The Protection of Texas Children Act

[Jon Payne]

I'm all for it. I don't care if peace officers are present or not; there are teachers with the proper mindset that need to be armed to protect our children.

There are several reasons criminals choose our schools to attack. Our schools have a large population concentrated to a small area. This equals more effect for less action. Our children are the future of our society and little to nothing else will spark outrage more than causing harm to our children.

Schools are not adequately protected. How many school officers are 25-35 and look like they play for the NFL or are on SWAT? Even if a school has properly trained officers how many are there? They can't cover all campuses no matter how thin you stretch them.

​news story here

 

[txinvestigator]

I hate that my daughter is in a free kill zone daily.....

 

[jordanmills]

I love the thought of my nephews being stuck in in designated victim zones most days.

 

[Das Jared]

I worry for ALL children. I will do whatever I can to prevent evil from preying on innocence

 

[Ole Cowboy]

What idiot decided that schools should be a gun free zone when crazy's and nut jobs don't obey our laws and think of them as free fire zones...

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[Younggun]

The idiots who think the best way to protect our children is by making it impossible for anyone to protect them.

 

[Barry Green]

You know, I don't ever get involved in these type of threads, but I'm gonna point out something... the narrative about "gun free zones" seems to focus on the notion that school shootings happen because "criminals know that schools are full of unarmed victims".

I think that totally misses the point and it misdirects the debate away from what's really happening. Just like gun control advocates want to blame the gun, instead of the person who chooses to shoot the gun; I think characterizing a school as a "target-rich environment that a wannabe shooter just can't resist" grossly distorts the reality of the situation.

My extensive (hah) research has been to look through Wikipedia's list of School Shootings In America. I have limited my research (such as it is) to the 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's. The fundamental question I have is -- are these school shootings the result of a criminal choosing a school, or are they instead committed by people who have an intrinsic tie to the school itself, people for whom the particular school is either a place where they are either enrolled, employed at, or graduated from?

Note: these are not "mass shootings", these are shootings that happened at schools. Some of them will be a case of a student firing a single shot at another student or teacher, or a case of a student committing suicide by firearm at school, etc.

In the 1990's, of 31 incidents listed, I can only find 4 where the shooter wasn't specifically identified as being a student, employee, or graduate of that particular school. And one of those, Gregory Heath Tidwell, went to the school specifically to shoot one specific person who he had previously had a scuffle with, so it wasn't in any way a "random" shooting, it just so happened that it took place on a campus. There was only one that I'd actually categorize as a "random school shooting", by Jillian Robbins. I can't find out if Joseph Todd was a student at the school where he shot at or not, but he was only 14 and it was a rural school so it seems likely (few schools around, and he was school-age, and his stated reason for shooting was that he was "tired of being picked on"). There was one shooting where the shooter was unidentified, so they may or may not have been associated with the school. So for the '90's, the way I see it, 27 (or 28) of the 31 reported shootings were done by a student or graduate of the school. That's 87% to 90%.

In the 2000's, there were 34 incidents. Of those, the Essex shooting was a targeted assassination, the shooter killed his ex-girlfriend's mother at home and then drove to the school where the ex worked and shot her there. Only three incidents (the Platte Canyon hostage crisis, the Amish school shooting, and the San Francisco Int'l Studies shooting) seem to fit the definition of an unassociated person choosing to make an attack at a school. And one of the 34 incidents had nothing to do with the school at all, it was a gang assassination of a 26-year-old who just happened to be at the school picking up his girlfriend's son. Another gang shooting happened in a parking lot after a basketball game, in Chicago -- does that count as a random school shooting? I'd say maybe. And there was a drug-related shooting at Harvard, which I think would certainly not count as a "school shooting" other than it happened in a basement in an undergrad resident hall. So of 34 incidents, 3 to 4 would qualify as an attack on random people at a school by an unassociated criminal, for an 88% to 91% rate of the shootings having been committed by students or former students who had a connection to the school.

In the 2010's, there's been 37 incidents. Of those, the Deer Creek Littleton was an unassociated guy shooting at students. And in Carlsbad a guy chose to shoot "wealthy children" at an elementary -- so that fits the definition of unassociated. One of the shootings (Topeka) was a drug-buy-gone-bad, so nothing to do with the school other than it happened in the parking lot late at night. In Aurora there was a gang shooting at a group of students -- not exactly a random targeting or choosing a school because of a plentiful supply of unarmed victims, just typical gang assassination. And one was a guy shooting his wife in a school parking garage. One shooting at Virginia Tech appeared to be unrelated to the shooter, but he assassinated a police officer who was writing a parking ticket, so that hardly counts as preying on a school for unarmed victims. Can't figure out the Chardon school shooting -- it sure seems like it's a case of an unassociated person attacking a school; the shooter says he didn't know the victims but the witnesses said he appeared to be targeting one person in particular. Lacking any other perspective, I'll put it in the column of unassociated shooter. The Hazard, KY shooting was a domestic dispute that terminated at a school. The Alabama school bus/bunker hostage situation was definitely a random event, near as I can tell. And one of the incidents it listed was the Boston bombers shooting a police officer at Cambridge, MA -- from what I understand, that was a case of them choosing to attack an armed person specifically to take his weapon, and definitely not a case of a random/unassociated school shooting. So of 37 events, only 4 could reasonably be categorized as an outside person attacking a school. Which means 89% of the incidents were specific targeted murders and shootings by people associated with the school.

What I draw from this is the notion that "criminals attack schools because they're gun-free zones" is, generally, hogwash. Criminals rarely attack schools; only about 10% of the incidents can be attributed to criminals choosing to attack a school. The rest of the cases are of people who are attacking THAT school because the individual person they want dead happens to be at that school, or because they were bullied and have other such emotional ties to the school that that's where they choose to commit their crime.

That doesn't change the validity of the whole argument of "the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun." That's plainly, blatantly, obviously true -- whether the good guy with the gun is the police or a CHL holder, there are only two reasons why school shooters stop shooting: they either shoot themselves, or are stopped by someone with a gun.

90% of the school shootings (as listed in that Wikipedia article) are done by troubled students or former students, or troubled/former employees of the school. I happen to support the presence of properly-trained guards at schools. I just thought we should point out where the threat comes from. We don't have a plague of vicious criminals out there who are targeting schools for victims! Only a tiny minority of school shootings could be classified as such.

 

[Younggun]

For many of the incidents you pointed out the attacks could have taken place anywhere. ESP the ones aimed at a particular person.

Do you not believe they chose the school as the location because there would be no one there capable of stopping them. Seems that it would at least have some I fluency in the planning if the attack.

 

[Barry Green]

From what I read, no, I don't think that was even a factor. I think they chose the school because that's where there targets were -- they either worked there or were students there, so it was an easy place to find them.

And many of the incidents were just totally unrelated to it being a school at all -- like the drug-dealer or gang shootings. There was one where an SUV hovered around the parking lot of the school for a week, until they finally found the guy they were looking for.

Seriously -- it looks like in those cases they chose those schools simply because that's how they found the person they wanted to attack. In many of the cases it was a fired employee taking revenge, or a spouse/boyfriend/domestic dispute against someone who worked there.

I think you and I and other reasonable people can certainly say "well, a school would be an easy target because there's no defense" but honestly I doubt many (if ANY) of the shooters in the 100+ incidents I reviewed even gave that the slightest thought. Maybe the truly random ones, but those are only about 10% of the cases.

 

[Younggun]

I don't disagree and you have done much more research on this than I have.

No matter the reason for the attacks, I still believe allowing our teachers with CHLs to carry would be a good way to protect from these types of attacks and much cheaper than hiring a bunch of armed guards who may or may not be as proficient as the teachers.

I see the advantage that actual security would only have one job at the school, but I believe teachers imbedded in the system already would be more efficient. It would also keep the BG from knowing who was armed or which direction he would need to watch.

 

[Barry Green]

I don't disagree at all. I prefer the notion of actual guards (like we have at school sporting events, fer cryin' out loud) but if a teacher is not forced into it, and has chosen to do so, I think it should be allowed.

The problem as I see it is: schools are coerced places where children are forced by law, at penalty of charges of truancy, to be. So you're forcing people to put their kids into a classroom where there may or may not be an armed presence. Clearly some parents will have a problem with that one way, and others will have a problem the other way. Some parents will be horrified that their children are in a room with a gun, and others are nauseated that their children are forced into a campus that's totally disarmed.

Find a good way to balance each parties' interests and the solution seems like it will be a lot easier to find. It may end up that the only solution both sides will be able to agree on, is stationing a single police officer on each campus (under the assumption that the gun-fearing side will accept the presence of a gun if it's in the hands of a duly-authorized LEO). That'll get expensive.

Separate but equal schools, some protected, some gun-free, and the parents free to choose which one to send their kids to? Seems like an ideal solution for the parents, but a logistical nightmare for the school districts, and busing and whatnot would be problematical.

Home school your kids? Easier said than done for a lot of parents who have to work two jobs just to keep up with the rent.

Discontinue public schools entirely, and instead provide vouchers and let the parents choose where to send their kids (including whether it's a protected or gun-free campus)? That might be the ideal solution, if it wasn't for the vehement opposition to "vouchers" on one side of the political debate.

I don't know what a real, workable solution would be. I know what I'd like, but that's the tricky thing about living in a society, not everybody shares the same views. I don't know what solution would make everyone happy...

 

[Ole Cowboy]

Barry you make a legit point, however your final assumption that: "What I draw from this is the notion that "criminals attack schools because they're gun-free zones" is, generally, hogwash." does not encompass the fact they they did it in a gun free zone. The assumption is merely a subset of gun free zones. In fact they CHOSE the place to execute on their plan because it was a gun free zone, not because they had a tie to person, place or thing but rather it was the safest place they could go and accomplish the mission.

Again, you point is valid they have a linkage

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[hkusp1]

As long as the teacher knows what they are doing I'm good with it. The teachers I had back in the day I wouldn't trust with a sharpened pencil.

 

[Younggun]

I don't disagree at all. I prefer the notion of actual guards (like we have at school sporting events, fer cryin' out loud) but if a teacher is not forced into it, and has chosen to do so, I think it should be allowed.

The problem as I see it is: schools are coerced places where children are forced by law, at penalty of charges of truancy, to be. So you're forcing people to put their kids into a classroom where there may or may not be an armed presence. Clearly some parents will have a problem with that one way, and others will have a problem the other way. Some parents will be horrified that their children are in a room with a gun, and others are nauseated that their children are forced into a campus that's totally disarmed.

Find a good way to balance each parties' interests and the solution seems like it will be a lot easier to find. It may end up that the only solution both sides will be able to agree on, is stationing a single police officer on each campus (under the assumption that the gun-fearing side will accept the presence of a gun if it's in the hands of a duly-authorized LEO). That'll get expensive.

Separate but equal schools, some protected, some gun-free, and the parents free to choose which one to send their kids to? Seems like an ideal solution for the parents, but a logistical nightmare for the school districts, and busing and whatnot would be problematical.

Home school your kids? Easier said than done for a lot of parents who have to work two jobs just to keep up with the rent.

Discontinue public schools entirely, and instead provide vouchers and let the parents choose where to send their kids (including whether it's a protected or gun-free campus)? That might be the ideal solution, if it wasn't for the vehement opposition to "vouchers" on one side of the political debate.

I don't know what a real, workable solution would be. I know what I'd like, but that's the tricky thing about living in a society, not everybody shares the same views. I don't know what solution would make everyone happy...

No one thing I could argue in that post.

I've got 3 schools close enough to get my kids to. Only one is in district an it's one of the 2 already checked as a definite no go. The last I will be going to and talking with the principle or superintendent to get a better idea of their views before paying to send my kids there.

Teaching what I believe to be correct and not putting a liberal spin on things will probably be enough for me to send my kids there. An armed presence will seal the deal. Neither of those and I will be looking at other options including home school.

 

[Bithabus]

I think many people miss the fact that, under the current law, a school can choose to allow people to carry firearms.