By spocko, on April 27th, 2018% Here are a few tactics that might be useful to stop guns in schools programs.
PDF link to report on liability from arming teachers
PDL Link to report on liability with SRO
Ways to Stop, Slow or Stall Guns In Schools Programs From Growing These are based on historical methods that have worked in other states:
1) Demand to see the data on gun programs effectiveness “How effectively can someone with a gun protect a school from someone else with a gun?” Everyone fumbles when it comes to the documented failures of SROs in school shootings. It’s always, “If only…” and “Well, next time…” or “We just need more people with guns in the schools!” They are not effective for this purpose.
The Post analysis found that gun violence has occurred in at least 68 schools that employed a police officer or security guard. In all but a few of those incidents, the shootings ended before law enforcement of any kind interceded — often because the gunfire lasted only a few seconds. Prolonged attacks, of course, can be even more fraught, as McClanahan’s experience illustrates.
Of the nearly 200 Post-identified incidents of school gunfire, only once before this week has . . . → Read More: Ways to Stop, Slow or Stall Guns In Schools Programs From Growing
By spocko, on April 25th, 2018% I recently wrote a piece on the school board meeting in Brevard County in Florida. Why Are School Boards Putting More Guns In Schools? One of the speakers, Connie Rookie, a military law enforcement vet, sent me a copy of this article from the National Association of School Resource Officers, NASRO. “Arming School Personnel, School Safety Reform and Liability. from 2015.
I’ve contacted the author, Professor Bernard James to do a follow-up on legal liabilities issues in the state of Florida.
He also has a School Safety Law Blog and a list of his articles on Legal Updates at NASRO I specifically want to point out the piece, “Government Liability and the failure to train? I’m especially interested to see if this 2009 study referenced was updated.
“None of the SROs interviewed in a 2009 study “received[d] training in mediation, basic de-escalation techniques, or in detecting symptoms and behaviors of youths who have been exposed to violence, trauma, or abuse” and “rarely had any formal knowledge of, or training in, adolescent psychology or development, how to secure the respect and cooperation of youths, or on the behavioral precautions and protections that need to be taken with youths [who . . . → Read More: Failures in Hiring, Training and Supervision of SROs Lead to Government Liabilities
By spocko, on April 23rd, 2018%
The NRA will want to make the Waffle House shooting about mental illness, but is also about how to restrict, remove or confiscate guns from people who might be a threat to themselves or others. In 2012 I wrote this piece asking the question, “Dear Tim: I’m worried my gun-carrying son will hurt others, how do I get his concealed weapons permit revoked?”
What if your gun carrying friend or son is losing it and you are afraid for his life or the life of others. What do you do? What can you do? Let’s say he legally owns guns and has a legal concealed carry permit. He hasn’t been judged mentally ill by a judge, but he is clearly dangerous. What if your state doesn’t have a gun violence restraining law?
Recent laws in California give people a way to keep guns out of the hands of people in this situation. Illinois, where Travis Reinking is from, recently passed a Violence Order of Protection Act, but state representatives are rewriting the bill and renaming it the Firearm Restraining Order. Back in 2012 I asked responsible gun owners, “How would you handle this? The disturbed person is more . . . → Read More: How Do Responsible Gun Owners Confiscate Guns from Mental Ill Friends and Relatives?
By spocko, on April 21st, 2018% I spent 8 hours watching and re-watching a Florida school board meeting. I saw a group of smart, articulate women, and a few men, create strong cases against the proposal to arm teachers and staff. They provided excellent information and examples of the problems when you bring guns into schools on a permanent basis.
Brevard County School Board appears to be dedicated to a controversial program to arm school staff, despite calls from the superintendent and sheriff to focus their efforts elsewhere and despite droves of residents who have been protesting the program. Tim Shortt / FLORIDA TODAY
I was especially pleased to see them bring up the issue of negligence with guns, liability and ongoing cost of insurance. Especially concerning for school districts is the huge financial risk because of Monell liability. These were questions the board was unable to answer. (Video link of the Brevard County school board expressing their confusion around liability, insurance, and asking questions about costs.)
Then I watched some people, who had just explained all the serious problems with guns in schools, come out in support of guns in schools. What the what? In this case these guns would be in the . . . → Read More: Why Are School Boards Putting More Guns In Schools?
By spocko, on April 13th, 2018% Yesterday a Stoneman Douglas teacher left a loaded gun in a public restroom. A drunk, homeless guy found it and fired it. Luckily nobody was hurt, but “they found a casing in a corner of the bathroom and later found a projectile also in the bathroom.”
Stoneman Douglas teacher Sean Simpson, left his gun in a bathroom
The teacher, Sean Simpson, was arrested and “charged with failing to safely store a firearm, a second-degree misdemeanor.”
The homeless guy, Joseph Spataro, 69, was charged with trespassing and firing a weapon while intoxicated.
This is an important story because it raises questions about who pays for the damage caused when there is an accident involving a gun that was legally carried into a public building, business, church or school that chose to allow the gun inside.
I’m sure someone will dismiss this incident because “technically it didn’t happen in a school.” But incidents just like this happen all the time, there is even a “guns in bathrooms” tumblr page. With more guns, and new concealed carriers, more of these type of incidents will happen in schools. However, no gun, no gun accident. But for the gun, there would be no . . . → Read More: Parkland Teacher’s Gun Accident Raises Questions for School Boards
By spocko, on April 11th, 2018% The NRA and their supporters really don’t like people protesting against their leaders who profit from death and destruction. My friend Amanda Gaily peacefully and legally protested outside the business of the wife of NRA-Lobbyist Chris Cox and outside Cox’s home (which is on a busy public road). The NRA/FOX PR team went nuts. They started up the noise machine, Tucker Carlson mischaracterizing her protest. He asked a Maryland professor “Is it okay, if you disagree with someone you can show up his house and scream at his wife and kids?”
The professor repeated that although he doesn’t know all the details, it sounded like a legal protest. Carlson kept pushing the issue focusing on civility and decorum. The same types of issues that three Nebraska State Senators are concerned about when it comes to this protest. Not the content, not the validity of how Cox profits from death, just the behavior.
Well. I’m a friend of Gaily’s and I have video footage of Gailey’s legal peaceful protests. We can compare that with the kind of protests the NRA engages in with actual shouting at children while carrying guns. Below is the piece I wrote when this first happened.
. . . → Read More: NRA Fears Women Brandishing Posters Protest Gun-Lobbyist Cox
By spocko, on April 4th, 2018% Schools districts across the country are having town hall meetings to discuss school safety. A number of solutions will be proposed. Unfortunately, sometimes the people with faulty solutions are great at selling them and getting funding for them. When people are afraid, they often write big checks to the people who claim to offer a solution. Remember those nude X-ray scanners that were put in at airports? They didn’t work. Scientists: Body Scanners Don’t Work, Corbett Was Right Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security chief, Michael Chertoff, promoted the technology and Homeland Security placed the government’s first order, buying five Rapiscan scanners? Eventually the government bought over 300 of the machines that didn’t work.
One of the suggestions people will make in these Town Halls will be for metal detectors. Lincoln Journal Star education reporter Margaret Reist asked Jon Sundermeier, Lincoln Public School Security Coordinator this question during podcast about security for Lincoln Public schools. “There is a lot of talk about metal detectors. Do we need metal detectors? Why do we not have metal detectors?”
Jon Sundermeier, LPS Security Coordinator
“Again, that’s another community decision. If you think about when you visit the . . . → Read More: What Are The Costs and Consequences of Metal Detectors in Schools?
By spocko, on April 1st, 2018% Right now the NRA and their supporters are using the Parkland shooting as an opportunity to get multiple people carrying guns into schools all around the country. I’ve been watching legislative sessions and Town Halls in Kansas, Tennessee and Florida where lawmakers are voting to create and fund armed teachers programs.
Here is Republican Randy Fine during a Town Hall on March 28th sponsored by Florida Today First he said that in his meeting with 12 Parkland students, they didn’t ask about gun control. Then, “What I’ve heard is you like more guns in schools. You just want them to be SROs.”
The NRA strategy in Florida (and other states) is to go to lawmakers who are in charge of school safety and say, “Fund the programs that put people with guns in and around schools.” Then that money gives the NRA lawmakers financial leverage over school safety programs. The money goes to NRA approved training programs in schools and programs to train teachers to use guns.
I’ve watched education resources in Tennessee and Florida get carved up for programs putting guns in schools. When people asked to move that training money to a totally different areas that didn’t . . . → Read More: Lawmakers Determined To Get Guns In Schools
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