Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick Touts Need To Arm Teachers

[packman]

Source: Huffington Post

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) on Sunday pushed for arming teachers and reducing the number of entrances into school buildings after the latest mass shooting at a U.S. school afflicted his state.


Patrick, a staunch conservative, appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and ABC’s “This Week” to discuss responses after a lone gunman opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, on Friday, killing eight students and two teachers.


“There was a teacher next door, a (former) Marine, who saw what was going on... Some feel had he been able to carry a gun, he could have stopped that shooter,” he told host Jake Tapper on the CNN program.

He told “This Week” host Geroge Stephanopoulos that “our teachers are part of that well-run militia” referred to in the Second Amendment that concerns the right to bear firearms.

“It’s guns that also stop crimes,” he added.



Read more: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-lt-governor-dan-patrick-doubles-down-on-arming-teachers_us_5b017c4be4b0463cdba350a5

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"Teachers are part of that well-run militia" - I can see it now, teachers in training with guns - All part of the Texas Teachers 101 Militia (no extra pay for week-end training)

[RKP5637]

1. Hmmmm - does that come with about a 75% haphazardness pay increase. n/t

[KY_EnviroGuy]

21. Even more important, it had better come with...

around $50million in liability insurance.

........

[RKP5637]

24. Imagine the mess - massacre. Teaches with side arms against an assault weapon. FFS. n/t

[KY_EnviroGuy]

43. Exactly.

Apparently, a thorough, rational thought process would bust a Republican's head wide open.

An intruder would know to go for the teacher first!........

[bitterross]

28. haphazardness pay - that's really good! I'm stealing it.

I like that and I'm going to steal it. I might shorten it to haphazard pay because that parallels hazard pay a bit better.

[RKP5637]

32. Perfect!!! n/t

[Initech]

2. Yeah it's bad enough bullets are coming from one direction.

[quartz007]

3. Is that on voluntary basis or forced to carry?

We do need immediate and drastic action to protect students.

Courts, airports, congress, Hollywood celebrities, etc all have metal detectors and armed guards nearby.. Why not schools?

[LisaL]

6. The school already had armed cops.

Jeez.

[quartz007]

14. In Florida shooting the one armed guard was OUTSIDE

the building, and was scared to come in and confront the shooter, who was inside! The armed guard should always be INSIDE the building where the students are. And inside the metal detectors with restricted number of entrances. Anything else is hot air, and students will be left to die at the hands of a crazy shooter.

[LisaL]

16. Well in Santa Fe, armed cop confronted the shooter and got shot.

[quartz007]

20. Really???

Reason the armed guard inside was shot because the crazed shooter was not stopped by presence of a metal detector.

Please read my post #18 again. Unless all 3 items are done ASAP, expect more carnage in schools.

[Igel]

37. Yes.

That's his job. It's a risk. And it's a risk that paid off.

His confronting the kid--which in his case also meant being shot--was part of what saved students' lives. (So, please, let's make sure that the cops stay outside. Better dead kids than a shot cop.)

During the shooting, Barnes and another officer rushed into Santa Fe ISD High School, where they confronted the 17-year-old junior accused in the shooting, Dimitrios Pagourtzis.

Pagourtzis shot Barnes with a shotgun, badly wounding the 49-year-old school police officer, according to HPD Capt. Jim Dale, a close friend of the officer. A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper with Barnes fired off a shot before Pagourtzis surrendered.

In other words, while the kid was aiming at one cop his partner was there. His was the last body penetrated by lead. His partner's one shot fired caused the kid to stop and surrender.

[LisaL]

44. I don't think that's an accurate timeline if you look at more reports on what

actually happened in this case.
One of the cops got shot, the other took him to safety. Then later SWAT team arrived. It's the SWAT team that caused the shooter to give up, not the second cop, as far as I can tell from other reports.

[Igel]

36. All such proposals are the same.

Voluntary, specific models of guns at teacher expense, specific types of bullets ("frangible" is the word used), with required training above and beyond the minimum and some psychological testing.

It's a trade-off. Yes, it's a threat. But we live in a world where there are all kinds of threats and we evaluate them.

My kid, for instance, saw a plane crash on the news when he was 5 or 6 and refused to get on a plane again. Quote statistics, didn't matter--all he remembered was "planes crash and you die." So for years he had to take the train to visit his grandmother, a 24-hour trip. That was until a year or two ago when there were a series of train wrecks and I made sure that he saw the news footage of the aftermath. Suddenly he realized that the risk was relative, not an either/or type of deal, and he stopped to ponder train versus plane safety. And he boarded a plane.


Left out source of the block quote: https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/John-Barnes-officer-shot-confronting-Santa-Fe-12926475.php

[LisaL]

4. Somehow he forgot to mention that there was an actual armed cop at Santa Fe who got shot by the

shooter and almost killed.

[quartz007]

15. From lack of metal detectors at entrance.

[LisaL]

17. Oh for crying out loud.

If you put metal detector in entrance, what do you do before the students get to that entrance?
That would create an area where students wait to be screened.
How do you protect those students?

[quartz007]

19. Read post #18

[MarcA]

23. Good Points. Students in line at an entrance would be easy targets

for a murderer who is at a safe distance. Also easy target for suicide bombers.
And limited entrances also mean limited exits.

[Scalded Nun]

5. Patrick is an idiot and a dick

And now Ollie North says Ritalin is to blame. Another Treasonous asshole heard from. I have yet to see or hear of any deaths from someone entering a school and throwing Ritalin pills at students.

[LisaL]

7. They will blame anything and everything except easy access to guns.

[keithbvadu2]

8. Teacher ready to serve. Margaret Thistlewhacker packing, reporting for duty.

Teacher ready to serve. Margaret Thistlewhacker packing, reporting for duty.

Armed teacher on the move looking for the shooter.

Police come in blazing.

See armed person.

Just what they are looking for.

[Mc Mike]

9. Right. More guns, obviously what is needed.

Today's Gee oh Pee. Priceless.

[BumRushDaShow]

10. The "armed police" were useless

so then let's just throw more "arms" at the problem.

[Igel]

38. The armed police stopped the shooter at Santa Fe. n/t

[BumRushDaShow]

41. Not until he had already killed 10 and injured at least as many. nt

[ancianita]

11. GOP need to stop beating that goddamn fucking drum! Guns in schools make them MILITARY SCHOOLS.

[Initech]

29. They won't be satisfied until everyone has a gun and murder is legal.

At least the gun manufacturer and funeral industries will get nice pay days.

[ancianita]

34. Confiscate non-hunting guns wherever children under 21 live.

Non-hunting arms making is death dealing.

The top two handgun manufacturing states, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, relatively speaking, have the lowest rates of death by guns, and that's because manufacturers there care about their people there.

Maps of gun manufacturers are around. They can be disinvested from, shorted on the markets, etc.

[Igel]

39. Shotgun?

It's a hunting gun.

And a lot of hunters carry sidearms both for personal protection in the woods as well as for the kill shot if they just wound the animal and have track it or run it down. Many of the ones I used to know wouldn't use a revolver, they'd use a semi pistol.

[NickB79]

49. The Santa Fe shooter used a hunting gun

A 12-gauge shotgun.

[bronxiteforever]

12. Just call him NRA employee Dan Patrick

He doesn’t work for the people.

[rockfordfile]

13. Texas is one screwed up state.

[quartz007]

18. Absolutely needed are high powered gun restriction laws

But with 400 Million guns in civilian hands, it will take decades to become effective in preventing loss of innocent student lives. Heck we have trouble locating 10 most wanted by the FBI. How fast can the law enforcement locate millions of AR-15's floating around un-registered?

I want immediate action!

1) Pass laws outlawing all high powered guns imeediately.
Those are not necessary for hunting. Only use is to kill
many people quickly.

2) All schools should have staggered class hours and only 1
entrance per 1000 students, with metal detectors and an
armed guard at a safe distance behind the entrance.

3) If a education district can not afford full time guards, then
allow teachers to voluntarily carry guns if they can prove
adequate firearms training.

Short of all of above, the carnage will continue.

[Initech]

30. 1 entrance per 1,000 students? Please tell me that is a joke!

There's these things called "fire" and "safety" codes that would get in the way of that line of thinking.

[quartz007]

45. Did you miss "staggered class schedules"?

Fire codes are for exits, not for entry. In case of file alarm going off, maintenance staff can easily open all locked exits.

[Initech]

50. It's an absolutely terrible idea no matter how you justify it.

It's bad enough that the NRA has made us sitting ducks, let's make a bad situation worse by closing off all the exits and appointing armed wannabe Rambos as hall monitors.

[NickB79]

33. Do you mean high-capacity guns?

I'm down for a 5-10 round magazine limit, but the shotgun the Santa Fe shooter used was the quintessential hunting gun. We aren't going to ban those anytime soon.

[quartz007]

46. Correct @ hunting guns, Santa Fe would not have happened if

restricted entry with metal detectors were present.

[LanternWaste]

52. Or, it may yet have still happened, but with a different method of entrance.

"Santa Fe would not have happened if..."

Or, it may yet have still happened, but with a different method of entrance.

It's fun to pretend that 'after this, therefor because of this' is a valid point to raise, but it's merely one in a long line of logical fallacies.

[quartz007]

53. If there was an easy solution, it would already be done

With more guns than there are people in this country, these incidents will not end quickly or easily.

But if one examines how many people get shot in courts or on an airliner, it becomes obvious what works. They both have metal detectors for entry. With so many schools out there, and most use multiple entry points, metal detectors will be a very expensive solution. Is there a quicker, and cheaper solution out there?

[hatrack]

42. 1 entrance per 1,000 students? Are you high?

[quartz007]

47. No, i don't drink or smoke but you might be high

because you missed the staggered class schedules part in my post.

At any one time, the number of students entering will be same as max class size.

[Haggis for Breakfast]

48. Do you know what we call that in the military ?

One entrance per 1000 students ?

Do you know what we call that in the military ?

We call that a "kill zone."

[hatrack]

51. But staggered class times! Kevlar! Steel classroom walls! Claymore mines!

[KY_EnviroGuy]

22. The Texas Legi will just ban trench coats and say...

move on folks, noting else to see here.

What's needed folks, IMO, it to implement whatever is required to prevent guns from entering school buildings PERIOD.

We need to resurrect Molly Ivans NOW......

[Crowman2009]

25. So no pencils, textbooks, paper, or even teacher pay raises? Just guns?

Out nation's priorities are ass-backwards at the moment. I assume that this dumbass Lt. Gov. wants teachers to pay for these guns with their meager wages. He serves his NRA paymasters well.

[Igel]

40. Huh?

I teach in Texas. We have textbooks, paper, and at least my district's had a pay raise every year but one in the last 15 years. And that one year was during a severe budget crunch where the compensation increase went entirely to mitigating the changes to our health insurance required by changes in federal law.

That said, Texas underfunds its schools, but it's not as dire as you painted.

[Eliot Rosewater]

26. Let's first arm every single POC, Muslim, Latino and Women

[keithbvadu2]

31. The Oath Keepers were going to arm the black citizens of Ferguson.

The Oath Keepers were going to arm the black citizens of Ferguson.

Wonder how that worked out.

http://www.newsweek.com/oath-keepers-ferguson-blacklivesmatter-michael-brown-black-lives-matter-second-363994

[Doreen]

27. So the shooters will know it is the teachers and staff they shoot first then the other students.

Good plan................NOT!!!!

[ananda]

35. What a fucking dangerous idiot.

We really do live in a malignant idiocracy.