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Should Teachers Carry Guns?

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Clarissa

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January 22, 2013

I just saw an article about yet another shooting at a university somewhere in Texas (I’m on the phone, so I can’t link. Please contribute a link if you have one handy).

The article says there will be a bill discussed in Texas’s House of Representatives that would allow college profs to carry guns on campus.

What do you think about this measure?

I, for one, know that this will not make me feel even remotely more safe. I love my colleagues, but they do have a tendency to get cranky. Just go visit the College Misery website. Would you like to be surrounded by those people waving guns about?

Besides, professors are notoriously absent-minded. I routinely sit on my cell phone, Kindle, pen, handbag, etc. What’s to prevent a pensive prof from sitting on a gun during a moment of productive scholarly thinking?

Or take that time when I took a tampon out of my bag thinking it was a pen and started pointing it at students. What if that were a gun and students felt threatened and drew their own guns in response?

I’m trying to be funny here, but the issue is not all that cute. A university should be an oasis of learning, cultivation, kindness, and good manners. It should be a place somewhat apart from the rest of the world. A place where people exist in the realm of ideas and don’t allow the hysteria of the immature and the unstable to seep in.

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80 responses to “Should Teachers Carry Guns?”

Stringer Bell

January 22, 2013

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/23/us-usa-shooting-college-texas-idUSBRE90L0XQ20130123

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 22, 2013
  
  Thank you for the link! I discovered from it that there was a shooting at a school in St Louis this month. And I somehow managed to miss that.
  
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Elizabeth

January 22, 2013

In an article in the most recent TIME magazine, the author cited a statistic, the original source of which I don’t recall: trained police officers who respond to an emergency using their firearms only hit their target 30% of the time when they are not under pressure. When under pressure, such as when they are being shot at, accuracy drops to 18%. Are teachers going to be that well trained?

Equally important, people don’t wear team colors in real life. When you enter a room and see three people with guns, whom do you shoot? And which one first? Or do you ask them kindly to pause while each person identifies herself and her motivations? Assuming you already know who the bad guy is, in a crowded room (like, say, a classroom), you’re likely to shoot one or two innocent bystanders before you get him anyway.

So the idea of arming more people horrifies and does not comfort me.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 22, 2013
  
  I agree completely. One has to be a very very skilled shooter with extensive psychological preparation to shoot at a killer, hit the target, and not kill any innocent bystanders in the process. It is ridiculous to expect any regular person to be able to do that.
  
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David Bellamy

January 22, 2013

Precisely, Elizabeth! The NRA’s commercial about armed guards in schools, since the Obama children have them, misses one key point: I would be all for guns in the hands of teachers if every teacher was as trained in the effective use of guns and other items and techniques useful in stopping violnece as a Secret Service Agent is. I was, however, under the impression that the teachers had other priorities and needed to spend their time on other things besides specialized weapons training. This being the case, it is beyond ridiculous for people in schools to carry weapons. (If I had to do so because of some silly mandate, I would demand the right to use a sword, instead.)

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 22, 2013
  
  Or a nuclear weapon. This way, you raze the entire problematic area to the ground and no evildoer escapes. Well, nobody escapes but that’s a minor drawback.
  
  What are people thinking when they express these weird ideas of arming teachers? To prevent armed folks from getting on the schoolgrounds, let’s put armed folks on the schoolgrounds. What?
  
  What next? Armed doctors? One doctor is operating on you while three more have their guns trained on you? An OB-GYN takes out a gun before looking into your vagina. Who knows, maybe there is a group of armed terrorists hiding there!
  
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musteryou

January 22, 2013

http://gawker.com/5828944/arizona-man-accidentally-shoots-his-penis-off

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 22, 2013
  
  Who needs a penis if you’ve got a gun?
  
  This could be a new slogan for Arizona.
  
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  1. musteryou
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Yes. Or something Lacanian.
    
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  2. musteryou
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    like the phallus is more important.
    
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Steve

January 22, 2013

If teachers carry guns, i can envisage several scenarios, none of them pleasant.

A maniac comes to a university and starts shooting people. Prof A draws his gun and sets out to boldly tackle the maniac, Prof B sees Prof A carrying a gun and shoots him. Prof C sees Prof B shooting Prof A, and thinking he has caught her red-handed, shoots her. The police arrive, see Prof C shooting Prof B, and shoot him.

All it would lead to is a multiplication of maniacs.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  It will be a complete mess with a huge death count.
  
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  1. dgarsys
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    The reality of civilians stopping active shooters has thus far failed to even remotely approach this scenario.
    
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el

January 23, 2013

What will happen after the 1st professor shoots his colleagues or/and students? It has happened once already, when somebody wasn’t hired, remember?

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cliff arroyo

January 23, 2013

Randomly arming people who have no idea how to use a gun (or have a deficit in daily living skills) is really stupid.

On the other hand, campus police being trained and armed seems reasonable. Sad that it could ever be necessary, but reasonable.

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1. dgarsys
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  I agree. However you assume that people will be randomly armed instead of self – selected, and that they won’t actually do stuff like practice. Something that, in general, people who buy weapons do.
  
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Big Bad Jim

January 23, 2013

Oh good God.

So this is what passes for today’s academics: Ratty, pudgy faced screeching harridans and elderly hippies that will tell you that gay bath houses, trannies, and socialism are all healthy, acceptable facets of modern society – and that self defense and wholesome shooting sports are not. None of you dummies have ever handled a gun so you assume everyone else is as clueless as you. You live in gated communities and the closest you get to criminals is when they steal your penny farthing bicycle. Is it any wonder that our supposed intellectuals are now a source of contempt and derisive laughter? Do you really want to stand there and tell me that you and your colleagues are smart enough to earn degrees, teach children and assume the roles of adults – but are too damn stupid to own a gun? Or tell the difference between a gun or a tampon? If that is the case chicke – McDonald’s needs you a helluva lot more than our students do.

Listen, dummies – us gun owners don’t CARE what idiots like you think anymore. The debate was over before that idiot in the Oval Office was even a blip on the electroral radar. All he’s done is sell more guns than the NRA.

Here’s the deal: we will be keeping our guns and ammo, thank you very much, we WILL buy on the black market if that black idiot in the Whitehouse gets stupid about it, and we will send your cops back to you in boxes if they start having problems distinguishing between guns and tampons and lawful citizens and criminals.

Spare me the bitchy reply, Clarissa – I will show myself out and you can rant and screech at your fellow zombies with my compliments. I have spent too much time here as it is and won’t spend a minute more. If a tree falls in your forest, I won’t hear it. I just want you to know that you are free to throw away your right to self defense and take your chances with Darwin as you see fit – but you will not throw away mine and if you try I will resist you up to and including the use of lethal force.

Hopefully the next school shooting counts more teachers among the dead in the aftermath.

Cheers,

Big Bad Jim

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  I have good news for you, loser. There is a remedy for your issue: it’s called Viagra. Go get some and alleviate your suffering. Good luck!
  
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2. David Gendron
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  @Little Sissy Faggot
  
  “So this is what passes for today’s academics: Ratty, pudgy faced screeching harridans and elderly hippies that will tell you that gay bath houses, trannies,”
  
  What this hate speech does here?
  
  “and socialism are all healthy, acceptable facets of modern society”
  
  And many of your vertuous pro-terrorist con-serv-haters scholars teach the same fucking thing for capitalism in those same schools. I wonder why capitalism in suddenly a bad thing when we talk about its socialist variety.
  
  “nd that self defense and wholesome shooting sports are not.”
  
  You can self-defense without guns. You can self-defense without 8 automatic rifles in your possession. And nobody said here that shooting sports should be banned.
  
  “You live in gated communities and the closest you get to criminals is when they steal your penny farthing bicycle.”
  
  Hummm, the vast majority of gun nuts faggots like you live in rural regions or gated urban communities…
  
  “Is it any wonder that our supposed intellectuals are now a source of contempt and derisive laughter?”
  
  Hummm, there were always faggots that love bullying intellectuals This is not new.
  
  “Do you really want to stand there and tell me that you and your colleagues are smart enough to earn degrees, teach children and assume the roles of adults – but are too damn stupid to own a gun?”
  
  Oh, you said that all people should have a gun. And if someone doesn’t want to have a gun, this is not your problem.
  
  “Or tell the difference between a gun or a tampon?”
  
  Please read the post. This is not what she said.
  
  “If that is the case chicke – McDonald’s needs you a helluva lot more than our students do.”
  
  And you should be unemployed, fucking faggot jerk!
  
  “Listen, dummies – us gun owners don’t CARE what idiots like you think anymore. The debate was over before that idiot in the Oval Office was even a blip on the electroral radar. All he’s done is sell more guns than the NRA.”
  
  “Here’s the deal: we will be keeping our guns and ammo, thank you very much, we WILL buy on the black market”
  
  I agree with you on this, but you support this Uncle Tom OSama war criminal when he does this, so your’re also an idiot. A stalled pendulum gives you the correct time two times a day…
  
  “if that black idiot in the Whitehouse gets stupid about it”
  
  So it Osama was a white idiot, you fucking racist, you would have less problems with this?
  
  “and we will send your cops”
  
  They are even more YOUR cops. In fact, gun nuts faggots like you want even more than liberals to be fucked in their assby the fuckning cops.
  
  “the next school shooting counts more teachers among the dead in the aftermath.”
  
  So you support mass-murdering of teachers like you support mass-murdering of non american-slaves muslims.
  
  I’m an anti-gun control proponent, but gun nuts faggots like you are way autoritative than the pro gun control liberals, and that’s why they could be winning this debate, unfortunately.
  
  Take Viagra and go fuck yourself!
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    “What this hate speech does here?”
    
    – It illustrates how hopeless and dangerous such people are.
    
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3. Pen
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  The post had absolutely nothing to do with gun-owners in general. It was a response to a very specific question about whether professors should be carrying guns on university campuses. The issue isn’t so much whatever self-defense requires a gun as much as campus safety. In addition: owning a gun doesn’t affect intelligence. The desire to own a gun, or lack thereof, doesn’t affect intelligence. Guess what? Guns on their own don’t have absolutely no effect on intelligence! Get over yourself.
  
  Also, using lethal force in the way you just described isn’t self-defense. It’s murder. If you’re having homicidal thoughts, you should probably get that checked out. Believe it or not, “pursuing my Second Amendment rights” isn’t a valid defense in a court of law. You want to carry a gun, fine. But if you’re not responsible about it, how can you even argue that you deserve it? Your right to be irresponsible with a gun ends where another person’s right to live begins. The Second Amendment says absolutely nothing about mass murder.
  
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valter07

January 23, 2013

I am wondering, will one be allowed to use professional development allowance (or whatever its name is in other schools) to purchase a gun once one is allowed to carry it? 🙂

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Evelina Anville

January 23, 2013

As a professor myself, I can’t think of anything worse than everybody being armed. I know I have no interest in carrying a weapon and knowing everybody was armed would make me feel far less–rather than more–safe. Lots and lots of guns increase–rather than decrease–gun violence.

The NRA is grasping at straws here. The statistics are not on their side: homes with guns have more gun deaths than do homes without guns; states with looser gun laws have more gun deaths than do states with tighter gun laws. Imagining a school where everybody is armed is terrifying. As a side note, I can also imagine suicide increasing if this happens.

Finally, the US needs to let go of their “American exceptionalism” narrative here. The rate of gun deaths in the country are far far far higher than any other indutrialized nation. We should take a look at other countries laws and policies and see what we shoyld emulate. And NOBODY, anywhere in the world, arms professors and teachers.

I know I should ifnore Big Bad Jim’s rantings but he repesents an actual political group in this country: unhinged, hateful, and armed. I want to limit his access to weaponry rather than have him force me to be armed.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  “I know I should ifnore Big Bad Jim’s rantings but he repesents an actual political group in this country: unhinged, hateful, and armed. I want to limit his access to weaponry rather than have him force me to be armed.”
  
  – This is precisely why I didn’t delete his comment. It is the perfect illustration of how unhinged some people are and how dangerous they would be when armed.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  “The NRA is grasping at straws here. The statistics are not on their side: homes with guns have more gun deaths than do homes without guns; states with looser gun laws have more gun deaths than do states with tighter gun laws. Imagining a school where everybody is armed is terrifying.”
  
  – I can’t believe how deluded and infantile those people are.
  
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3. Titfortat
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  As a professor myself, I can’t think of anything worse than everybody being armed. I know I have no interest in carrying a weapon and knowing everybody was armed would make me feel far less–rather than more–safe. Lots and lots of guns increase–rather than decrease–gun violence(Evelina)
  
  I think it might be more a cultural dynamic rather than an actual gun one. It seems Switzerland is quite the armed society too, with obviously no where near the same types of mass killings or firearm deaths.
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    I always wonder what possesses people to make such strange comparisons. Have you noticed what the size of Switzerland is compared with the size of the US? It is statistically more likely to encounter any given phenomenon in a huge sample than in a tiny sample. Such comparisons make zero sense. It’s like saying, “There are no massacres in my house, so why are there massacres in my geographical region?”
    
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  2. Evelina Anville
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Also the Swiss all have shotguns, rifles etc. As far as I know, semi automatic weapons, which have the capacity to kill many people in a minute, are essentially unknown in European countries………….I do agree with TfT that the American cultural dyamic is part of the issue. But that’s hard to change. On the other hand, gun control laws are easy to eanct, and I think that propoe laws will reduce gun violence.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      “On the other hand, gun control laws are easy to eanct, and I think that propoe laws will reduce gun violence.”
      
      – When I see the backlash that results from the most light-hearted, calm discussion of – not even gun control – but the possibility that gun laws remain what they are and don’t offer even more possibilities to wave weapons about, I find it hard to see gun control as easy to enact. People like BBJ start having meltdowns whenever somebody says anything they dislike on the subject. This is the kind of resistance that is very hard to overcome.
      
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  3. Titfortat
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Almost 72% of gun crimes are gang related. If you dont change the culture it wont matter what gun laws you have. To focus so much on semi automatic weapons takes the emphasis on what needs to be changed. Though I will agree with Evelina on which is easier.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      Obviously, it isn’t gang violence that has everybody so scared. These discussions only crop up after Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, etc. Nobody cares about these 72% you mention. Let’s just be honest about this already.
      
      What is the last gang shoot-out that received a massive coverage like Sandy Hook did?
      
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  4. Titfortat
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Evelina
    
    By the way, read the link in regards to the types of weapons in Switzerland. You will be surprised on how many automatic and semi automatic weapons there are. 😉
    
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  5. Stringer Bell
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Switzerland also has mandatory military service for everyone. So I’d imagine they’re actually trained in handling and using guns. Unlike here.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      Yes, if we have started comparing ourselves to Switzerland, let’s compare all the way. 🙂
      
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  6. Titfortat
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    @Clarissa
    
    Obviously, but maybe you should because the violence that is ignored…………….
    
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David Gendron

January 23, 2013

Even though I’m against guns (especially on schools and college campuses), I’m against the police-military-criminals oligopoly of legalized weapons.

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dg

January 23, 2013

I guess I will, for the most part, be voicing a differing opinion.

First of all, I’m unaware of any proposal to force the arming of all teachers, just a proposal to allow those who’ve been allowed to carry concealed to continue to do so on school grounds.

We have several negatives brought up. One, paraphrased, is “gee, don’t you know how flaky teachers can be?” – that I’ve seen brought up here and by a teacher at my children’s middle school that I otherwise respect. A second is “look at all the accidental discharges and shootings.”. A third is “training and target selection.” Plus a good round of bashing of NRA types. All with a degree of condescension that I find utterly unworthy of the commentary I’ve usually seen here.

So lets address flaky teachers. If you don’t feel you have the ability to track the world around you and possess the situational awareness to properly handle dangerous tools, then don’t carry a gun.

Part of the following may be because I’ve spent more than ten years of my life as a steam plant mechanic living in a non-coddled environment where my decisions, large and small, had an immediate impact on my life and the lives around me, and mistakes were punished not by other people, but by mother nature herself. This is an environment similar in consequence to any shipyard worker, welder, or backpacker out in the wilderness on his own on a regular basis.

Bluntly, as a mechanical tool capable of causing massive, traumatic injury, it may be easier to attack someone at range with a pistol than with an axe, a sawzall, or a drive shaft or hydraulics plant, but with the exception of the aforementioned axe, it is a simpler tool. The rules for safely operating it are simpler (in some ways even an axe is more complicated to operate without hurting yourself in the process, in terms of learning how and where to strike), and compared to the work of changing out your own oil filter or spark plugs, much less a transmission clutch or operating a lathe, the maintenance is simpler too.

Note that every task above is one that most normal teenagers can be taught to do safely. The military does the in job lots, and has for decades. So have vocational education schools.

So when I hear that argument, I hear “Teachers are not competent adults.”

This does lead me to wonder then why we entrust the care of our children to them… but that’s another story.

Second item…. A second is “look at all the accidental discharges and shootings.”. Yup, some people are stupid. Many people forget, because of the cocoons we’ve swathed ourselves in by padding the results of any potential mistake and clearly defining the “safe” boundaries, that there are unsafe choices they can make.

Interestingly, one way to actually raise the degree of safety is to NOT mark clear boundaries, and not hide away the dangers. Increasing the degree of uncertainty actually causes people to be more aware of and more involved in the reality around them, (seemingly counterintuitively at first) raising the degree of safety. Taking away the false perception of predictability actually makes traffic flow smoother, with fewer accidents.

Some reading up on the work of Hans Monderman may be in order: http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=1234

Also – we treat guns as if they are somehow mystically imbued, instead of inanimate objects. Sorry, but no. Given the ready availability of gasoline and and other accelerants that can be combined to form explosives, or simply burn down buildings wholesale for a few dollars, they are, dollar for dollar, NOT the worst people can come up with for wholesale slaughter.

A third is “training and target selection.” Yes, violent situations are chaotic, but even when they don’t fall into the “easy to tell” category – such as the woman who shot an intruder after he found her and her children hiding in an attic – civilian shooters, particularly civilians with concealed permits who have thus been exposed to a lot of liability law as part of getting those permits, have a far better record for shooting the right people. They also – as the shooting of Gabby Giffords demonstrated – recognize situations where a gun is NOT the right solution. The man who tackled the shooter carried, but elected not to shoot due to the potential for hitting bystanders.

For that matter,the average private shooter, given the abysmal lack of firearms training beyond familiarization in many police forces, and the level of training in those that maintain some standard, actually has MORE experience with his/her weapons than does the average policemen.

So, despite a history of law-abiding citizens being able to arm themselves, we find that many people still choose not to. Of those who do, they unremarkably, as a general rule, safely handle their weapons, and are already subject to legal sanction when they don’t.

As a last thought, I strongly recommend the following:

http://www.catb.org/esr/guns/gun-ethics.html

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  “So, despite a history of law-abiding citizens being able to arm themselves, we find that many people still choose not to. Of those who do, they unremarkably, as a general rule, safely handle their weapons, and are already subject to legal sanction when they don’t.”
  
  – Those who do will overwhelmingly be unstable, immature individuals with severe psycho-sexual issues. Is that who you want to run around your neighborhood waving guns about?
  
  “Also – we treat guns as if they are somehow mystically imbued, instead of inanimate objects. Sorry, but no. Given the ready availability of gasoline and and other accelerants that can be combined to form explosives, or simply burn down buildings wholesale for a few dollars, they are, dollar for dollar, NOT the worst people can come up with for wholesale slaughter.”
  
  – You have absolutely no understanding of human psychology do you? This is the most egregiously childish discussion of the issue I have ever encountered. Are you claiming you really don’t know that arsonists and shooters are completely different people, motivated by completely different things and that shooting / arson are not interchangeable activities?
  
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  1. dgarsys
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Wait. I’m confused. Given that, at least in the states, the majority of the people who want to be armed already are, AND the general lack of bloodshed among those who are law abiding (as in legally buying their weapons), and you create a future scenario where we suddenly have a massive influx of gun owners with “psycho-sexual issues”?
    
    I’m not sure where all these new people will come from.
    
    Or are you saying that the people who already are gun owners, at least those who were previously law abiding and legally bought there weapons, are generally chock full of psycho – sexual issues?
    
    If the latter – given that you’re then writing off the majority of people who’d consider it a necessity to be armed as having “psycho-sexual issues” – I doubt I’d convince you of much.
    
    BTW – I was discussing the availablity and lethality of options available to people who want to go out and kill and destroy, not what mental issues are associated with which particular preference – differences that I’m well aware of. Missing that point, and calling me ignorant to boot, doesn’t do you any favors either.
    
    Please consider for a moment that it is entirely possible for a typical, average person to be responsibly armed, and not have shootouts in the street or schools every day.
    
    You might also consider the history of countries and populations where there was a monopoly on deadly force – and note the consistency with which these shootings – in the united states or other countries – occur where a timely and effective response by police or law-abiding citizens is unlikely at best.
    
    There may be a price in letting the occasional idiot or psychopath get a hold of a gun. Despite the nasty shock the Nazi troops received in the ghettos of warsaw, between the jews, the kulaks, and the fields of cambodia, we’ve also seen that if you wait until you’re actually being oppressed, it’s usually a little too late. To the tune of tens of millions.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      “There may be a price in letting the occasional idiot or psychopath get a hold of a gun. Despite the nasty shock the Nazi troops received in the ghettos of warsaw, between the jews, the kulaks, and the fields of cambodia, we’ve also seen that if you wait until you’re actually being oppressed, it’s usually a little too late. To the tune of tens of millions.”
      
      – If you do not understand why after you utter stupidities of this kind, normal, intelligent people don’t want to waste their time on you, then I can’t help.
      
      Go back to the sandbox, baby, and don’t waste adults’ time on your silly mewlings.
      
      ‘Wait. I’m confused. Given that, at least in the states, the majority of the people who want to be armed already are, AND the general lack of bloodshed among those who are law abiding (as in legally buying their weapons), and you create a future scenario where we suddenly have a massive influx of gun owners with “psycho-sexual issues”?”
      
      – 🙂 🙂 I see that your language skills are lower than those of a normally developing five-year-old. 🙂 What does this outpouring even mean?
      
      Why do these pro-gun nutjobs always turn out to be illiterate?
      
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  “Note that every task above is one that most normal teenagers can be taught to do safely. The military does the in job lots, and has for decades. So have vocational education schools.”
  
  – Please give me the exact number of teenagers you have had the experience of teaching.
  
  “So when I hear that argument, I hear “Teachers are not competent adults.””
  
  – Your auditory hallucinations are your problem.
  
  “This does lead me to wonder then why we entrust the care of our children to them… but that’s another story.”
  
  – Stop pretending that you are old enough to have children.
  
  “We have several negatives brought up. One, paraphrased, is “gee, don’t you know how flaky teachers can be?” – that I’ve seen brought up here and by a teacher at my children’s middle school that I otherwise respect. A second is “look at all the accidental discharges and shootings.”. A third is “training and target selection.” Plus a good round of bashing of NRA types. All with a degree of condescension that I find utterly unworthy of the commentary I’ve usually seen here.”
  
  – You are a very very stupid person. All you deserve is contempt because you dare make comments in the presence of people who are so superior to you in intelligence, character and basic morality that you should just keep very quiet and try to absorb the information we are kind enough to impart to an idiot like you.
  
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  1. Titfortat
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Looks like someone shit in Clarissa’s cornflakes again. 😦
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      Yes, this jerkwad is a total piece of shit.
      
      I don’t know what possesses such losers to attack complete strangers who share their opinions on their blogs.
      
      Well, I do know, actually. It’s the same thing that makes them obsessed with guns: erectile dysfunction.
      
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  2. dgarsys
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    First point – the only person calling anyone names between us here is you. In response to a chain of logic that you never addressed, in either internal failings or the underlying assumptions, you call me a liar, immature, and varying degrees of psychotic.
    
    *shrug*
    
    To answer your questions:
    
    1) How many kids is really irrelevant. Do Voc-ed schools and the military successfully teach people far more complex skills, non-firearm skills, that are used in unforgiving environments every day to average people? Yes.
    
    That said, I’ve done two instructor tours in the US Nuclear fleet, and spent most of my years on a sub running the engineering departments training program. I’ve been personally responsible as supervisor for some thirty teenaged students, and taught several hundred more.
    
    2) A case of responding to a chain of logic with insults. Hmmm.. which is it… schizophrenia or some such that you’re referring to?
    
    3)and 4) I’m 42. My kids, etc., are not your business. Your assumptions about morality, etc. are not mine, for what it is worth. As to stupidity, outside of the credentialism involved in getting a college degree, I doubt that any objective measure you’d point to would confirm that.
    
    Of course, you’ve already called me a liar and a lunatic of various stripes without substantially addressing anything I’ve said. I doubt you’d believe any proofs to the contrary i’d provide.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      “How many kids is really irrelevant.”
      
      – OK, so you acknowledge that you blabbed like a fool without any knowledge of the subject matter. Does that happen to you often?
      
      “A case of responding to a chain of logic with insults. Hmmm.. which is it… schizophrenia or some such that you’re referring to?”
      
      – You are incapable of logic. Your incapacity to see that is sign of intellectual limitations, that’s all.
      
      ‘Of course, you’ve already called me a liar and a lunatic of various stripes without substantially addressing anything I’ve said. I doubt you’d believe any proofs to the contrary i’d provide.”
      
      – Let’s see if you can get this simple message from a 3rd try: I don’t see you as an interesting discussion partner because you are too inferior intellectually. Do you understand this sentence? If not, try to reread it very slowly.
      
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    2. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      “*shrug*”
      
      – I said you were 11. Nobody past that age uses the silly “*shrug*” thing in posting comments.
      
      Kid, seriously, go tell your Mommy that you’ve had enough computer time today.
      
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3. Pen
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  Since when does being a competent adult have anything to do with handling tools or machinery such as you described? Certain professions, maybe. But an adult in general? Your ideas of competency fall dangerously short of reality, if you think it isn’t possible to get through life without handling heavy machinery in the way you describe.
  
  On the other hand, ask yourself a question. If you were a student, would you feel safe if your professors carried guns on campus? There’s a reason the campus goes into lockdown when someone reports a gun on campus. Professors are not the same as campus security. Unless your professor happens to be a police officer, they are not the police. They aren’t trained for the same things. So regardless of whether or not a professor with a gun is responsible on-campus, they won’t respond the same way to an emergency situation. They can’t. A teacher with a gun in no way helps campus security. If anything, it threatens security, because you could easily get one responsible person with a gun on campus who happens to make a wrong move in an emergency situation and somebody ends up injured or dead.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    “On the other hand, ask yourself a question. If you were a student, would you feel safe if your professors carried guns on campus?”
    
    – He already said he was never a student. Let’s not expect the congenitally stupid to imagine situations that are alien to their existence.
    
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Titfortat

January 23, 2013

Funny, the only attacking I can read doesnt seem to be coming from him.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 23, 2013
  
  Feel free to take this insect over to your blog and subject yourself to his peculiar style of communication with strangers.
  
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  1. dgarsys
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Logic? Reality?
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      I know, I know, these are not concepts you are familiar with, child.
      
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  2. Titfortat
    
    January 23, 2013
    
    Change the format of your blog or boot him out if you dont like his manner of speech. Truth be told, presently, he is far less rude and crass comparably to you.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 23, 2013
      
      Seriously? You are offering advice on how to run a blog to me? 🙂 🙂 Because your own blog is so ultra popular? 🙂 🙂
      
      This is too funny.
      
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Pen

January 23, 2013

As a student, I know I wouldn’t feel safe if my professors carried guns on campus. I just don’t think it promotes a safe learning environment. It kind of defeats the purpose of greater campus security.

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cliff arroyo

January 24, 2013

“As a student, I know I wouldn’t feel safe if my professors carried guns on campus”

Oh come on, your term paper couldn’t have been _that_ bad.

Getting back to the original topic. If an educational institution prevents responsible citizens from arming themselves then it should bear the legal responsibility for their defense while they are on campus (and be opent to lawsuits for failing to do so).

Simply declaring a campus a ‘gun free’ zone will not do that, it’s the equivalent of a magic incantation that has no effect on the objective uncaring universe.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 24, 2013
  
  Of course, universities are open to lawsuits if crime is committed on them. Didn’t you see my posts on Tuesday??? The ones where I had to pass the criminal justice training.
  
  Arming laypeople will simply bring in more lawsuits because only a person who received extensive military AND psychological training can shoot a criminal in a public shoot out without harming a crowd of bystanders. Everything else is a fantasy of immature folks with erectile issues and severe anxiety. People who don’t feel safe without a gun on a college campus are not psychologically healthy. THEY are the only danger on campus. The only one.
  
  Look at the hysterics who have visited this thread. Whom can they protect? Come on.
  
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thevenerablecorvex

January 24, 2013

You know, I was skeptical of the claim that gun nuts were suffering from psycho-sexual issues up until I read Big Bad Jim’s comment. Here we have a grown man (albeit one whose very user name suggests his insecurity in his masculinity) pitching a hissy-fit like a five year old child at the very suggestion that the government might make it more difficult to access his favourite marital aid.
Add to that his bizarre non sequitur about “trannies” and it’s pretty clear that he’s suffering from a sort of severe castration anxiety.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 24, 2013
  
  That’s exactly what I mean when I speak of their severe issues. Every word they say betrays a very very problem-ridden psyche. The tragedy is that they are not even remotely aware of what is happening to them and how easy it would be for them to find help for this. These are all supremely resolvable issues. Instead, however, such folks victimize everybody else in sight.
  
  “Add to that his bizarre non sequitur about “trannies” and it’s pretty clear that he’s suffering from a sort of severe castration anxiety.”
  
  – Textbook case.
  
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Anonymous

January 25, 2013

I have a question. Do you prefer an pro-evolution homeschooling or a compulsory creationnist voucher-schooling?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 25, 2013
  
  Homeschooling is child abuse. I prefer anything to child abuse. A child will have all the time in the world to find about the evolution but nothing can substitute for early socialization and a successful, age-appropriate completion of the stages of separation.
  
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  1. David Gendron
    
    January 25, 2013
    
    This was me.
    
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  2. David Gendron
    
    January 25, 2013
    
    Compulsory schooling is child abuse too.
    
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    1. bloggerclarissa
      
      January 25, 2013
      
      Let’s not be silly, OK? Children thrive in a school environment from a very early age. Even a 2-year-old is much happier in a structured environment of a day care than at home.
      
      Socialization + learning are the central ingredients for a happy and productive human life.
      
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      1. bloggerclarissa
        
        January 25, 2013
        
        I also want to remind that in the USSR, where fathers were barred from seeing their newborn infants, let alone hold them, for over a week, we had the highest incidence of children abandoned by their fathers than in any other culture of our Western civilization. We also had the highest incidence of maternal child abuse that strangely coincided with the fact that infant’s were taken away and kept apart from their mothers who only could see them a few times a day for feeding.
        
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        bloggerclarissa
        
        January 25, 2013
        
        This comment was meant for a different thread, actually.
        
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David Gendron

January 25, 2013

“Children thrive in a school environment from a very early age. Even a 2-year-old is much happier in a structured environment of a day care than at home.”

Many children, but not all. (even though staying always at home is not healthy) Early socialization (with all the bullying contained in that) is not for all. You generalize too much.

And sorry, the vast majority of children (maybe you’re right about day care, though: and my point is not about day car, it’s about schools) find that school sucks between 5 and 16 years old. That was my case…and I’m in school at 36 years old because this is less bad than the working market.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 25, 2013
  
  “Many children, but not all. (even though staying always at home is not healthy) Early socialization (with all the bullying contained in that) is not for all. ”
  
  – Yes, for all, for absolutely all. The psyche works in the same way for everybody, just like the heart or the lungs. As for bullying, it has been discussed a bizillion times. Do I really need to repeat? The only children who get bullied are the ones who were bullied at home first.
  
  “And sorry, the vast majority of children (maybe you’re right about day care, though: and my point is not about day car, it’s about schools) find that school sucks between 5 and 16 years old. ”
  
  – I hated school, too, that’s normal. But it is still better than being stuck at home with Mommy who literally has no other task in life than managing your existence. Just imagine that possibility. Imagine coming out for a walk or to hang out with other boys and having a Mommy trail after you at the age of 14. Homeschoolers literally don’t leave these miserable kids alone for a minute all day long because Mommy needs something to occupy herself.
  
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David Gendron

January 25, 2013

So why not schooling the one-day babies?

“The only children who get bullied are the ones who were bullied at home first.” No, that’s false…even though those who were not bullied at home react better to that. I was bullied because some school direction jerk and some fucking doctor both determined that I was retarded. So I was bullied first by this jerk, not at home.

Again, I’m against compulsory schooling, not parents sending their children to day care. These are not the same thing.

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1. David Gendron
  
  January 25, 2013
  
  And compulsory schooling includes compulsory homeschooling.
  
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2. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 25, 2013
  
  “So why not schooling the one-day babies?”
  
  – Different stages of development of the psyche necessitate different things. A very close contact with parents (both parents) is necessary in the first 6 weeks. Then the contact can be slowly made less close and the enmeshment can begin to dissolve.
  
  Why are you suddenly so interested? Thinking of becoming a Daddy? 🙂
  
  ” I was bullied because some school direction jerk and some fucking doctor both determined that I was retarded. ”
  
  – And what was your parents’ reaction to the diagnosis?
  
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  1. David Gendron
    
    January 25, 2013
    
    “Different stages of development of the psyche necessitate different things. A very close contact with parents (both parents) is necessary in the first 6 weeks Then the contact can be slowly made less close and the enmeshment can begin to dissolve.”
    
    I agree. I was just sarcastic.
    
    “Why are you suddenly so interested? Thinking of becoming a Daddy? :-)”
    
    😉 No, but I want to be a teacher, like always.
    
    ” I was bullied because some school direction jerk and some fucking doctor both determined that I was retarded. ”
    
    – And what was your parents’ reaction to the diagnosis? They (especially my mother) went balistic. And if they had believed these jerks, I would not be here today.
    
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  2. David Gendron
    
    January 25, 2013
    
    “Different stages of development of the psyche necessitate different things. A very close contact with parents (both parents) is necessary in the first 6 weeks Then the contact can be slowly made less close and the enmeshment can begin to dissolve.”
    
    I agree. I was just sarcastic.
    
    “Why are you suddenly so interested? Thinking of becoming a Daddy? 🙂 ”
    
    😉 No, but I want to be a teacher, like always.
    
    “And what was your parents’ reaction to the diagnosis?”
    
    They (especially my mother) went balistic. And if they had believed these jerks, I would not be here today.
    
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3. bloggerclarissa
  
  January 25, 2013
  
  ““The only children who get bullied are the ones who were bullied at home first.” No, that’s false…even though those who were not bullied at home react better to that.”
  
  – The problem is that abused children are often incapable of recognizing parental abuse. It is easier to pretend it never happened. We had a visitor here a while ago who also inistsed he was never bullied at home, only at school. Then he revealed his parents beat him.
  
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David Gendron

January 25, 2013

This is the only form of schooling that I have respect for right now.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

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David Gendron

January 25, 2013

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summerhill_School

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N G

January 31, 2013

Forget arming the teachers. Conservatives think that it’s a good idea to arm the students to stop another Newtown as in the video below:

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N G

February 1, 2013

“Students at a high school in Illinois experienced a uniquely terrifying school shooting drill on Wednesday. Instead of conducting a regular school lockdown, Cary-Grove High School administrators simulated gunfire by shooting off blanks in the hallways while students locked their classroom doors, pulled the curtains, and hid.”

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/01/31/1523091/guns-lockdown-blanks/

What’s next? Crisis actors as crazy gunmen and students with fake injuries.

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  February 1, 2013
  
  If parents don’t sue, they are idiots.
  
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Steal This Penis. | voxcorvegis

February 19, 2013

[…] A is this lengthy, unhinged rant scrawled by someone calling himself “Big Bad Jim***” on Clarissa’s blog a few […]

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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