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08-18-2008, 07:01 PM
|  | A Has Been | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Farmersville, TX
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08-18-2008, 08:09 PM
|  | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
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It did, I saw it a couple days ago.
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MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
08-18-2008, 08:44 PM
|  | Hot Lips | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: I'm not sure
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Me too. Old news.
__________________ Watching TV teaches philosophy.
"The more you know, the less you don't know"....
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08-18-2008, 09:29 PM
|  | Premium Member | | Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Michigan
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Old but interesting. Mixed feelings about here because I work with someone that's entirely a ticking bomb (after teaching 37 years). He should have retired long ago but he says not until the end of this year. |
08-18-2008, 09:32 PM
|  | Epinions Members | | Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Iowa
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Quote: slick4591 said
 | The so-called blog-o-sphere is all abuzz about it.
Not sure I want to discuss it here also. ...:minism:...
...tom...
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__________________ " Work like you don't need money,
Love like you've never been hurt,
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08-19-2008, 11:34 AM
| | A Has Been | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Farmersville, TX
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I didn't post it in the Symposium because I already know most feelings around here. I missed it on CNN and the other big ones so I didn't know it was out there. |
08-20-2008, 04:16 PM
| | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
Posts: 28,760
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__________________
MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
08-20-2008, 06:25 PM
| | A Has Been | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Farmersville, TX
Posts: 6,444
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'Recon that will qualified under the tax free weekend? |
08-20-2008, 06:48 PM
|  | Forum Code Administrator | | Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: PA
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I shot guns in high school. Yes, it was in Texas. We had a rifle range in the school and I qualified on a .22 rifle each of my four years there.
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08-20-2008, 08:57 PM
| | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
Posts: 28,760
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We had rifle team at my school in Western NY too. I wasn't on it, but my stoner friend was 
__________________
MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
08-21-2008, 12:29 AM
|  | Hot and Juicy | | Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: off campus
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The guns might come in handy if there is a coyote attack |
08-21-2008, 08:14 PM
|  | Rockin', Rollin', Ritin' | | Join Date: Jul 2000
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The school district will have to compile a "dropout" rate and a "taken out" rate. 
Of course, considering the smarts of the elected officials who established this misguided policy, their dropout rate has probably been high for quite some time. |
08-22-2008, 03:30 PM
|  | Hello, I'm Deb | | Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Oregon
Posts: 7,205
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Actually, given the sensible restrictions on who can carry, I think it's a step forward. Quote:
Superintendent David Thweatt said the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff's office, leaving students and teachers without protection. He said the district's lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target.
"When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that's when all of these shootings started. Why would you put it out there that a group of people can't defend themselves? That's like saying 'sic 'em' to a dog," Thweatt said in Friday's online edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
| One armed teacher in a school would level the playing field considerably. I don't have a problem with this.
__________________ Support our Marines "If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." - Carl Shurz, German general and politician |
08-23-2008, 04:34 PM
|  | Epinions Members | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The City In A Garden
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It looks as though they've actually thought it through, which makes me a lot more comfortable with it, particularly the part about teachers and staff who are going to be armed also undergoing mandatory training on how and when to use firearms.
It's sort of sad that the country has gotten to this, though. |
08-24-2008, 11:00 AM
| | Rockin', Rollin', Ritin' | | Join Date: Jul 2000
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The use of deadly force should always be contraindicated when the assailant can be subdued by non-lethal means.
If the teachers in this school are capable of using guns, they should also be capable of using tasers.
As a matter of fact, police that patrol schools in four states carry tasers. Quote:
Use in schools and on children
Police officers that patrol schools, including grade schools, in several U.S. states (including Kansas, Minnesota, Kentucky, and Florida), currently carry tasers. In 2004, the parents of a 6-year old boy in Miami sued the police department for tasering their child. The police said the boy was threatening to injure his own leg with a shard of glass, and claimed that using the taser was the only option to stop the boy from injuring himself. Taser International asserts that the taser is safe for use on anyone weighing 60 pounds (27 kg) or more. Nevertheless, the boy's mother told CNN that the three officers involved might have found it easier to reason with her child. Two weeks later, a 12-year-old girl skipping school was tasered in Miami-Dade.
Supporters of taser use in schools argue that merely switching on the device, and threatening to use it, can be effective in frightening violent or uncooperative students into desisting from inappropriate behaviour, if verbal reprimands have not succeeded. Critics counter that tasers may interact with preexisting medical complications such as medications, and may even contribute to someone's death as a result. Thus, critics say, they should either be prohibited altogether in schools, or classified as possibly lethal weapons and as a consequence, should be regulated very tightly. Critics also argue that using a taser on a minor, and especially a young child, is effectively cruel and abusive punishment, and therefore it should be banned on the same grounds that other, older forms of physical punishment such as canings have been banned from use in many schools.
| Taser - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Of course, as the article shows, tasers need to be restricted to those situations where serious physical harm will result if the student isn't subdued.
So my question is how the school board can possibly justify the use of a deadly weapon when a non-deadly weapon would be as effective?
Ah, well, there's money to be made in every situation. I'm sure the local realtors have a sign up outside their offices, "Welcome, ambulance chasers." |
08-24-2008, 12:24 PM
| | Epinions Members | | Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: The City In A Garden
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There seems to be a tendency to think that, since tasers are "nonlethal," they can be used at the slightest provocation. Sorry, but there are reports almost weekly of someone being tasered to death -- in fact, I believe it's in Louisiana that a police officer has just been indicted for tasering someone to death: the grand jury found that his use of the taser was excessive and unjustified.
Here's the file on tasers from Pam's House Blend, where they do a good job of tracking these incidents.
So, no, I don't see that they're any safer than guns at this point, simply because people don't think they're "dangerous." |
08-24-2008, 12:36 PM
| | Hello, I'm Deb | | Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Oregon
Posts: 7,205
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Where's Eris? 
I'd certainly be willing to help her do a scholarship search to finance a teaching degree. Seguing from unruly hotel guest into a grade school classroom has got to be a step up . . . and the stories would be great!
__________________ Support our Marines "If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." - Carl Shurz, German general and politician |
08-24-2008, 01:02 PM
| | Hello, I'm Deb | | Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Oregon
Posts: 7,205
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More seriously, I'm not sure how you can state that a taser would be "as effective" as a sgun. In the first place, taser electrical charges have a severely limited range compared with bullets. Second, if someone has a gun and a teacher tasers him, it could result in sporadic uncontrolled gunfire and could make the situation much worse. One well-placed bullet would have stopped Kip Kinkel, Eric Harris, or Dylan Klebold.
__________________ Support our Marines "If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." - Carl Shurz, German general and politician |
08-24-2008, 04:04 PM
| | Rockin', Rollin', Ritin' | | Join Date: Jul 2000
Posts: 5,835
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As I said, use of a taser should be restricted to those situations where the assailant is a clear and present physical danger to himself and/or others. Guidelines surrounding taser use should be the same as guidelines for gun use.
In addition to that, does this school have metal detectors at the entrances?
Are doors to the school locked during the day, except for the door right near the main office?
Do they have "intruder" drills?
Have they done everything they could to render the use of a gun unnecessary?
Why don't we hear about school shootings in western Europe, Canada, Australia, or Japan? We have far more violent crime than any of those places. We should be embarrassed that we have violence written right into our Constitution, at least in the way it is currently interpreted by our current Supreme Court. |
08-24-2008, 05:24 PM
| | In Spanish, I'm Marijuana | | Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Lawn-Guy-Land, NY
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Generally, gun-free zones in NYC were established because of teens shooting other teens. Having guns in schools reminds me too much of the problems with having guns in homes - ya buys them for protection against intruders, and yet the stats show they're often used wrongly against people who are part of the family... Teachers aren't immune from getting pissed at each other (there've been teacher-on-teacher assaults in the papers around here in the past) and teens could be pretty capable at figuring out how to get to a teacher's gun despite teachers' cautions. But NYC doesn't have the distance-from-law-enforcement problems that the rural schools in Texas do, so they'll probably remain gun-free zones anyway.
__________________
MJ
It's extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can't find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.~ Bono |
08-24-2008, 05:45 PM
|  | Got my hands over my eyes | | Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Maryland
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Maryanne,
Tasers have a purpose, but unless backed up by deadly force, I don't see them being of any use at all in the sort of situation which happened at Va Tech or Nickle Mines, PA.
The school board took this very public action in order to discourage such an event from occurring at their school, which is easily accessible from the interstate, but not from the local sheriff's dept.
They're not encouraging the entire staff to be armed, just a select few who already have a concealed carry license and training in crisis management and hostage situations.
There are only 110 students in the entire school district. This means that every teacher almost certainly knows every student -- probably very well. It is extremely unlikely that they are arming themselves against a threat from their own students. In a district that size, they'd know which kids, if any, were troubled and take other action to help them.
They just don't want to be the next Nickel Mines. Can't say that I blame them.
TASERs have a purpose, but that purpose isn't stopping bullets.
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Judy |
08-24-2008, 07:23 PM
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08-24-2008, 08:28 PM
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