country is a Newtown or a Virginia Tech just waiting to happen.  And rapidly training and arming the teachers is the fastest, cheapest way to address that and to provide the necessary deterrent.  If they don't want to be armed or can't be armed, then they should be fired.

THE number one concern of ALL teachers MUST be the safety of the students in their charge.  And there is no other practical way to achieve that safety.

When you look at the president, his family or any of the upper echelon, they are surrounded by automatic weapons.  Sen. Feinstein and others even admit to carrying weapons... thus, I think it odd that they would value their own life more than the lives of children not around them.

The knee-jerk reaction of people to ban or register or strengthen requirements to have a weapon of any kind in addition to a so-called "assault weapons" and large magazine ban would have done nothing to stop any of this.  And stopping this must be our primary concern.

Don't arm any teachers.

Well, what did that get us?  Any time any school is shot up, what did an unarmed teaching corps achieve to protect the students?

Nothing.

Keeping schools an unarmed soft target changes nothing, except to increase the likelihood of more Newtowns or Columbines.  And how does that solve anything?

Leave it to the school districts.

To me, that's the same thing as putting junkies in charge of pharmacies.

You can likely count on the fingers on one hand the school districts who will allow arming teachers.

These people SHOULD ALL be required to see the crime-scene photography and autopsy photos from the bodies of Columbine and Newtown before this decision is made, BUT, teachers will not as a rule WANT to be armed.  And if it's left up to the districts, most teacher's unions will threaten to go on strike or some such if that offer ever sees the light of day.

If it's a LAW, however, then that would be different.  Unions would complain, but not be able to do anything about it.

It costs too much.

Really?  How many tens of millions will the Newtown lawsuit settlements run?

Seems to me it would be cheaper to arm the teachers than to pay the settlements.

But then, how much is a pint of child's blood worth, spilled because of inadequate school security?

How much are we willing to pay?

How much would YOU pay if it were YOUR child in that classroom?

I didn't sign up to do this, I just want to teach.

Some teachers have already whined that they didn't become teachers to do this.

I don't care.  Adapt or quit: it's all the same to me, but if you cannot fulfill YOUR paramount duty in the classroom... then go make lattes for a living.

But you should carry while you do.

Meanwhile, for those who think this way, if you can call it "thinking," you might want to ask yourself this question:

In hindsight, do you think she would rather have become a target for that clown, or that she would rather have had at least a chance to defend her children and herself?

She's dead, now, thanks in part to the idiotic policies currently in place.

(Just as a brief aside, can you imagine the results if she had been, say, carrying illegally and had managed to shoot that slimeball when he came thought the door?

Think they'd have fired her and locked her up?)

I can't speak for her unspeakable bravery during the time.

But I can put myself in her position, and I know damned well what *I* would want under those circumstances.

And if my child had been in her classroom, what do you think we'd all want for our children?

And the last question, out of all of this, is the only one that really matters the most.