I like this idea a heck of a lot more than arming teachers

[Nictuku]

Shelter in Place - Bullet-proof safe-rooms in schools

[Demsrule86]

1. I like the idea of stripping the guns way better. I don't want my kids in an armed fortress.

I won't live like this...we will strip the guns from the gun humpers ...matter of time.

[Sherman A1]

2. Saw it on Facebook and my question is the same.

How do you pay for it? What gets cut from the school budget to free up the funds for this? A few teachers? Some support staff? Extra curricular programs? Books? Just what has to go?

[Squinch]

3. SMH. The school is not the end of this that needs to be fixed.

[dhol82]

4. Major problem I can think of is

If you have 30 kids in a small confined space and somebody needs to go to the toilet or suddenly barfs, what do you do?
What they are showing looks like everyone needs to stand up or sit tightly together in very close quarters.
Any answers?

[LanternWaste]

5. Most likely...

"If you have 30 kids in a small confined space and somebody needs to go to the toilet or suddenly barfs, what do you do?"

Most likely, the same thing they'd do if huddling together a closet with seven other students while hiding from a gunman. Barf or pee.

[Nictuku]

6. The alternative of getting shot is something to think about

I don't forsee any time within my life (grant you, I've already lived more than half of it), an end to the iron rod maddness that has taken hold of this country.

The only thing that I can think of that would get weapons of war banned, would be if POC were to en mass arm themselves and open carry. I think we would see bans then.

So, given that I don't see things changing any time soon, I do like the idea of a safe room /better/ than arming teachers. The cost of the (ongoing) training of the teachers alone would probably be more than the expense of these rooms.

If I had a kid in school today, it would ease my fear if I knew that there were safe rooms.

The rooms can be used for other purposes, and as for crowding too many kids into a room, on a temporary (emergency) situation, I think is better than doing nothing at all.

And definitely better than arming and training teachers to also be sharpshooters. There is so much wrong with that.

[Caliman73]

7. I would prefer to approach it from the perpetrator perspective.

Focus on root causes of violence which includes economic anxiety, isolation, unchecked rage, stigma against counseling or treatment of trauma, toxic masculinity, lack of future hope or goals, ease of access to guns, etc...

While this might keep people safe, it doesn't address the problems of violence and violence with guns specifically.

[Nictuku]

9. I agree with you

It is our society that is truly sick, and the root of the anger and hate that fill the hearts of (some) of our citizens. We should be looking at that, but I don't have much faith in that being addressed, because it would most likely effect the bottom dollar of many corporations, and most of our representatives in congress are bought and paid for.

The divide in our country is so great, and getting worse with each year that passes, that progress, and progressive ideas, are stalled by the opposition.

And year after year, nothing gets done.

So, in the mean time, I still think it is better than doing nothing at all, and a much much better idea than arming teachers.

[braddy]

8. I don't like the ways that the bad guys will capitalize on this, I instantly came up with terrible

ways to use this.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Silly "idea". An over the counter balm for the gun cancer.

[Nictuku]

11. In the mean time

the 'cancer' keeps killing our children.

[mcar]

12. Is this serious?

Many, if not most, schools are overcrowded. How does this plan propose to get enough safe rooms into these schools?

How are students to be herded into the rooms if a shooter breaks in during class changes or end of day?

Who will pay for it? In my local FL district, schools can't afford enough supplies. And don't get me started on salary and benefits.

How about we control guns?

[Nictuku]

14. So you all are OK with arming teachers ?

That was the only point of my original post. It seems like many responses here just gloss right over it, that there are better ideas than arming teachers.

Yes, in a perfect world, no citizen should ever have to have a gun. We do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world gone mad, and a large portion of our population love their guns more than they care about whether or not children are gunned down.

We will be lucky if we can get a ban on new sales of assault rifles. But what about all of the ones already out there? Does anyone here actually believe that we can get all those that are out there back?

Call me pragmatic.

I don't want to see our teachers armed and responsible for hunting down school shooters.

I only see this as an alternative to arming teachers.

If congress votes to appropriate money to arm teachers, I say this is money better spent, than forcing teachers to also (on top of everything they already have to deal with) to become police.

I suppose we can wait until after the election in November, and if we win back the House and Senate, we can actually pass legislation that would ban these. I don't see any legislation passing that includes confiscating all the weapons already out there. Does anyone here believe that?

[mcar]

15. Umm, no

My SO is a teacher. Let's make it lots harder for people to get weapons of mass destruction instead of making this an either/or between arming teachers and safe rooms.

There are other choices.

[Nictuku]

18. I agree

... but I'm not going to hold my breath.

This gun conversation has been going on ever since I became aware of politics. It has gotten nowhere.

Before things will change, we need to have more democratic Supreme Court Justices seated, because the Scalia interpretation of the 2nd amendment is one of the biggest frauds, and wrong-headed rulings in the history of our country. And tens of thousands of people have died because of it.

For 200 years, we interpreted it correctly. Then, in 2008, it seems as if the words "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," became invisible, leaving only: " the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

So, to change gun laws, I think we must revisit the District of Columbia v. Heller decision made in 2008.

But until that decision is reversed, the Supreme Court is the Law of the Land (as it should be in a country of Laws not Men/Kings)

It won't be the first time that the Supreme Court has made bad rulings. Rulings that hurt our country. Rulings that got people killed.

Board of Education, Dred Scott v. Sanford (African Americans were not Citizens), Buck v. Bell (Forced Sterilization), Korematsu v. US (Japanese internment camps), Plessy v. Ferguson (Separate but equal), Many Civil Rights cases, Bowers v. Hardwick (criminalized sodomy), Hammer v. Dagenhard (Congress could not ban child labor), Kelo v. City of New London (taking land from one private party to give it to another)... and there are many more.

The Supreme court is not infallible. But in a country where we live by the rule of law, who sits on the Supreme Court is one of the most important issues when it comes to our elections.

Who we elect to congress (Mcturtle) has an impact on Supreme Court nominations, but generally we can't even get 50% of eligible voters to get out and vote.

And in the mean time, our children are being gunned down in fucking school.

Why didn't people get out on the streets to protest the denial of a Democratic President making his Constitutional right to nominate (and have the Senate have hearings and votes) on a Supreme Court Nominee? Too busy looking at their iPhones I guess.) It was important. But not enough people cared enough to demand he have a hearing and a vote.

What a country!

/off of soapbox (I apologize, but I'm just fed up with some of the Pollyanna attitudes about the reality and possibility of actually getting guns banned in our current circumstance). Like I said earlier, it isn't going to happen in my lifetime, and if it does, I will gladly eat some crow.

[Yupster]

13. NY Times had an article today about

hundreds of districts throughout the country that have been arming teachers, some for over ten years.

I found out about one such district a couple of years ago.

[MyOwnPeace]

16. You people are NOT

thinking like Republicans!

Crowding will not be an issue in these "safe rooms,"

You see, ever since they came up with mandated testing (you can't fatten a pig by weighing him every day) to determine who does NOT get money, well at least the PUBLIC schools - but it's OK for "charters" and corporate schools to get even more - they can then (ready for this?):

USE TEST SCORES TO DETERMINE WHO GETS INTO THE SAFE ROOMS!

And if a teacher has a class that is "not up to standard" - that teacher doesn't get in either!

You KNOW IQ45 would love this plan - and they can honor "W" by calling the program "No Child Left Outside!"

[Fred Sanders]

17. A "pod" for every 30 students, a class room, high school size, would be 100 pods for

Parkland. Can you imagine these eyesores giving any "comfort" to anyone except conman manufacturers?

The students in the FIRST classroom of 30 will not stand a chance anyway you set the scenario.e

[Nictuku]

19. An eyesore...

Maybe what this country needs is a truly shocking eyesore. Publish photos of the massacared children. Maybe that will move people enough.

These parkland students are amazing, they are trying to shine the light on the horror ... from their perspective. I can only hope that they will continue to hold the attention of the M$M edia.

[MyOwnPeace]

22. I don't think pictures would do it either.........

if the THOUGHT of what happened at Sandy Hook - 20 six and seven-year-olds being killed by a mad gunman - if that didn't convince these slugs to do something, I just don't think it would work.
However, because this time it was high school students, and they are now a loud, vocal, sincere voice in the mainstream, we can perhaps see some glimmer of hope for action.

Truly, how sad that it has come to this.........................

[Nictuku]

20. How sad that you are so correct with this /sarcasm/

What a country.

(edit: I meant this response to the 'You people are not thinking like republicans' post, I think I clicked on reply to the wrong post. oops!)

[MyOwnPeace]

21. Ha!

I know who you meant - and you are correct: SO SAD - what have we become..................