Jay Peterson
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I did *not* want to go into this today,

3/16/2018

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but apparently it's get it out of the system time.
Look, I get it.
You'd prefer aliens to snatch up each and every one of these millions of death sticks around the planet, destroy them all, then roast alive anyone who so much as dares mixing powder.
Well, you can't have that. Nor can you have what you think is a reasonable regulation. My compendium of weapons laws for GA is an inch thick. California's is three times that. I've heard we're looking at 20K weapons laws across all levels, and we're having loads of fun enforcing those.
I get it, you want a psycho detector. You want an app on your phone that will reliably finger the would-be shooter in plenty of time to wisk them away to the land of not your problem; but ignore the weird kid who just wants to enjoy their obscure media and eat lunch alone.
Well, you can't have that. And modern science has no clue where to even begin on it, so you're in for a long wait.
I get it, you want a phaser set permanently on stun. One that never fries a pacemaker or fucks up someone's breathing or lets them hit any surface more harshly than they would on a pillow.
Well, you can't have that. If you've got ideas, call DARPA. They've tried light, sound, heat, pain, irritation, nausea, electric current, and low-velocity ballistics.
That leaves us with no known cause and thus no preventive measures.
Gun-free schools have been, and continue to be, miserable fucking failures. Haven't prevented a single shooting of this type. They did put an awful lot of minority kids in jail over the years, but I'm choosing to believe, for now, that that was a hideously miscalculated unintended consequence and not an actual goal.
That said, there is one known treatment. And that treatment is active resistance applied as soon as possible. There's some variances (for some, any resistance will do, for others, resistance until incapacitation is needed), but that's pretty much it.
You apply resistance or you wait until they run out of victims.
I think we can all find the latter unacceptable. Which leaves the former.
And bar none, the most effective form of resistance we have is guns. Guns are the answer. Deal with it or die mad about it.
To be specific, guns in the hands of those willing to use them to prevent the aforesaid running out of victims.
More cops?
No. On cost alone. Having a tool around for a one-in-a-million occurrence is one thing. Having a person that needs to be paid & pensioned for is something else.
Add that to other unintended consequences of SRO's, and adding more isn't the solution.
Allowing those who are THERE ANYWAY and WILLING to apply resistance, including lethal resistance, if needs be, THAT is the solution.
So, no, don't arm all teachers.
If they're not willing to shoot if needs be, then they don't pick up a weapon. There is no shame in that. None.
But they damn well better get their ass out of the way of colleagues who are willing.
Hell, we can probably convince 'em to keep them concealed. Give it time, you can pretend they're not even there. And unless lightning strikes and the worst happens, you can spend the rest of your career not knowing.
Or, you know, you can get over yourselves and realize that those of us who choose to arm ourselves are human beings and not monsters. Might fucking help.
Because they've been out there. In multiple states. For fucking years. Over a decade, in at least one case.
And this doomsaying about armed teachers hasn't. fucking. happened.
That dumbass having an ND in California makes I believe the sixth time an ND has occurred by an armed faculty, staff, or student in multiple states over several years. The bloodbath you guys keep predicting just ain't flowing.
Oh, and don't bother with mandated training, either.
(Now, this is the part where some are saying, "holy shit, Jay Finally lost it. He picked an odd day to start doing heavy drugs." Not so much, hear me out.)
Mandated training, especially government mandated training, is only peripherally about enlightening the trainees. More often than not, they're for the institution to cover their ass when the shit hits the fan, with a side of whoever added more training being able to put cool stuff on their resume when they climb the ladder higher.
Those of you who are government employees or military know what I'm talking about. Look at drunk driving. Number one killer of active service members even during active war years. Every year, a how-many-hours powerpoint class on how drunk driving is bad, mandatory penalties above and beyond local civil and criminal liabilities, maybe a motivational speaker doing 20 for vehicular homicide comes out for a speech, so on and so forth.
And yet, all this mandated training somehow doesn't cut through the nightly beer pong tournaments, the stories of liberty shennanigans, the giving shit to those who cut themselves off after the second round, and so on.
And we look surprised when Monday rolls around and we see who's got a DUI.
What's really needed in speedbumps (which is the ILOH's term for teachers who everybody insists should be trained like fucking SEAL's) isn't shot placement or clean draws or numerical scores.
What's needed is the fortitude to make the awful choice when it comes, and the judgement to know when it's time to make that choice.
Neither of those things can be trained. They can be pondered, they can be encouraged, but they cannot be trained. And they can only be tested in the real world. Someone either has them or they don't.
So fuck mandated training. If they wanna train, offer continuing ed credits or something. There's no shortage of instructors (at least in most states, and even in the problem children, solutions can be found).
Look, I get it. This shit is ugly, and it's scary, and it sucks.
I'd make it stop if I could. Humanity ain't there yet, see above.
I'm not even going to go into how gun control has been overwhelmingly rejected. I've been debunking this shit for years. NOTHING I've seen proposed would have prevented this. (although enforcing existing law might have. As would the local cops doing their fucking jobs, but those are all different and separate essays).
Stopping such things as soon after they begin as possible is the one, the only, and the repeatedly proven way of minimizing the damage these shootings do.
And this is the least expensive, most expedient, and makes-the-most-sense way to implement that.
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