The latest line of irresponsible deflection on House Bill 1087, the school gunslinger bill, comes from prime Senate sponsor Craig Tieszen (R-34/Rapid City), who offered this defense yesterday on the Senate floor:
“The sentinel bill will not put one single gun in any school in South Dakota,” said Sen. Craig Tieszen, R-Rapid City and the former Rapid City police chief. “Only a local school board can make that decision” [David Montgomery, "Sentinels Bill Passes Senate, Close to Becoming Law," Political Smokeout, 2013.02.27].
This is the same hogwash we hear from legislators when they cut funding for K-12 education but claim low teacher salaries and cuts in staff and resources aren't their fault. "The local school boards make all those decisions," claim our (mostly Republican) legislators, who have a real problem taking responsibility for their bad choices.
HB 1087 opens the door to put more guns in our schools. If any school makes the bad decision to arm teachers, janitors, or other volunteers, it will be because Senator Tieszen and 20 of his NRA-approval-seeking colleagues voted for this bill.
If those new guns in schools cause a group of kindergartners to grow up a little more afraid, a little less able to learn, and a little less firm in their faith in civil society, Senator Tieszen will bear some of the blame. And if there's an accident with one of those guns (which is the only way that anyone has ever been killed by a firearm in a South Dakota school), Senator Tieszen will bear some of the blame.
If this idea is good for schools, it is good for legislators. Let legislators carry guns on the floor or anyone in the capitol building should need that protection. Maybe a county or city should also have it in their seats of government. There have been more Post Office shootings over the years, include them too. Maybe ... Where does it end?
Larry, spot on. Folks should have the unalienable right to pack heat in divorce court, child custody hearings, defendants in criminal trials, etc. Rep. Tieszen's amendment is the worst of the worst yet typical republican hypocrisy in parading values, personal responsibility then avoiding it by shifting the consequences to others.
When this state was new and the capitol was in Yankton, one legislator was put in jail for all except votes because he had threatened another legislator the previous year.
But the not wanting to be responsible is like a divorce court judge not wanting to be responsible for the mess he causes in kids lives by giving custody to the wrong parent. they just walk away and do not look back. They even tell you that is what they are going to do. They want responsible jobs but not the responsibility.
If it is inalienable, then Folks probably should have the right to own and carry firearms wherever they go. Otherwise calling it inalienable is a polite nicety. Just an empty promise that we would have the right to defend ourselves. You can always conjure up scenarios to inspire fear or what crazy people might do but you want to neuter everyone, not just crazy people...like Larry :)
"neuter everyone"—wow. I don't think we could ask for a more direct admission that the guns debate is really about machismo and phallic symbols. I don't feel emasculated by the fact that I walk around without a gun. I suspect Adam Lanza did feel like a big man as he walked around with a gun shooting teachers and children. It's pretty obvious whose mindset is more warped and more dangerous. HB 1087 wants us to send the message to children that you're not really a man unless you're carrying a gun... and its advocates in the Legislature want to absolve themselves of responsibility for sending that harmful message.
You also wouldn't feel emasculated if you were confronted in the halls of your school by another Adam Lanza. You'd just be dead. Dead along with the students in your care. Thanks. I'm sure the parents would be happy you weren't a macho teacher. So, congratulations on possessing such inner confidence together with equally impressive negligent naivety.
The legislature wants to allow school boards to show more foresight than you, but you would rather discard the principles of local empowerment you normally champion in favor of a knee jerk fear of weapons. Do you have any acknowledgement of the need for the 2nd amendment?
The chances of such an event happening are less than the chances of my being struck by lightning on the way to work. I do not invest public resources or put my child at risk to take anti-lightning measures.
I do not believe in empowering local government to waste resources in response to hysteria or gun-nuttery.
I do acknowledge a need for the Second Amendment, just as I acknowledge a much greater need for the First Amendment. I also acknowledge a need for limitations on both in our public schools.
So you believe fully in the freedom of others in your local area unless they might act in a way you find foolish or wasteful. The same belief is used as justification by dictators. Events like Newtown are rare, and I agree that states probably shouldn't make bad policy on the emotional reaction to it. States like Colorado:
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22716905/colorado-gun-bills-senate-committee-takes-up-liability
I see the need for limitations on peoples rights where those rights are in opposition to the rights of others. Not arbitrarily and not simply because it involves a school.
I want to put a cannabis dispensary next to a school, Rog: what say you?
Retired Rapid City Stevens High School teacher, Mr. Ken Steinken, weighs in on this issue. I very much agree with everything he says, but what makes his opinion have even more credibility? He WAS there when an armed student came into their school in 1991. I'll let him tell the story.....
http://mytown.kotatv.com/rapid-city/2013/03/06/lawmakers-facts-for-texting-ban-fear-for-school-guns/
"You also wouldn't feel emasculated if you were confronted in the halls of your school by another Adam Lanza. You'd just be dead"
I would also be dead if I confronted Lanza with a gun.
I know my skill set, and I have a far better chance of talking a shooter down or disarming him with my bare hands than I do getting off a shot.
Quite frankly, I can't think of a single teacher I've worked with in the 25+ years that I've been teaching that I'd trust with a gun in an armed conflict. We are hired for commuincation skills and knowledge of subject matter not our skill with weapons.
Matt Dillion was one of my favorite characters when I was growing up. He and the rest of the televised American West is American fiction. We should not be basing state policy on that fiction
Larry: Assuming you mean legal marijuana, Go right ahead. I'll be happy to sue you into the ground with the first instance of negligent liability, but I wont prevent you from doing business with other adults capable of making their own decisions. If you mean something else than putting it next to a school is irrelevant since it would be criminal wherever it was.
LK: You do not need to be Matt Dillon, the simple fact of the weapons existence would offer a significant degree of protection. Data from convicted prisoners shows:
• 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
• 40% had decided not to commit a crime because they "knew or believed that the victim was carrying a gun"
• 69% personally knew other criminals who had been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an armed victim"
Even so; why should we care if you don't trust any of the teachers you've worked with after admitting you would be incompetent with a gun. You have no discernment to judge them by, and you aren't insisting on training to alleviate that concern anyway, but a blanket ban against the very idea of any weapons in schools. It is a red herring because I have no doubt if Dillinger leaped from the pages and got licensed as a teacher your opinion wouldn't change a whit.
Just a note: If qualified professionals were successful less than 10 percent of the time why make such an effort to limit magazine capacity to less than 10 while acting like any legitimate use of the firearm should never require "large capacity magazines"
Dana: His experience is remarkable in that he can remain wrong after it. Had he been armed it is unlikely the incident would have happened in the first place.
Roger,
I don't know where your stats come from so I won't comment on their accuracy until I see a source.
As for my competence to judge whether someone can or can't handle a situation, I should have been more clear that I was taking their temperment into account. I don't think I've seen any of them shoot. As far as lack of skill making someone incompetent to judge whether someone is skilled enough to handle a situation, I can't hit a baseball either but it didn't take me or anyone else very long to figure out that Alexi Casilla was not going to be the next Derek Jeter.
On you training point, I posted a link on this site someplace that shows that cops accuracy decreases dramatically under live fire compared to the range. The Empire State shooting incident proves the point.
On the Dillinger point, if Dillinger jumped off the page, I'd guess that the person who saw him do that was taking something stronger than the cannibas that Larry wants to dispense.
Finally, this conversation shows that Bill D., the wise Blindman, is correct: no one will change anyone's views about guns or abortion.
Why do I not feel insulted by LK's perfectly logical assessment of the skill sets for which teachers are hired and his conclusion that we should tote guns around kids? And why do I think Roger's suggestion that we carry guns with even bigger magazines is crazy-squared?
"On you training point, I posted a link on this site someplace that shows that cops accuracy decreases dramatically under live fire compared to the range."
Playing the kids violent video games would turn that around.
"no one will change anyone's views about guns or abortion."
A true American understands that a Constitutional Republic means we respect rights of those we disagree with and/or rights we do not want for ourselves. In a totalitarian police state where a democracy is used after generations are indoctrinated with socialist propaganda in the government schools, minority rights are trumped with mob rule by the majority. Stalin and Hitler would be very pleased by what is going on in America today.