This is a sign from Union Grove, Texas where licensed and trained teachers and administrators now carry a firearm. Is this sign supposed to convince killers to move down the road to the less defended school?
As we recently saw, other schools are conducting unannounced practice raids by hooded police pretending to be homicidal killers.
The question is how is this new environment going to affect how our children view the world and their government. What impact do such signs have on children in accepting a greater role for authority and police presence?
Source: KNBC
What about nukes aplenty … talk about a schooling …
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2013/05/11/was-syria-nuked/
“The sound shivers through the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed… and this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Again, the problem exemplified by the Sandy Hook shooting isn’t a gun problem. It’s a lack of quality publicly available mental health care problem. This sign won’t prevent another Sandy Hook any more than banning certain types of guns would. However, a regular course of therapy combined with proper medications might.
Never forget that one of the primary uses of propaganda is distraction and confusion; getting you the public to take their eye off the ball and to in many cases try to change the shape of the ball altogether.
Suicide-by-cop is so passé. How long till we start seeing suicide-by-teacher?
Said by Porkchop:
AP:
There don’t seem to have been any such accidental shootings by teachers in Utah. But don’t let facts and actual experience get in the way of your predictions.
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There’s plenty of time Porkchop. Plenty of time. As more schools and employees are thrown into the mix, the odds of an accident increase.
I wouldn’t take any pleasure in being right on this one.
And what Gene H. said.
Definately more political than substantive.
That being said, can someone please show an instance where a sign has deterred a crazy person bent on violence?
OS:
The sign is overkill if it is generally known that staff can be armed in schools. I think it probably makes an unlikely event even less likely, though.
AP:
There don’t seem to have been any such accidental shootings by teachers in Utah. But don’t let facts and actual experience get in the way of your predictions.
I once knew a woman who was crazy scared of mice, but not bears.
Or maybe it was twice …
I agree with Darren this is a political statement, not something practical. The chances of a school shooting in any given location is probably less than being struck by lightning. This is bluff and bluster.
Next up? A teacher will accidentally shoot a student or two… or more
Yep. That is what fear will do. Having the guns will actually heighten the tension. It will be is a shooter coming now, Is it now? It will be like the kids saying are we there yet?
Flip side to some of the concerns about guns.
I always carry a gun; when stopped by the police for an assumed traffic violation, I always informed the cops that I am legally armed (required in Colorado).
The level of courtesy/professionalism on the part of the cops takes a big step up.
Probably because they recognize that I have passed the background check and am law abiding. Maybe because there is a recognition that we are both armed – we are equals.
Not just my perception; had passengers who commented on the mutual courtesy of the interaction.
Maybe (more a hope than a real belief), kids will learn a degree of self sufficiency in seeing individuals (rather than government) protecting them.
People that call a gun their god will end up being killed by the god they serve that has no soul nether any love within it.
This sign is more political statement than deterrant. The same type of thinking as when one school around where I used to live that put a solar panel mounted to a pole right out in the front of the school by the main street, they were just trying to make a statement with it. It’s not as if all the other transformers or junction stations where displayed so proudly.
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/5-year-old-texas-boy-shot-in-head It seems like three year old children shooting five year olds or five year olds shooting eight year olds is the new normal in the gun crazed culture.
JT:
“Is this sign supposed to convince killers to move down the road to the less defended school?”
Maybe the best solution is to simply put up a similar sign at every school. It doesn’t matter if it is true or not, because potential school shooters won’t know that. As I understand it, Texas is a concealed-carry-only state; it is illegal to carry a handgun openly. As long as it is credible that some teachers or staff at some schools are armed, then a potential school teacher has to consider that any teacher or staff member at any school could potentially be armed.
I’m not a fan of post hoc ergo propter hoc arguments, but look at Utah. Concealed carry license holders, including teachers and staff, have been allowed to carry firearms in schools there for a decade or so. What is the death toll from mass school shootings in Utah? How many armed teachers have run amok?
Anonymously Yours:
“Warning…. In Texas you never know who is packing….”
That makes for a more circumspect, polite society — like we have here in Virginia. Robert Heinlein was right.
” What impact do such signs have on children in accepting a greater role for authority and police presence?”
Fear.
It’s what’s for breakfast. And lunch. And class. And recess.
Just conditioning those kids to lick every boot they see! After all, when your goal is to create a police state, you have to condition people to accept it and to love living under armed guard or they might rise up and kill you. And children have such pliant minds. It’s best to get them while they’re young for indoctrination purposes.
Seriously, this little story made me throw up in the back of my mouth just a little.
Warning…. In Texas you never know who is packing….
This is so wrong-headed, but I have to admit that I kept the NRA sticker on my new-to-me but used RV. I figured anyone thinking bad thoughts might decide to pass me by. I never had a problem, but, then, I never had a problem with my other RV that didn’t have a sticker.
This policy could put a new wrinkle in Parent / Teacher conferences.