Last updated on 2013.08.06
Just like last year, the South Dakota House is considering school legislation which would harm K-12 education and which distracts us from talking about real policy solutions for the daily problems we teachers face in helping kids learn. Just like last year, teachers, principals, and school boards are lining up solidly against the Legislature's wrong-headed proposal.
And I worry that, just like last year, an ideologically driven Republican majority will ignore the good advice of the education experts and pass their very bad idea.
The House Education Committee heard testimony yesterday on House Bill 1087, the school-gunslinger bill. Prime sponsor Rep. Rev. Scott Craig (R-33/Rapid City) presented the bill. Then came the proponents and opponents. Please read the testimony roster from the minutes carefully:
Proponents: Representative Betty Olson
Representative Steve Hickey
Representative Jim Bolin
Florence Thompson, self
Emmett Reistroffer, SD Families First
Representative Leslie Heinemann
Representative Jim Stalzer
Senator Craig Tieszen
Opponents: Orson Ward, self
Wade Pogany, Associated School Boards of SD
Jeff Marlette, self
Sandy Arseneault, SD Education Association
Jim Holbeck, Harrisburg School District
Dianna Miller, Large School Group
In favor: six Republican legislators, including Betty Olson, who argues that she feels helpless when she works as a substitute teacher and can't bring her gun to work.
Betty, in the unlikely event that I am ever a school administrator, I will never hire you or anyone else who lives in such fear and views my classrooms as her personal shooting gallery.
Rep. Rev. Steve Hickey joined his pulpit pal rep. Rev. Craig in urging schools to pick up the sword... though he keeps hiding his call behind his specious local control argument. Rep. Rev. Hickey ups the rhetorical ante by trying to paint opponents into a corner:
“Which school board do you not trust to do what is best?” said Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls [Josh Verges, "Guns in School: Sides Give Testimony," that Sioux Falls paper, 2013.01.23].
Rep. Rev. Hickey did the same strategy with last year's HB 1234, the Governor's attempt to wreck our schools with merit pay and foolishness: the bill can't stand on its own merits, so throw a little ad hominem at the opponents. Opponents of this bill don't mistrust any school board (well, I might have a chat with Betty Olson's); opponents simply recognize that having armed teachers and volunteers in classrooms and school hallways is a bad idea that the Legislature should not authorize for anyone.
It's the same as if the Legislature wanted to authorize schools to expel students for being openly gay. It doesn't matter how much I trust my school board; why would we pass a law to let school boards do such a bad thing?
Two non-legislators spoke in favor of HB 1087. Fringe anti-socialism crusader Florence Thompson said she's felt unsafe subbing in recent years and wants more guns in school. She's obviously been watching too much cable news. Quasi-libertarian Emmett Reistroffer took a break from his advocacy for drug legalization and prison reform to advocate for making it easier for kids and teachers to get shot at school.
Testifying against the legislation were the people who would be most directly affected by the legislation, the folks who work at schools, as represented by the school board association, the teachers' association, the large school group, and two working superintendents. ASBSD exec Wade Pogany said quite simply, "More firearms in schools makes schools even more unsafe." He also wasn't tricked by Rep. Rev. Hickey's local-control smokescreen:
“This is not a debate about local control. The question is: Is it acceptable to allow teachers and administrators to carry guns in schools?” he said. “This is a decision that is so important that it needs to be made at the state level” [Verges, 2013.01.23].
Lead-Deadwood school board chairman Orson Ward and New Underwood superintendent Jeff Marlette both agree that we should not authorize more guns in school. They are both big timber in the National Guard, so they know a thing or two about firearms. Marlette urged the legislators not to overreact to last month's school shooting in Connecticut.
The House Education Committee at least decided not to overreact right away. With so many serious educators looking them in the eye and telling them not to pass this bill, the committee decided to delay action so they could shoo those opponents out of the room and discuss the bill further on Friday.
Friends, if you didn't manage to get hold of the House Education committee members before yesterday's hearing, you have another chance. Give them a ring and tell them to quit hurting education with bad bills like HB 1087. If you need some text to work with, here's the e-mail I sent to every member on Tuesday.
House Education, don't make the mistake you made last year with HB 1234. Listen to the teachers, the administrators, and the school boards. Reject the school-gunslinger bill now.
He also wasn't tricked by Rep. Rev. Hickey's local-control smokescreen:
“This is not a debate about local control. The question is: Is it acceptable to allow teachers and administrators to carry guns in schools?” he said. “This is a decision that is so important that it needs to be made at the state level”
He does have a point. South Dakota's Constitution states:
"The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be denied"
Based on Pogeny's testimony, local school boards are not going to restore Cosntitutional Rights to teachers, so the state should enforce its Constitution and deem Federal Gun-Free zones invalid. This bill needs to be amended.
Cory, are you ready for some common sense:
So now that there is a new tragedy the president wants to have a “national conversation on guns”. Here’s the thing. Until this national conversation is willing to entertain allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons, then it isn’t a conversation at all, it is a lecture.
Now when I say teachers carrying concealed weapons on Facebook I immediately get a bunch of emotional freak out responses. You can’t mandate teachers be armed! Guns in every classroom! Emotional response! Blood in the streets!
No. Hear me out. The single best way to respond to a mass shooter is with an immediate, violent response. The vast majority of the time, as soon as a mass shooter meets serious resistance, it bursts their fantasy world bubble. Then they kill themselves or surrender. This has happened over and over again.
Police are awesome. I love working with cops. However any honest cop will tell you that when seconds count they are only minutes away. After Colombine law enforcement changed their methods in dealing with active shooters. It used to be that you took up a perimeter and waited for overwhelming force before going in. Now usually as soon as you have two officers on scene you go in to confront the shooter (often one in rural areas or if help is going to take another minute, because there are a lot of very sound tactical reasons for using two, mostly because your success/survival rates jump dramatically when you put two guys through a door at once. The shooter’s brain takes a moment to decide between targets). The reason they go fast is because they know that every second counts. The longer the shooter has to operate, the more innocents die.
However, cops can’t be everywhere. There are at best only a couple hundred thousand on duty at any given time patrolling the entire country. Excellent response time is in the three-five minute range. We’ve seen what bad guys can do in three minutes, but sometimes it is far worse. They simply can’t teleport. So in some cases that means the bad guys can have ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes to do horrible things with nobody effectively fighting back.
So if we can’t have cops there, what can we do?
The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by law enforcement: 14. The average number of people shot in a mass shooting event when the shooter is stopped by civilians: 2.5. The reason is simple. The armed civilians are there when it started.
The teachers are there already. The school staff is there already. Their reaction time is measured in seconds, not minutes. They can serve as your immediate violent response. Best case scenario, they engage and stop the attacker, or it bursts his fantasy bubble and he commits suicide. Worst case scenario, the armed staff provides a distraction, and while he’s concentrating on killing them, he’s not killing more children.
But teachers aren’t as trained as police officers! True, yet totally irrelevant. The teacher doesn’t need to be a SWAT cop or Navy SEAL. They need to be speed bumps.
But this leads to the inevitable shrieking and straw man arguments about guns in the classroom, and then the pacifistic minded who simply can’t comprehend themselves being mandated to carry a gun, or those that believe teachers are all too incompetent and can’t be trusted. Let me address both at one time.
Don’t make it mandatory. In my experience, the only people who are worth a darn with a gun are the ones who wish to take responsibility and carry a gun. Make it voluntary. It is rather simple. Just make it so that your state’s concealed weapons laws trump the Federal Gun Free School Zones act. All that means is that teachers who voluntarily decide to get a concealed weapons permit are capable of carrying their guns at work. Easy. Simple. Cheap. Available now.
Then they’ll say that this is impossible, and give me all sorts of terrible worst case scenarios about all of the horrors that will happen with a gun in the classroom… No problem, because this has happened before. In fact, my state laws allow for somebody with a concealed weapons permit to carry a gun in a school right now. Yes. Utah has armed teachers. We have for several years now.
When I was a CCW instructor, I decided that I wanted more teachers with skin in the game, so I started a program where I would teach anybody who worked at a school for free. No charge. Zip. They still had to pay the state for their background check and fingerprints, but all the instruction was free. I wanted more armed teachers in my state.
http://www.mikehuckabee.com/mike-huckabee-news?ID=661ac8a6-3398-46e1-a645-996530efa4fc
Mike Huckabee is a white delusional fascist.
Mike Huckabee-now theres someone we can trust! Guns in school? No! And it has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment!
Larry & Owen, why are you two responded like white delusional fascists? And Owen, you need to also ignore Article VI Section 24 of South Dakota's Constitution while implementing your delusional fascist agenda.
Steve: are all your heroes delusional white christofascists?
So Cory has his answer to whether Hickey would support a local control bill allowing schools to distribute condoms. He trusts all of the school boards to make decisions at the local level.
"He trusts all of the school boards to make decisions at the local level."
Wade Pogeny proved that is false. The bill wants to give local school boards more pwoer and Pogeny, their representative, says...no, we want the state to tell us what to do.
Then you have Sandy Arseneault, the representative of the teachers unions testifying about dreams she had about security guards stalking her, so due to paranoia, her fellow union members should not be given constitutional rights to bear arms. I could not make this up people. I to think that our kids education is shaped by these delusional education leaders.
So Cory, why didn't you include this testimony in your post:
Sandy Arseneault, president of the South Dakota Education Association, said she was on the “hit list” years ago of a Custer student who had blueprints of the school and a plan to kill people. A fellow student reported the plan, and the student was removed and given help.
She was not calmed when the school hired an armed security guard following the incident. She said she had nightmares that the guard was stalking her, and she took some time away from work.
“I’ve been trained to teach children,” Arseneault said. “I do not want to carry a gun, nor do I want to work in a school where other teachers or other staff who might not be trained carry a gun.”
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20130124/NEWS/301240024/Guns-schools-Sides-give-testimony
Paranoid, delusional, and unable to separate dreams from reality. And then to argue that union members should not be given their right to bear arms!
Article VI Section 24. Right to bear arms. The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the state shall not be denied.
So this includes letting teachers have guns in school Steve? That's a stretch and defies common sense even for you and your crazy right-wing buddies
out of the mouth of babes.
http://www.kdlt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23667&Itemid=57#.UQG94Q9d8Wk.facebook
"So this includes letting teachers have guns in school Steve? That's a stretch and defies common sense even for you and your crazy right-wing buddies"
Could you please explain your logic here Owen?
From Owen's link:
"But, not all students would feel safer if their teachers were concealing a weapon. "
Owen, how would they know the teacher has a gun if it is "concealed"?
Sibby, They will know that the teacher might be carrying a gun. They will know that there are probably guns in the school. Many of these children will be afraid and/or distracted by this knowledge.
Sam, so you are saying the kids will be afraid of what they can't see? That is the point. They will not be so brave to carry out what they practice on video games. When they believe there cannot be guns at school, they are free to come in with their guns and have their way. It is past time for the environment to change and kids gain more respect for the adults and authority.
So Cory, you have no response to Sandy Arseneault's paranoid and fear-based testimony?
Steve, sometimes it's hard to sort out the comments worth mentioning from your usual flood of nonsense.
I have not listened to the full audio from yesterday's hearing. I did find Arsenault's comments as quoted in the press less compelling than the other testimony. However, the SDEA president is testifying to the fact that guns create anxiety and fear that have a significant impact on the ability of teachers and students to enjoy a safe working and learning environment. More importantly, she testifies to just how disturbing it is to see us violate the mission of the schools by turning them into armed camps.
And good grief, Sibby: are you actually advocating arming the fascist purveyors of New Age theology? You want to give us more power to force America's children to submit to our evil philosophy?
Sam's right: kids will know. And if guns in school really do deter shootings, then isn't the whole point to let the "bad guys" we imagine around every corner know we have guns? I guarantee that if I carry a gun in my classroom, I will make that knowledge known to everybody. I want those shooters to stay away from my kids, to look for less dangerous targets...
...assuming the world works on these John-Wayne fantasies.
And Owen, good link! The kids understand at a gut level that schools shouldn't have guns. If we're doing our jobs right, we shouldn't need guns.
Sibby, You asked: Owen, how would they know the teacher has a gun if it is "concealed"?
I responded to that question.
I'm not sure why you want guns in schools for protection when it seems that you consider all children to be corrupted by their video games, New Age Theocratthumpin' teachers, etc. Who are you wanting to protect other than your unregulated version of the 2nd Amendment?
Have you recently experienced disrespect by a child? Do you really believe that the mass shootings are an issue of disrespect? What role does mental health play in this issue?
...oh good grief...why did I engage?
I guess I should have refreshed before finally posting my comment. I could have just written, "Yeah...what Cory said." :)
"However, the SDEA president is testifying to the fact that guns create anxiety and fear that have a significant impact on the ability of teachers and students to enjoy a safe working and learning environment. "
So we are the kids not afraid of using guns in their violent video games? It is clear that parnoid delusional fear of guns are not grounds to ignore fundamental constitutional rights of those who have sound mind.
why should students be prohibited from carrying guns in school, sib?
Larry, same common sense reasons that set age limits on driving cars and voting.
driving cars is allowed for fourteen year olds so they should be able to carry guns in school, right?
Did Sibby just type the words "common sense?" Well, shut my mouth. I do believe hell has frozen over.
I'm getting ready to attend the Legislative Forum in Brookings this morning.
Updates on Twitter @sampeil #sdleg
http://business.brookingschamber.org/Events/details/legislative-forum-2179
Tweet on, @sampeil! I'll join you from the District 31 crackerbarrel at BHSU, 9 a.m. MST @coralhei #sdleg.