NRA - Put Armed Good Guys In All Schools

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Which is, if true, a direct consequence of the firearm restriction/ban in question.

[Khelshar]

Guarding schools because of weapons wont solve anything. They are trying to cure the symptoms, not the disease. Giving people guns to kill people with guns will just backfire. Because then even more people will have guns. And what if a good person proves to not be that good?

The question is more like, why all the guns? Why should it be so easy to acquire a gun? Who do you need all those guns? If you say self-defense, then you can respond with the fact that if the bad person could not get a gun so easily in the first place, then would the good one need one?

[Johz]

*waves hand*

Source, please!

Scroll through here.
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#crime

There are three charts about gun control on there. Washington's handgun ban and trigger lock law; The UK's Gun Control Act and subsequent Handgun Ban; and Chicago's Handgun Ban. Each shows that the homicide rate actually spikes (the UK's has steadily risen, something that actually slightly surprised me); and that following Chicago's handgun ban, handgun fatalities spiked hilarious.

I'd like to look at those graphs a bit further, but I'm at a wedding, and thus unable to comment much. I'll have a look tonight or tomorrow.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Guarding schools because of weapons wont solve anything. They are trying to cure the symptoms, not the disease. Giving people guns to kill people with guns will just backfire. Because then even more people will have guns. And what if a good person proves to not be that good?

The question is more like, why all the guns? Why should it be so easy to acquire a gun? Who do you need all those guns? If you say self-defense, then you can respond with the fact that if the bad person could not get a gun so easily in the first place, then would the good one need one?

That's only a slightly deeper symptom.

The cause of gun crime is, typically, gang-related or in some way drugs or cash related. Crime can be viewed quite easily by a low standard of living, a vast rich/poor divide or both. America has low standards of living in its inner cities, really low for 'the first world'. It also has a hilariously gaping rich/poor divide. Because Capitalism is awesome, rite?
What typically solves things like this is a vastly improved education system (which America is desperately in need of) and public spending in the inner city areas.
However, since Americans think that any kind of public spending project is COMMUNISM, you'll never get that and you'll continue pondering over why inner city crime, especially amongst disadvantaged minority groups, keeps rising.

The cause of spree shooting is anomalous to gun crime. Wholly. It typically uses weapons (long arms) that account for a minority of firearm homicide. Shooters are typically from middle-class backgrounds and are sometimes highly intelligent. Common feature is bullying, social disenfranchisement and mental instability. Spree shootings in themselves, as an act, are statistically anomalous.
Fixing this would involve better investment in public mental health. It'd also benefit from the aforementioned education improvements.

[Great Nepal]

Guarding schools because of weapons wont solve anything. They are trying to cure the symptoms, not the disease. Giving people guns to kill people with guns will just backfire. Because then even more people will have guns. And what if a good person proves to not be that good?

Thats why you put a experienced and trained personnel in schools.
Sure the person could still turn, but that is chance worth taking: and chance we take everywhere else. Secret service guarding members of government and congress decide to turn, shoot them all and take control for themselves. Doesn't mean we should stop secret service guarding the politicians.

The question is more like, why all the guns? Why should it be so easy to acquire a gun? Who do you need all those guns? If you say self-defense, then you can respond with the fact that if the bad person could not get a gun so easily in the first place, then would the good one need one?

Because it is USA.
You ban guns today; only people returning guns will be law abiding people. Criminals who already have guns wont come to police station and hand over their weapons. If caught, they can just say they didn't get around to it or forgot and pay fines.
It could have worked in 1776: but after about two and half century of gun culture and populace owning guns; banning it will work as well as banning alcohol did.

[Fluffy Coyotes]

What typically solves things like this is a vastly improved education system (which America is desperately in need of) and public spending in the inner city areas.

That's good for prevention and all, but the lack of that approach has already created a lot of criminals. The question now becomes how best to protect the innocent from them.

I to some extent agree with having cops in schools, but I'm on the fence about assault weapons bans; on the one hand, they're far more likely to be necessary for unjust use than justifiable use... on the other hand, what's to stop people from hiding them from the authorities?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Rifles account for two and a half percent of homicides, so called 'assault weapons' make up a minority of all rifles. Rifles make up a third of firearms ownership, and 'military type' weapons, making up those that would be targeted by an AWB (plus other rifles not 'military style' but with features targeted by any prospective AWB) are a minority of those.
AR-15s make up 3% of all rifles, AK-type weapons probably a greater proportion than that still.

Plus, AWBs don't stop spree shootings. Columbine happened during the AWB, remember.

[Sociobiology]

What typically solves things like this is a vastly improved education system (which America is desperately in need of) and public spending in the inner city areas.

That's good for prevention and all, but the lack of that approach has already created a lot of criminals. The question now becomes how best to protect the innocent from them.

well they can start by not making more.

[Northern Dominus]

Rifles account for two and a half percent of homicides, so called 'assault weapons' make up a minority of all rifles. Rifles make up a third of firearms ownership, and 'military type' weapons, making up those that would be targeted by an AWB (plus other rifles not 'military style' but with features targeted by any prospective AWB) are a minority of those.
AR-15s make up 3% of all rifles, AK-type weapons probably a greater proportion than that still.

Plus, AWBs don't stop spree shootings. Columbine happened during the AWB, remember.

Columbine was also perpetrated with the aid of the Gun Show Loophole, something that is still open today, something that still helps the continued killing continue, and something the NRA spectacularly failed to address.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Rifles account for two and a half percent of homicides, so called 'assault weapons' make up a minority of all rifles. Rifles make up a third of firearms ownership, and 'military type' weapons, making up those that would be targeted by an AWB (plus other rifles not 'military style' but with features targeted by any prospective AWB) are a minority of those.
AR-15s make up 3% of all rifles, AK-type weapons probably a greater proportion than that still.

Plus, AWBs don't stop spree shootings. Columbine happened during the AWB, remember.

Columbine was also perpetrated with the aid of the Gun Show Loophole, something that is still open today, something that still helps the continued killing continue, and something the NRA spectacularly failed to address.

And involved precisely no weapons as covered by the Assault Weapon Ban, aside from a Tec-9 semi-automatic.

[Northern Dominus]

Columbine was also perpetrated with the aid of the Gun Show Loophole, something that is still open today, something that still helps the continued killing continue, and something the NRA spectacularly failed to address.

And involved precisely no weapons as covered by the Assault Weapon Ban, aside from a Tec-9 semi-automatic.

Ah yes, the TEC-9, a "Semiautomatic" handgun which can be converted to fully automatic by any half-wit who can find the parts at gun shows and simply swap them out. It also involved a weapon specifically designed to skirt the assault weapons ban as well, one that now can be fitted with high-capacity magazines.

As for that "crime isn't affected by the assault weapons ban" statements, go to any impoverished inner-city neighborhood and ask around about the big local gangs. Odds are that they'll have some sort of stockpile of weapons that includes assault-rifle pattern firearms, mostly AK pattern or AR-15 pattern. Weapons obtained via straw purchases then smuggled over state lines into those cities, sometimes converted illegally to fully automatic before winding up in the hands of psychopathic criminals.

So you hold onto that NRA tag line as much as you'd like. Try and sleep as well as Wayne LaPierre does while telling yourself that an assault weapons ban will do nothing, but try to remember that the gun show loophole lets all kinds of weapons, including military pattern ones, flood inner city streets across the US and stains the pavement in hemaglobin red.

[Socialist States Owen]

Because guns in schools has always ended well, right? I do wish the NRA would stop taking ideas from the 'patently fucking ridiculous' box.

[Northern Dominus]

Oh, for anyone who is clutching very tightly to their NRA-sponsored American flag, you know the one with the squashed bullets for stars against a blued steel background and red blood spatter stripes that keep dripping no matter how much everyone wishes they weren't, do me a favor.

Take a look at today's front page of the Huffington Post (which I know some people will ignore because of "bias" excuses)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

That is one day, ONE DAMN DAY of gun violence in the US.

Care to explain to me how this isn't a glaring problem? How the 2nd Amendment is being abused to the point that we're drowning in the blood of victims by now?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Assault weapon bans don't affect existing weapons, thanks to a wonderful part of the US constitution, which seems to have largely made the confiscation of pre-ban articles illegal, since it's not been followed up with the 1986 or 1994 bans.

They only ban sales. If you bought an AK or an AR-15 in 1993, then ownership of it all the way through to 2004 was completely legal, regardless of whether or not you already owned a bayonet, high-cap mag and whatever else you cared to name, because you already owned it.

As such, it may have a minor impact on spree shootings (by making spree shooters turn to other readily available weapons, ie, Columbine or purchasing them as pre-ban articles, ie, Columbine), but will not affect major crime.
As I already stated it.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Oh, for anyone who is clutching very tightly to their NRA-sponsored American flag, you know the one with the squashed bullets for stars against a blued steel background and red blood spatter stripes that keep dripping no matter how much everyone wishes they weren't, do me a favor.

Take a look at today's front page of the Huffington Post (which I know some people will ignore because of "bias" excuses)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

That is one day, ONE DAMN DAY of gun violence in the US.

Care to explain to me how this isn't a glaring problem? How the 2nd Amendment is being abused to the point that we're drowning in the blood of victims by now?

Where am I meant to be looking there?
All I saw were coverage of Lapierre's speech and sales of a 'bulletproof' backpack going mental.

[Northern Dominus]

Assault weapon bans don't affect existing weapons, thanks to a wonderful part of the US constitution, which seems to have largely made the confiscation of pre-ban articles illegal, since it's not been followed up with the 1986 or 1994 bans.

They only ban sales. If you bought an AK or an AR-15 in 1993, then ownership of it all the way through to 2004 was completely legal, regardless of whether or not you already owned a bayonet, high-cap mag and whatever else you cared to name, because you already owned it.

As such, it may have a minor impact on spree shootings (by making spree shooters turn to other readily available weapons, ie, Columbine or purchasing them as pre-ban articles, ie, Columbine), but will not affect major crime.
As I already stated it.

Fine then, buy-back program. It's worked before, odds are it will work again.

Oh, for anyone who is clutching very tightly to their NRA-sponsored American flag, you know the one with the squashed bullets for stars against a blued steel background and red blood spatter stripes that keep dripping no matter how much everyone wishes they weren't, do me a favor.

Take a look at today's front page of the Huffington Post (which I know some people will ignore because of "bias" excuses)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

That is one day, ONE DAMN DAY of gun violence in the US.

Care to explain to me how this isn't a glaring problem? How the 2nd Amendment is being abused to the point that we're drowning in the blood of victims by now?

Where am I meant to be looking there?
All I saw were coverage of Lapierre's speech and sales of a 'bulletproof' backpack going mental.

The front page. The big red text that says "To Live and Die in America" with just a sampling of the gun violence prepetrated in the US in just one day. Front and center on the front page.

Re-load the page if its still directing you to the old image, it's pretty stark.

[Ostroeuropa]

I read a sci-fi novel where everyone was issued with a two way stun gun.
Pull the trigger, and both the person who fired it and the target are paralyzed, and emergency services are called to the scene.
Probably not feasible, but for a philosophical debating point, if such a gun were created, would you cease to support guns as a self-defence right.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Assault weapon bans don't affect existing weapons, thanks to a wonderful part of the US constitution, which seems to have largely made the confiscation of pre-ban articles illegal, since it's not been followed up with the 1986 or 1994 bans.

They only ban sales. If you bought an AK or an AR-15 in 1993, then ownership of it all the way through to 2004 was completely legal, regardless of whether or not you already owned a bayonet, high-cap mag and whatever else you cared to name, because you already owned it.

As such, it may have a minor impact on spree shootings (by making spree shooters turn to other readily available weapons, ie, Columbine or purchasing them as pre-ban articles, ie, Columbine), but will not affect major crime.
As I already stated it.

Fine then, buy-back program. It's worked before, odds are it will work again.

What, so the ATF can sell them on to frontmen for the cartels again?
You are thinking these things through, right?

[AiliailiA]

And involved precisely no weapons as covered by the Assault Weapon Ban, aside from a Tec-9 semi-automatic.

Ah yes, the TEC-9, a "Semiautomatic" handgun which can be converted to fully automatic by any half-wit who can find the parts at gun shows and simply swap them out. It also involved a weapon specifically designed to skirt the assault weapons ban as well, one that now can be fitted with high-capacity magazines.

As for that "crime isn't affected by the assault weapons ban" statements, go to any impoverished inner-city neighborhood and ask around about the big local gangs. Odds are that they'll have some sort of stockpile of weapons that includes assault-rifle pattern firearms, mostly AK pattern or AR-15 pattern. Weapons obtained via straw purchases then smuggled over state lines into those cities, sometimes converted illegally to fully automatic before winding up in the hands of psychopathic criminals.

So you hold onto that NRA tag line as much as you'd like. Try and sleep as well as Wayne LaPierre does while telling yourself that an assault weapons ban will do nothing, but try to remember that the gun show loophole lets all kinds of weapons, including military pattern ones, flood inner city streets across the US and stains the pavement in hemaglobin red.

I'm for gun control. As I've said: citizen should show cause to own a gun before being granted a licence. Gun quotas per person (I suggested ONE GUN as the baseline, with one sidearm and one long-arm in exceptional circumstances). Strict storage conditions (for most gun-owners, storage in a secure facility like a police station or strictly licensed and secure gun range). Possession of an unlicensed firearm a felony, and failure to present a licensed firearm subject to harsh fines. I'm for really quite strict gun control.

And I wish you would shut up. You're making us all look like nuts.

[Ostroeuropa]

Ah yes, the TEC-9, a "Semiautomatic" handgun which can be converted to fully automatic by any half-wit who can find the parts at gun shows and simply swap them out. It also involved a weapon specifically designed to skirt the assault weapons ban as well, one that now can be fitted with high-capacity magazines.

As for that "crime isn't affected by the assault weapons ban" statements, go to any impoverished inner-city neighborhood and ask around about the big local gangs. Odds are that they'll have some sort of stockpile of weapons that includes assault-rifle pattern firearms, mostly AK pattern or AR-15 pattern. Weapons obtained via straw purchases then smuggled over state lines into those cities, sometimes converted illegally to fully automatic before winding up in the hands of psychopathic criminals.

So you hold onto that NRA tag line as much as you'd like. Try and sleep as well as Wayne LaPierre does while telling yourself that an assault weapons ban will do nothing, but try to remember that the gun show loophole lets all kinds of weapons, including military pattern ones, flood inner city streets across the US and stains the pavement in hemaglobin red.

I'm for gun control. As I've said: citizen should show cause to own a gun before being granted a licence. Gun quotas per person (I suggested ONE GUN as the baseline, with one sidearm and one long-arm in exceptional circumstances). Strict storage conditions (for most gun-owners, storage in a secure facility like a police station or strictly licensed and secure gun range). Possession of an unlicensed firearm a felony, and failure to present a licensed firearm subject to harsh fines. I'm for really quite strict gun control.

And I wish you would shut up. You're making us all look like nuts.

What about collectors.
I'd prefer if we can find a way to exclude them, but if it comes down to either a no restrictions or restrictions that effect collectors, i'd go for the latter.

[Northern Dominus]

Fine then, buy-back program. It's worked before, odds are it will work again.

What, so the ATF can sell them on to frontmen for the cartels again?
You are thinking these things through, right?

Fast and Furious wasn't the most well-thought-out operation I admit, but part of the reason it went so badly was because, again, the firearms laws surrounding gun show loophole sales and straw purchases are extremely lax.

But since you seem to think that nothing will work, how about an idea from you? How do we reduce the appalling rate of gun violence in this country?

[Tsuntion]

Where am I meant to be looking there?
All I saw were coverage of Lapierre's speech and sales of a 'bulletproof' backpack going mental.

The front page. The big red text that says "To Live and Die in America" with just a sampling of the gun violence prepetrated in the US in just one day. Front and center on the front page.

Re-load the page if its still directing you to the old image, it's pretty stark.

HuffPost targets location; I see a UK thing about food banks rather than anything related to guns or America. Please actually link to the story.

[New Duck]

It is an interesting idea, and it has potential, but I can't really see a way to make it cost effective.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

What, so the ATF can sell them on to frontmen for the cartels again?
You are thinking these things through, right?

Fast and Furious wasn't the most well-thought-out operation I admit, but part of the reason it went so badly was because, again, the firearms laws surrounding gun show loophole sales and straw purchases are extremely lax.

But since you seem to think that nothing will work, how about an idea from you? How do we reduce the appalling rate of gun violence in this country?

The ATF told specific sellers and gun stores to be lax. And then, seemingly, forgot to track the actual firearms.
Hundreds if not thousands of rifles, handguns and shotguns were just walked out of the fucking country and sent down to shoot at Mexican Federal Police, Army and government officials. And, in some cases, American officers, too.

I already explained how to reduce gun violence.
Guns are not the sole cause of gun violence. They are the sole tool of gun violence.
It's like tackling any other kind of crime. Go for what drives people to crime. The causes for firearms crimes are typically common to other kinds of crime.

[AiliailiA]

I'm reposting my attempt at costing One Cop Per School.

There are 231,000 schools in the US.
About 17,000 officers are assigned to schools currently (not all present all school hours)
There are 452,000 full-time police officers currently. Many work overtime, so effectively more but at greater cost per hour.

So an extra 214,000 postings. But they are not full-time because school hours are less than full time work.

Applying 1260 hours of school protection (as explained earlier) as opposed to the full-time Federal standard of 1645 gives a full-time equivalent of 164,000 cops.

This is an increase of 36% in police numbers. In salaries alone it would cost $6.6 billion nationally (average starting salary is $40,500). And that's making the dubious assumption that we WANT inexperienced officers in schools: if we want police as experienced as general police (ie with seniority) we'll be looking at more like $50,000 per full-time equivalent.

What these cops are going to do when school is out I don't know. It would be a cushy position for a cop to part-retire to, so that would be some of them, but I think we'd also expect some working cops to do school duty as overtime (when working evening or night shifts). Overtime would cost more.

Nor are salaries the only cost. Police permanently stationed in school would need an office, with a bulletproof door and access to surveillance. Retrofitting schools would cost fully as much per cop as building new police stations for them all (the station is more expensive, but serves multiple cops). They would need cars to chase anyone escaping from the school after committing a crime, and priority parking so they can get the car out quickly. They'd need the same equipment (perhaps more, if we're expecting every cop to have a rifle, when in regular policing rifles where present are usually on a one-per-car basis). They would need specialized training in dealing with minors, and whatever investigations they do of everyday crimes in the school (or reported by students) would require the co-operation of other school staff. While it might seem that policing in schools would be cheaper than general policing, actually a lot of the costs are simply displaced onto the school itself.

So if the total budget of this 36% increase in policing was in line with current policing budgets, what would that be?

Well, I'm finding it remarkably hard to get national figures of police budgets vs. number of police. As a rough guide, Virginia state police number 1,863 troopers and 688 civilians, with a department budget of $219 million. Salary of a trooper there (after one year of training at $36 K) is very nearly the national average at $40,482.

This comes to $86,000 per police employee (troopers + civilians) so, bearing in mind that Virginia isn't necessarily representative, I'll say that police salaries are about half of the total operating costs.

Which would put my estimate of the costs of putting one police officer in every school at about $13 billion. The upfront costs (recruiting new police, buying equipment, fitting out schools) would be additional to this: that would be the annual operating cost once established.

I'm dubious about the conclusion. I may well have made some mistake. Perhaps my figures for currently employed police don't cover police at all levels of government (so the "36% increase in police numbers" would be wrong). Perhaps the source for police currently working in schools is out of date or wrong.

If you see any fault there, by all means point it out. If you have better sources, I'll use them and do the reckoning again with the more accurate figures.

---

I think it would be very useful to have an estimate of the cost. It might seem like putting a price on human lives but we do that all the time. We do it in compensation cases, we do it in environmental regulation, we do it in military operations and we do it in law enforcement.

We have to put a price on lives (and a price on other human deprivations), because police services (and all other government services) are bought with money. We can rank crimes, and certainly yes the murder of school children is a terrible crime, but if we're going to spend $13 billion (or whatever it turns out to be) to try to prevent it, then quantity matters too. Surely a 36% increase in police numbers across the nation could prevent many more homicides than that?

The other 11,000 homicides a year may not be so obviously wrong. In fact, I think we can easily assume that at least some of the 11,000 homicide victims each year are assholes who society is better off without. I say no-one deserves to murdered, but I also say some deserve it more than others. We can rank crimes, but when it comes to the money we have to also put them in proportion. We can't just throw all our resources at defeating this years problem: that just creates problems in the future.

Homicides in schools: how many per year? If it's 13 on average, should we really spend a billion dollars to try to prevent each one ... and how many other murders would that amount of money prevent, for instance by providing fast police response to reports on a balmy friday night, or by education campaigns (mainly to let victims know there is help for them if they ask) or by provision of free psychiatric treatment where the need is evident but no court judgement has required it (the US already has this, randomly under Medicaid but also in some states GP's, sometimes police, sometimes school counselors having referral rights to psychologists and psychiatrists without a terribly long waiting list).

Another $13 billion of psychiatric treatment (for referral exclusively by police) would save a lot more lives than employing police to bum around in elementary schools on the off-chance that someone needs to be shot. It would stop a lot of murders early, stop them before they were done, and nobody would have to die or go to jail to achieve that end.

How can we NOT put a price on human lives? How can we enforce laws against murder, and minimize murders, without putting a price on each life lost? We're employing judiciary, jailers and police with money. We have to put prices on outcomes (murder in this case, though it's no absolute) or we're just mug punters. Fools and their money, soon parted.