Trump panel recommends guns in schools to keep U.S. students safe

Insanity. Bump stocks might be gone, but did the Trump panel do a trade with the far-too-powerful NRA, bump stocks for guns in school knowing that guns in school means greater sales of guns and ammo? Sick. Sick. Sick.

An brilliant idea ! The teachers will execute any children that don't agree with them politically. Students who wear pro American t shirts will be shot in the back of the head by their Communist oppressors.

Absolutely ridiculous. How can you blame school discipline on school shootings? Clearly another step backwards...how many years of children shooting each other will it take for the government to realize that the NRA needs a tighter leash?

Wouldn't it be safer to build a wall around these schools with guard towers manned by local militia groups? The national guard manning road blocks as a outer ring of security checking documents of students. Or arm Geoff (recently divorced) the science teacher with a semi automatic handgun, what could go wrong.

How long will it be until they start suggesting arming elementary school students themselves?

Some people watched Die Hard too many times, and actually came to believe the "good guy with a gun" fantasy.

What does it take to neutralize a lone shooter without or with minimal collateral damage ?

It takes a team of people specifically and highly trained for this kind of situation. That's the SWAT in the US, the RAID in France, the SAT in Japan, etc...

Guys who can go in and won't panic and start shooting everyone screaming or running away because they were startled. Teachers and other school staff, regular people are not trained for that, neither is it their job. Putting a gun in their hands won't change this fact.

Hiring veterans specifically for this purpose, that's assuming they kept training, kept in shape, or you know, aren't suffering from PTSD.

Anyway, in most other countries, putting weapons in a school or not is not even a question. It shows how low the US has fallen.

I wonder why guns aren't allowed at Trump rallies? Sounds like they want to be sitting ducks.

It takes a team of people specifically and highly trained for this kind of situation.

I completely agree, and even with all that training and expertise when bullets start flying things can and do go wrong. Especially when someone is using a pistol or some sort of handgun.

The good guy can take out the bad guy, or can get taken out, or can take out innocent bystanders.

Picture the range of possible problems in a classroom or anywhere in a school, at a concert, in a movie theater, at a restaurant, at a club, at church, waiting for a bus - anywhere people are gathered.

The people who benefit most from America's gun insanity are the guns and ammo industries, their investors, and the politicians who support them.

Veterans, no disrespect at all their suffering for all of us is to be applauded, but as above putting a veteran in a school environment where it's calm during class time and suddenly noisy hectic between is probably not the best. Hell I know men who fall apart at the sound of a helicopter. Through no fault of his own. This report has the mental depth of a potato.

Wouldn't it be safer to build a wall around these schools with guard towers manned by local militia groups? 

Better to build a wall around 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW and stop any and all electronic emissions from there for the next 2 years or so!

With a terrorist organization like the NRA is dictating federal policy, you know solutions are on the way! When these zealots lose office in 2020, there is going to be a tsunami of reversals and rollbacks.

Insanity. Bump stocks might be gone, but did the Trump panel do a trade with the far-too-powerful NRA, bump stocks for guns in school knowing that guns in school means greater sales of guns and ammo? Sick. Sick. Sick.

I don’t think so, I think depending on the school location, depending on the city ordinance and depending on how the community feels about it, if there is a need for teachers to be armed and the local people are OK with it, then I think they should be, most definitely and by all means. I support it.

Some people watched Die Hard too many times, and actually came to believe the "good guy with a gun" fantasy.

Absolutely. Just look at what happened to Jemel Roberson.

The panel's suggestions are ludicrous.

Perhaps a long, hard look into the reasoning behind the gun culture disease and the kind of society that has made them an object of desire/manhood and placed guns above human lives?

I don’t think so, I think depending on the school location, depending on the city ordinance and depending on how the community feels about it, if there is a need for teachers to be armed and the local people are OK with it, then I think they should be, most definitely and by all means. I support it.

Such a naive statement. You don't add guns as a means to solve gun control problems, when will you gun supporters ever learn this? It would lead to more killing, and not be preventative. Teachers policing themselves? No way, it makes me sick to think anyone believes this is a solution, and it's downright idiotic to think it'd work.

It's all so surreal.

Is the U.S. a country where most people would want there kids to go to school? I wouldn't send my kids there, but I did . . . once a long time ago. Did anything strange happen? Yeah, one little boy brought a bullet for his daddy's pistol to kindergarten, absent the gun. School's changed a lot since I was a kid.

The modern age boogeyman is an angry young man armed with an automatic assault rifle and a seriously messed up ax to grind. Weird.

when bullets start flying things can and do go wrong

A while back I listened to a BBC podcast where they were interviewing teachers in the US who were taking part in a training programme in preparation for having armed staff in schools.

In one armed-intruder-simulation exercise they had kids running out of a classroom - and one of the trainees 'shot' a student.

In another exercise a teacher 'shot' a kid who was involved in a playground brawl.

Of course, that kind of thing wouldn't happen in real life.

...Would it?

I would not like to have to raise a kid in the 'Great' America of today.

Instead it suggested arming staff -- even teachers in some circumstances -- "for the sake of effectively and immediately responding to violence." It also recommended education authorities hiring military veterans and former police officers who "can also serve as highly effective educators."

American logic for you. Can't accuse them of over-thinking though.

The next 'logical' step, following an incident of a teacher shooting loads of students, will be calls for students to carry guns to protect themselves from teachers.

This is America. Land of the 'free'.

Teachers aren't paid enough to heap even more extra responsibility on them that involves life and death

Also, more possibilities of this could happen when there's more gun-carrying people - and this guy knew how to handle a gun and legally permitted to carry (he is a military veteran)

"Protest in Alabama as police admit killing wrong man over mall shooting"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/24/protest-alabama-mall-police-shooting-suspect-emantic-ej-bradford-jr

Police thought Bradford, who was carrying a handgun, was responsible for wounding the two people but later retracted that statement and were left searching for a gunman they believed wounded an 18-year-old man and a 12-year-old girl.

American logic for you. Can't accuse them of over-thinking though

As an American, it makes perfect sense to me, should have been done a long time ago.

Of course, put more guns in the school. Don't raise the age at which someone can buy guns. Don't do stricter background checks. Don't do anything that might actually save a life. Put more guns in schools. Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?

So, the gun lobby says the answer to too many guns on the streets is to put more guns on the streets, and in the schools. Who woulda thunk it?

Don't do anything that might actually save a life. 

Arming the teachers would just that.

Put more guns in schools. Brilliant. Why didn't I think of that?

Hmmmm.....

Arming the teachers would just that.

And that worked for the likes of security guard, Jemel, did it?

Just imagine, a pupil with a grudge (and what school doesn't have one or dozens like that) who gets hold of the gun?

Imagine a teacher, maybe a veteran, who gets so stressed out with a pupil and snaps?

Your guns need to be removed from American society. Unless, of course, the idea of hundreds, nay, thousands more needless young lives being lost is somehow preferable to an end to the gun disease...

As an American, it makes perfect sense to me, should have been done a long time ago.

Fair enough. I sometimes (rarely tbph) envy your 'american logic' i.e. ultra-pragmatism, simple/simplistic good/evil approach etc but in this case i don't think that the simplest (as in 'fight fire with fire') solution is the best one. Kids, vets, teachers, former cops; what a motley crew!

This will have one result.

On day we will have to read the headline: 'Student shoots classmate after obtaining teachers gun.'

And that worked for the likes of security guard, Jemel, did it?

No, but in this case it did.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/04/officer-and-two-suspects-reportedly-shot-at-draw-the-prophet-contest-in-texas

Also I believe you can most definitely save lives if you have a crazy deranged person trying to harm others. You have security when you go to bars you have arm security at the airport, bodyguards have armed security, i’m sorry but I think it’s a weak argument when liberals say it’s going to perpetuate and cause more problems, but I submit to you that it will create less problems.

Just imagine, a pupil with a grudge (and what school doesn't have one or dozens like that) who gets hold of the gun?

You can also make the same argument for when you’re flying, you could say what happens with this plane goes down, everything is possible, but the fact of the matter it probably won’t happen.

Imagine a teacher, maybe a veteran, who gets so stressed out with a pupil and snaps?

Again, What if you eat a grape and choke? Again, you are making another week argument.

Your guns need to be removed from American society.

Ahhh, that won’t happen. I understand in Europe don’t like our gun culture, but in our country, we do love and value the second amendment.

Unless, of course, the idea of hundreds, nay, thousands more needless young lives being lost is somehow preferable to an end to the gun disease...

Lol

only in America: solution to shark attack is to have more sharks in all beaches!

Don't do anything that might actually save a life. 

@bas4 Arming the teachers would just that.

Posters who think arming teachers WOULD save lives most likely have zero experience in live firing situations (gun club experiences don't count) or else don't understand what 'would' means.

[Trump advisers] recommended Tuesday that schools consider arming staff...

Now, how do we protect our children from the armed staff? Arm our children?

Posters who think arming teachers WOULD save lives most likely have zero experience in live firing situations (gun club experiences don't count) or else don't understand what 'would' means.

Posters that have never been around live fire, be that cops or gangs or been through street violence could never understand or know what “wouldn’t” means.

Simple question Bass. When you went to school in your youth K-12 did you constantly worry about being shot in class or anywhere on school grounds? I know I didn't have to worry about such things during my school years through 1996.

So it sounds like a great idea to arm teachers because you yourself don't have to worry about it. But your children/grandchildren do. There will be more shootings instead of less... just more teachers will be involved.

Children these days don't get to go to school to focus on learning anymore... they have to survive to get an education now. There is something seriously wrong with that.

Posters that have never been around live fire, be that cops or gangs or been through street violence could never understand or know what “wouldn’t” means.

Do you have experience of this which could be instructive?

So, the only other option is to homeschool/online class teach children to keep them "safe". Serious degradation of learning social skills from natural social interaction with others. That sounds great for the future of humanity... sigh.

Welcome to America, where school teachers moonlight as firearms experts to stop mass killers.

Over 219,000 U.S. students have been involved in a school shooting since the April 1999 Columbine High School massacre

My God. All acceptable collateral damage to people who are too afraid to exist in society without their guns.

Simple question Bass. When you went to school in your youth K-12 did you constantly worry about being shot in class or anywhere on school grounds?

I grew up in a different era.

I know I didn't have to worry about such things during my school years through 1996.

I understand, but when I grew up we didn’t have as many psychos running around trying to make names for themselves clipping people.

So it sounds like a great idea to arm teachers because you yourself don't have to worry about it.

I’m sorry, I fail to see your argument, it doesn’t matter what we think, it should be an option available to teachers if they want to carry a firearm or not.

But your children/grandchildren do. There will be more shootings instead of less... just more teachers will be involved. 

I doubt it.

Children these days don't get to go to school to focus on learning anymore...

I’m sorry, but that’s an entirely different topic, look to liberals for that massive blunder.

they have to survive to get an education now. There is something seriously wrong with that.

Again, I totally disagree. Where I live in the States we have many, many gun owners and hunters and my town doesn’t have these problems. Think about this, there is a lot of emotion going on in the courts, you have armed guards protecting the judge, the accuser, the accused and imagine if you didn’t have that. So I’m not buying this argument that guns make our lives less safe, I feel the exact opposite, I believe arming teachers (if they want to) is the right thing to do.

The USA is about to open up a third armed wing of the state - the police, the military and now the teachers.

The solution to more gun crime turns out to be even more guns, in a country where you can buy a military grade carbine three years before you can buy a beer.

How long will it be until they start suggesting arming elementary school students themselves?

Been done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDULmIOqwA8

A joke, of course, but I'm sure someone would like to market "gunimals" to elementary school kids.

Anything to avoid talking about the criminal justice reform Trump success until liberals can get back to “but Russia”

it should be an option available to teachers if they want to carry a firearm or not.

Machine guns?

America has 300, 400, 500,,,,, million guns. It seems at civil war. Shoot who? What a barbaric country!

The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Recommendations like arming staff is another way to place the burden/sacrifice on others so gun owners don't feel infringed upon. Success in this situation would be headlines like, "Student only kills 3 before shot dead by armed guard." That's assuming that the hundreds of thousands of new guns being put into schools don't kill the wrong people.

Since taking away guns is off the table we are left with finding ways to harden our classrooms. It would start with arming teachers, then when shootings happen where that fails to stop them, more hardening will have to be put into place. We might as well just reinforce classroom walls and doors so teachers can barricade themselves in and be done with it. Anything to get around not taking the guns away is the goal in the end.

Simple question Bass. When you went to school in your youth K-12 did you constantly worry about being shot in class or anywhere on school grounds? I know I didn't have to worry about such things during my school years through 1996.

Actually, I did. I went to school in the Los Angeles school district. My first week of high school, I was caught in a drive by shooting by gangbangers. And it definitely wasn't the last time my high school was shot up. School shootings aren't new, they just aren't limited to gangbangers in inner cities now so suddenly it's a national emergency, when if anything, it should have been an issue decades ago.

Veterans, no disrespect at all their suffering for all of us is to be applauded, but as above putting a veteran in a school environment where it's calm during class time and suddenly noisy hectic between is probably not the best. Hell I know men who fall apart at the sound of a helicopter. Through no fault of his own. This report has the mental depth of a potato.

You say 'no disrespect', but actually, this is extremely disrespectful. You and the other posters who assume that every single veteran has PTSD and will snap at the sound of a car backfire are extremely ignorant and need to educate yourselves. Just because you 'know a guy with PTSD' doesn't mean they are all the same.

Damn, forgot to mention high school started in 1989 for me.

You say 'no disrespect', but actually, this is extremely disrespectful. You and the other posters who assume that every single veteran has PTSD and will snap at the sound of a car backfire are extremely ignorant and need to educate yourselves. Just because you 'know a guy with PTSD' doesn't mean they are all the same.

So let's just take the chance the a vet doesn't have PTSD or does but won't snap.

One word perfectly describes this idea: asnine.

@chip star

Tell me where in my comment that I said anything regarding putting armed veterans in schools. My comment was only about how ignorant all the comments about all veterans being PTSD basket cases is.

Assuming every veteran has PTSD is no different than assuming every Muslim is a terrorist or every black man is a criminal.

Once again, Japan Today commenters putting words in other's mouths.

The world literally has no idea why your children don't matter to you

Trump panel recommends guns in schools to keep U.S. students safe

This is like recommending using a flamethrower to extinguish a house fire. Guns in schools are the reason why so many children are being shot dead. How many shootings does it take that there needs to be less guns in schools, not more? But of course, Trumo, his administration, and this laughable panel are all on the NRA payroll. They want to fill the world with guns. Guns in schools, guns in churches, guns in hospitals. Anywhere with people, and of course just one gun per person isn't enough for the NRA and their gun-obsessed fans. You have to be armed to the eyebrows to compensate for your tiny genitalia and to defend against the paranoid delusion that someone (Russians, Muslims, etc) is out to "get you." The NRA should be shut down, and it's members sent to an asylum. They desperately need psychiatric help, and a reality check.

Nothing wrong with giving veterans jobs as teachers, if they can effectively teach. Problem is teaching should be something done by someone for passion to educate others and a passion for what they are teaching. One of the reason's why I gave it up, just not my thing.

Also, putting guns in schools is bad, mmmkay. Of course the NRA is happy, having their violent religion spread among the youth of America. Gives them a longer lifespan. I think a lot of people may slowly start pulling their children out of traditional education systems if this starts happening. Also, I don't think any of you that don't have children of your own should be aloud to even comment on this issue because you just don't know what its like to have kids, and you cant argue that you do.

Way da go, Donny boy! Encourage more deaths and destruction to the country. And when things go from bad to worse, you BLAME those in security for a lack of security, but you never take responsibility for your actions while demanding more military presence, Donny.

I understand, but when I grew up we didn’t have as many psychos running around trying to make names for themselves clipping people.  They're not all trying to make a name for themselves. 

I know we both grew up in different eras, but we still didn't have to worry about being shot in school.

At worst there were metal detectors at school entryways. 

And I didn't have to be exposed to seeing teachers running around school with gun holsters.... Let that image sink into your brain for a moment.  We still have a problem with statutory rape/molestation between students and teachers, and you trust them wholeheartedly with GUNS?!?!?  Law enforcement has an oath to protect and serve the public.  Teachers do not take such an oath, nor does any of them have effective enough training to both educate their students, deal with the psychological aspect of teaching teens/adolescents, and become some in school "Clint Eastwood" who always shoots the correct individual initiating an attack.  

Not all of them are psychos, and not all of them are trying to "make a name for themselves".   They're mostly angsty spoiled teens who perceive the world revolves around them until it doesn't.  And you also need to take under consideration that some "responsible" gun owner wasn't being "responsible" enough for the shooters to be capable of stocking up on weapons and ammo in the first place. 

Actually, I did. I went to school in the Los Angeles school district. My first week of high school, I was caught in a drive by shooting by gangbangers. And it definitely wasn't the last time my high school was shot up. School shootings aren't new, they just aren't limited to gangbangers in inner cities now so suddenly it's a national emergency, when if anything, it should have been an issue decades ago.

@Extanker

Sounds about right for LA in that time period.  But drive-by shootings from gang bangers (with a specific rival gang member target) is completely different than mass school shootings with the goal of murdering as many people as possible while they're in school.   Totally different motives.

The only drive-by shootings when I went to school only occurred when coming back home my neighborhood.   By then local law enforcement was cracking down heavily on the gangs, and some were wising up that shoot at a school you get worse in prison for being a child killer and for firing at a school in the first place.  But still didn't have to worry about being shot inside the school by some random "fellow" student that has issues.

The US is the only "1st world" country that has this problem on a consistent basis.   We're steadily sliding backwards hard.   But that's ok,  anti abortion pro gun activists will make sure future generations die painful deaths in an unsafe 'Murica!

But drive-by shootings from gang bangers (with a specific rival gang member target) is completely different than mass school shootings with the goal of murdering as many people as possible while they're in school.  Totally different motives.

The motives may have been different, but just because they had a 'target' did not mean that no one else was in danger. Drive by shootings were not known for their accuracy and I had just as much chance of being caught in one as a student today has of being caught in a school shooting, if not more.

Way da go, Donny boy! Encourage more deaths and destruction to the country.

But do nothing and allow anyone to get into the schools and commit mass shootings. I swear, some people think not arming schools, mental idiots will never walk in, the possibility is just nonexistent. Why do we have security in clubs, airports, the

White House, even Hollywood idiots have security, makes sense to me, harden the schools. You’re not going to repeal the 2nd amendment, not going to take the guns away, so the best thing is to arm the schools, especially the ones that are more susceptible to violence.

And when things go from bad to worse, you BLAME those in security for a lack of security,

If they didn’t do their job like in Parkland, yes.

but you never take responsibility for your actions while demanding more military presence, Donny

How so?