Time for State Governments to take the lead on School Shootings

You pay for it by taxing gun owners. They can still own guns (I own quite a few) but you have gun owners cover the financial externalities incurred. I think a yearly tax isn’t practical, not easy to force people to pay it but put a 100% tax on all gun purchases and limit individual trades.

 

I mean, why can't one cop protect 3000 people? I mean, it's like how when you go to a basketball game at Toyota Center there's only 6 cops. Makes sense.

 

I'm in. Also, I have to buy a hunting license and a driver's license (both are user fees), I'd have no problem buying a firearms license and using the funds like you're talking about.

 

I would imagine raising money to provide sufficient security at schools would be just about the easiest to raise money ever. Of all possible problems, money wouldn't be one of them.

 

If money wasn't an issue 5 guys. One guy on each side of the campus when school is in session. One more in an office looking at security cameras and acting as QRF with a rifle or shotgun.Rotate duty every couple hours. Before and after school only allow 2 entrances/exits with 2 men at each location using an id scanner so each kid swipes his card when he comes in or out. Cruise lines have this technology. I think metal detectors would take too long so use dogs that are trained to sniff for gun powder and make kids use clear backpacks.

In reality, I think a 2-3 man team would suffice.

You can use off duty police for a lot of this and the school district police already in place. Many officers have side gigs doing security anyway. They might as well guard something important instead of Lupe Tortillas on a Friday night.

A lot of these middle schools and high schools have 4 or more principals. Fire 1 or 2 of them and replace them with more school district police or off duty cops. Now you have a two man or three man team with the officer that was already on campus

I just looked this up... the high school I attended currently has 6 principals..... You could fire some and probably afford a platoon of special forces with zero added budget.

 

I'm not sure this is a proper assumption. I'm not saying you're incorrect, but I don't think either of us has the school budget administration and security services budget experience to make this statement. I'm still surprised other soft targets like shopping malls haven't been hit hard in the US compared to other countries. I mean, we live in an open society, so there will always be soft targets.

 

The same people who decry gun control would be the same ones crying "police state".

 

The average assistant principal in Houston makes around 88k a year. Starting salary for HPD officers is around 32k a year. If you have 6 assistant principals, cut it in half and you can add about 9 cops. Of course, that wouldn't even be necessary, I was just pointing out how little cops make compared to assistant principals.

When it comes to other soft targets, I'm sure there would be a bit of a rise in them being hit if schools were no longer soft targets, but then again, maybe not. there's a lot more variables when it comes to attacking other targets. For example, malls have better security than the average school just day to day and it's hard to know if the mall would be crowed appropriately when you chose to attack and on those days there's usually even more security than normal. At a school, you know the targets will be there in a crowed area just about every school day and the security will be a joke.

 

Assistant principals in my district at high schools earn $82,627. A Sgt in the special forces with 4 years experience earns $32,029 base plus $374 a month for being special forces. He can earn an additional $150 a month if he is Airborne Qualified, $224 for Scuba Qualified, and $200 a month for foreign language qualified.

I was joking about a platoon size force for one school but a high school needs 6 principals?

Guarding children at school take top priority.

 

I don’t have an easy solution but I just want to point out how God damn pathetic and said it is that we are talking about having 5-6 fully armed (basically) soldiers to protect kids at school.

Think about that... that we are at this point is disgusting. We are failing as a society when we have to seriously consider making such a change. What is next? Armed security at every business like South Africa?

 

Given that you are having to protect kids at school from essentially other kids, it kind of makes sense.

While overall violence numbers are down in the country, you still have the occasional terrorist and that's why it makes sense to protect schools the same way you would sporting events or other large gatherings of people. I mean, I said it earlier, but would you feel safe if they only had 6 people working security at a Rockets game or 14 at an Astros game? How many Super Bowls would be attacked if they only had 22 people working security? Perhaps once upon a time you wouldn't have cared if there was no security at these kinds of gatherings, but in the era where terrorism is popular, it's necessary.

 

Do you know what an assistant principal does?

 

Is it, in your opinion, as important as ensuring the safety of students?

I would think there would be a certain number needed per a certain number of students. As a guideline though, if there are so many students you need 6 assistant principals, you probably need at least that many cops/armed security.

What do you think the numbers should be? 1 cop to every 300 students? 1 cop to every 500?

 

How could you ever have enough? 1 cop in every classroom? Every 20 feet in the hallways? Any loon can sneak a gun in, and by the time the security shows up it's too late.

 

You can easily have enough, but I'm glad you are doing your best to engage in intelligent conversation. Keep working at it.

 

Do you geniunly care about a intelligible conversation when you end every other post with "good luck kid, you can't handle my level of discourse" or some other variation of it? Your posting format is the most predictable of any poster here besides RL.

 

I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to your question.

 

I didn't ask you a question, I just made a statement and offered you encouragement.

 

And I didn't respond to your unasked non-existent question. Glad we're on the same page.

 

Ah, so you're talking to ghosts then? Fair enough.