Another Gun Lobby Fail: Armed Teacher Bill Fizzles

12 thoughts on “Another Gun Lobby Fail: Armed Teacher Bill Fizzles”

1. Superfluous: bringing legislation to committee that has zero chance of advancing. The point of governance is governance, IMO. If they want to campaign, the gundamentalists should do it on their own dime.

   So what's the dollar figure attached to these three days of GOP time-wasting? What's the gross cost per bluster?

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   1. Being impossible to pass doesn't stop the pro-gun rights guys.  They bring these bills up year after year.

      HB1063 Stand Your Business Ground (Make My Day at Business, or Use of Deadly Force at Business Location) is on its 9th annual return visit this year. 

      SB038  Governor's Emergency Firearms Powers was defeated Monday for the 4th year (skipped 2013, too busy on other things).

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2. "gundamentalists". I like it. And, whew. Schools are still gun-free zones, except for the School Resource Officers, who are trained. 

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3. Perhaps many people realize the gun lobby over played its hand last year. The hysteria fomented by those groups that through last year's legislation the government was coming to your house to take away your guns never materialized. Needless to say, the legislation never even came close to doing that. There is support for gun rights in Colorado and around the country but like anything else, once a group asserts positions on an issue and they don't come true, their credibility is ruined.

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4. How about reducing the number of school administrators, and other staff outside the classroom, and replacing them with off duty law enforcement officers, one per school.  Non-classroom staff is already approaching 50% in many school districts. Or, how about increasing classroom size by 1 or 2 students and add armed school resource officers.

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   1. How about having public schools that are fully engaged in the education of students???

      (. . . as opposed to being the latest sales quota prospects for weapons manufacturers . . . )

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   2. How about just getting rid of public education and send the entitled few to Chistian Madrassa's and boost corporation profits by letting them use everyone else as unskilled child labor?  That's a conservative's wet dream don't you think?  No more science.  No more teachers.  No more taxes (boo).  To hell with a meritocracy when the rich deserve to rule us all.  We don need no stinkin education for our kids.

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   3.  hawkeye,

      You'll be surprised to know that I, a genuine progressive union-thug teacher libber, supports many of your proposals. I like having armed school resource officers on campus. They are trained in their weapons,  they help keep the peace in the hallways and campus, and, because kids like them and talk with them, they often have more information on actual gang activity or drug selling rings than the PDs would otherwise have. SROs are a great use of community policing dollars.

      And I'm all about getting more adults in the classroom, as opposed to sitting in an administration office. The old Title 1 Federal program worked to remediate low-skilled students because it included funds for adult paraprofessionals in the classroom, and small class sizes.

      Unfortunately, the "educate for profit" model has caught on, and any fly-by-night company with a PhD on hand and a good slick curriculum can promote itself as the silver bullet to raise test scores for desperate districts. But that's a different discussion.

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      1. Agreed, mama, that there should be more actual cops in schools. So all these gundamentalists need to do is get their county commissions and city councils to put measures on local ballots to raise the sales tax in order to pay more cops for the schools. Just think — all those gundies out campaigning for a tax increase.

         Naw, they'd have to put their money where their mouths are.

          

          

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      2. Couple o fthings. You seem to be saying that the peace-keeping ability of the resource officers is more a factor of their interaction with the students as people than it is of their being armed. and let me make the point that being"trained" with a weapon does not mean they're going to make the correct decision nor does it mean that every round they fire will find the correct target.

         My thought has long been that the major deficit of the American education system is that we,as a society, have never reached a conclusion as to what constitutes a "good"education or a "well-educated" person. Lacking such targets teachers are at a loss as to what and how to teach. I further believe that teachers, being on the front lines so to speak should be the final arbiters of the design of curricula and pedagogical systems.

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5. At the end of testimony last night, Rep. Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs) offered an amendment that struck the entire bill, but put in language allowing for armed security guards at charter schools. Democrats allowed the amendment on but voted against the bill (ending in its demise).   Rep. Carol Murray revealed the action for the ruse it was by stating we need to have a debate on this very important bill on the house floor (i.e., arming teachers…not charter school issue).  She revealed that intent was to get the bill out of committee, put it on the house floor and amend it back to its original language (which one would suspect anyways).   It is likely that a separate bill with a narrower title will arrive as a late bill to address that issue, if truly needed.

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   1. What is stopping any school, charter or otherwise, from employing armed security guards? Certainly not statute.

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