Teacher Randal Davidson cracked up yesterday, firing a shot from his .38 and sending panicked students running through hallways
It really ought to be a no brainer not to add nearly a million guns to our schools to address the problem of active shooters with high powered AR-15s or similar assault style weapons. But we've seen the gunnies, or guntards, are incapable of thinking things through. Up to now they haven't even spelled out just how their teacher hero fantasies will play out in RL. I.e. Teacher in her classroom, armed only with a concealed handgun, is suddenly confronted by an active shooter with an AR-15 firing 30 rounds a minute at 2800 feet per second. Exactly how does she bring the killer down, especially after the rounds have already taken the legs, heads, arms, faces off a half dozen kids and each semi-automatic round is like a "knife stabbing you in the ear" - the sound is so unbelievably ear splitting. This from former CIA security specialist Malcolm Nance. I guess the guntards will suggest she just nicely ask: "Uh, sonny, could you please stand still and put that AR down so I can get a few rounds off? Huh? Pretty please?"
But let's leave that question which obviously is too difficult for them, because it requires logical and strategic thinking including actually analyzing the real time scenario without stuffing in NRA bullshit. (Like from top spin queen, Dana Loesch). The real issue here is they fail to appreciate: a) teachers are humans with limitations, addictions, mental problems just like everyone else, and b) teachers can and will go haywire from time to time - with the potential of becoming active shooters themselves.
The case in point occurred yesterday with teacher Randal Davidson suddenly having a breakdown at Dalton High, 91 miles north of Atlanta. Though weapons are not allowed in the school, this former "top teacher" smuggled in a snub nose .38 and let fire at least one round sending students scampering for safety. The bullet went through a window of his classroom, where he had hunkered down, and then outside. Any student passing could have been shot but fortunately that didn't happen.
Officers arriving on the scene evacuated and then secured the areas. Davidson was later arrested and charged with aggravated assault, carrying a weapon on school grounds, terroristic threats, reckless conduct, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and disrupting a public school.
He had apparently been teaching at the school since 2004, and in 2012 was recognized as the school's top teacher.
I point this out to show even the best teachers, apparently mentally sound - can crack up and then, who knows what? Who's to say some future teacher, at the end of his or her tether, won't bring a Glock 9mm to their school and - after breaking down - erupt with multiple rounds fired, even killing students. This is not a wayward fantasy either, though the guntards might try to portray it so.
The fact is that teachers in today's American classrooms are under enormous pressure, and working - slaving in a profession that's barely given any respect at all. Imagine then the added pressure of being given the power of life and death and then having to use a limited handgun against a likely AR-15 active shooter. Oh sure, the gunnies are quick to cite all the states that already allow teachers to have guns in their possession - like here in Colorado- but the true fact is none of those teachers have really been put to the test yet.
By that I mean they haven't had to face an active shooter barging into their classroom firing rapid rounds with thunderous, ear splitting noise and taking off limbs with efficiency of a military kill machine And one wonders if any of those teachers have even observed the nature of wounds left by an AR-15 which one doc in Parkland FLA described as "organs looking like they been smashed with sledge hammers".
That't the next thing the guntards who hype this BS won't tell you: an AR round passes through a human body in tumbling fashion - the better to damage and destroy as much tissue as possible. This being distinct from a regular handgun - or even a Glock - which round passes through in linear trajectory (no tumble) from point A to B so there's a chance it will enter and then exit cleanly.
The other unstated aspect is now teachers are also falling to the opioid epidemic and this was presented in the recent TIME issue headed 'The Opioid Diaries'. They are thereby prone to addiction too, and this can leave them less able to handle the already existing stresses of teaching kids who really would rather be anyplace else - well, in most cases.
Arming teachers, as this Georgia incident shows - or should show - is still a terrible idea. The only reason it's embraced by the NRA is because it would mean hundreds of thousands of more gun sales for them - and hell, they can never have enough profits - we call it blood money.
"Numerous educators have mishandled guns and shot themselves, often while classes are in session, over the last few years. That includes the Idaho State University chemistry professor who shot himself in the foot, the Utah elementary school teacher who shot herself in the leg and the Long Island University professor (and ex-cop) who also shot himself in the leg. An Atlanta high school teacher intentionally shot himself in the face last year, and since studies show the presence of a gun increases the chances of suicide, that’s something to consider when you start suggesting schools stockpile weapons.
But these teachers will be trained—we’ll just take the money out of children’s health insurance or something, some partisan hack is yelling at this very moment. That will ensure they’ll avoid those kinds of sloppy mistakes! First of all, an NRA employee accidentally shot himself at the group’s headquarters last year, and once you get past the staggering irony of the story, you note that training is no guarantee against mistakes. (Or fear: Recall that four sheriff's deputies cowered in the parking lot as the Parkland shooting went on.) A 2008 Rand Corporation study of New York City police officers found their “average hit rate in situations in which fire was not returned was 30 percent.”
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