Guess I've been delaying a detailed rational for my points. The fact that bothers me the most is that you all know better. You all understand that the level of training that would be required for these people to have the appropriate skill sets to handle a proper take down is far and above anything that either they or the school systems could afford. Look at what they pay a teacher and tell me how they could afford the several thousands of dollars a year a true professional spends on their training!

We all know that to be proficient in any skill, you have to practice, drill and have consistent and intense on-going training. Hell, the teachers don't get enough of that just to perform their job as it stands, and some how, some of you believe that they would get the right and consistent training to be armed in the schools to provide protection? This really frightens me! Again, a great degree of this stems from the fact that one of my children is Autistic and I know the challenges those teachers alone face. I am actively parenting 7 children, I will take the liberty to say I’ve got a fair amount of experience with the average middle class teacher base.

I'm not against people being armed, quite the opposite. I'm as staunch supporter of the right to bear arms as any of us in this community, but placing the responsibility to defend with firearms, the children they are supposed to teach, just isn't the right answer. There are better solutions to this issue than this extreme!

Simple physical security of the facility would go a long long way towards eliminating a significant portion of the supposed threat. But that would be a common sense step that over reaction tends to miss. Show me any and I do mean any Public School building and in 30 minutes I… not even a facilities security expert.. can show how to secure that facility 50-90% better than it already is. Simple and easy steps that would go a long way without near the cost most would suspect. I would also venture a guess that most of you reading this would be able to make the same levels of assessment and recommendations.

The simple fact is that there are groups we know as SWAT (or by other names) that are trained, and not nearly enough by my standard, even within the police force. The Police aren't even trained as a whole to handle these situations. That would be why there are SWAT teams, ect. So to interject and burden the additional liability and responsibility to teachers makes my heart sink. How many police officers do you know that believe they actually get sufficient training? Hell how many of them believe they get enough range time? Much less how many of them feel they are kept up on their training for things not even related to using their weapon? Now go ask any teacher you know if they feel they get enough continuing education to do their job the best they could... I doubt many of you would be overly suprised to hear the answers... they aren't on average by any means, in the positive.

To expect the teaching staff - who's real job isn't even being done as good as it should be - to handle hostage situations, make the determination of when to shoot a kid - lets face the fact that the majority of these incidents are committed by children!! CHILDREN - is just unrealistic, immoral and wrong on more levels than I care to rant about.

Take the money that would be spent on this effort and teach teachers and the children! Care for them; don't put people who already sacrifice so much in a far worse position. For a far lower cost, better physical security (to include personnel as appropriate) can be implemented and the other money can be spent where it belongs, in educating the kids who need it! I’ve never been one of those who objected to the laws prohibiting firearms in schools.

While I doubt there is much that could change my mind on that point, I leave it open.

So tell me, how should this type of solution be implemented? What types of training and how often should that training be mandated. How are we going to pay for the training, ammunition, administration and so forth to make this happen? Rather than just rant and say “Yeah, arm the teachers, that’ll solve the problem”, I challenge to you tell me how and why.