Earlier, Anne Laurie posted about the recently staged, weapons free, mass shooting simulation/demonstration at the University of Texas. In that post one of the articles she links to and quotes from refers to a simulation done to determine if an armed responder would have been able to make a difference in preventing casualties or stop the Charlie Hebdo attack. That simulation, using simunition, was done by the folks at The Truth About Guns (Full Disclosure: I wrote a guest post for The Truth About Guns on German firearms laws and ownership and the Holocaust this past Fall). It is not the first one of these simulations that they have done. They also did one shortly after the mass shooting/murder at Sandy Hook Elementary. While you can read the full report that they prepared here, they concluded their onsite write up with:
Conclusion
This experiment was a preliminary test, providing a proving ground for the methodology and scenarios selected for testing before being implemented in a large scale test at a later date.
Based on the limited data collected from this experiment it appears that an armed teacher would save lives in an active shooter scenario. The caveat: the teacher’s effectiveness depends on their level of training. Maximum effectiveness of an armed teacher of any skill level is achieved with advanced warning of the approaching shooter and implementation of a classroom “lockdown.”
The bolding is by the exercise coordinator and post author. Notice what was and what was not emphasized.
The counterpoint to this is an ABC News report that came to the exact opposite conclusion. You can watch the first part of that report below:
So what do these types of simulations tell us? Basically they tell us that humans react very poorly under stress; that the types of attacks that they are simulating, and that in the real world one would be responding to, are volatile, uncertain, and complex; and that even well trained individuals have trouble responding in the manner they think they would/should because of the first two. Moreover, as both the Truth About Guns folks concluded, and the training officers in the ABC News report indicate, the types of skills needed to respond in an even adequate manner to a mass shooting or an active shooter or an armed intruder are quickly perishable. Additionally, a fairly high level of skill is needed and, because of perishability, training must be regular and often.
Does any of this really tell us anything useful about responding to an armed attack, an active shooter, and/or someone trying to commit a mass murder, whether with a gun or some other weapon? It does. It tells us that if one has a sufficient amount of training and maintains proficiency through regular practice they might be able to positively affect the outcome. The bigger issue is, given that the 2nd Amendment is an enumerated right and its current jurisprudential interpretation, that none of this really matters for policy making. Even using the reasonable regulation concept that the Heller decision left in place, I’m not sure how one would come up with a policy or set of policies that would pass Constitutional muster. Finally, I’m not really sure what kind of data would actually be useful for policy making even if we could get past the partisan divide on this issue.
Villago Delenda Est
What it tells us is that there are too many firearms in circulation, most of which are in the possession of people who think they are toys, or have bad intentions, or simply do not have the skills to wield them effectively or safely in a high stress situation.
And Scalia is an absolute ass.
rea
A very large proportion of the questionable police shootings involve a trained person with a gun panicking under a little pressure.
Lee
The one bit of solace I have is that if the current interpretation of the 2nd Amendment stays long enough, we’ll eventually get to the point that we just repeal the 2nd.
Calouste
The problem with the simulations is that people who take part are already on high alert, because they now they are in a simulation and they know that at one point someone will come in who will start a simulated shooting.
Where of course in real life, we’re luckily not at the point yet where most people will be involved in a mass shooting at even once in their lifetime, and of course people won’t have the same high level of alert as they have in the “simulation”.
That simulation is just ammosexual wankery.
John Cole
Did Redshirt give you permission to post this soon after Anne Laurie?
Hungry Joe
1) My projection of how, if armed, I would react to a mass shooting: Calmly draw my weapon, assess the situation, and take out the bad guy.
2) How I would almost surely react in real life: Freeze, panic, shoot my foot half off and/or shoot two or three innocent people.
No one wants to imagine himself as a 2); we’re all the heroes of our own stories. What percentage of ammosexuals, do you think, unpack their brand-new guns and then stalk around the house (basement?), playing good guy and saving the day? No way to know, but I’d guess >50%.
RepubAnon
Seems fairly obvious: if someone wants to carry a concealed weapon, they need at a minimum police officer-level weapons training, with annual recertification. It would put the “well-trained” portion of the Second Amendment into play.
It also shows that we need firearm registration, and laws requiring anyone seeking to purchase ammunition and/or reloading supplies to have a valid permit (like a driver’s license). This would make it harder (but not impossible) for bad guys to have guns – and also help spot their suppliers.
Buying a car doesn’t qualify one to drive in the Indy 500, and buying a boat doesn’t mean that you know how to operate it safely. Why then does purchasing a firearm automatically and instantly make one “safe”? The answer, of course, is that until one is trained in the use of a potentially dangerous device, like a car, a boat, or a firearm, and unless one keeps one’s skills up to date, mere ownership of the device doesn’t provide one with the benefits which can be derived from that device’s safe operation.
DC
If teachers were armed, even if supposedly well-trained, how many students would be shot because of negligence every year?
Villago Delenda Est
@Calouste: I can testify to this. Anticipating something happening changes things dramatically. OTOH, another thing it does is stress you out when nothing actually happens after a time (you don’t know when the simulation is about to begin) and you’re fatigued from just waiting for something to happen. Then it happens, and you might be less capable of dealing with it than you would be in a total surprise situation.
These things are tricky and don’t fit easily onto spreadsheets. Like most of real life.
Villago Delenda Est
@RepubAnon: Fat Tony says the “well regulated” stuff in the 2nd is just boilerplate. The Founders didn’t mean a word of it, they were just appeasing the politically correct of the time.
gratuitous
@Calouste: Just so: In a simulation, participants have a certain level of information and knowledge not available in a real-life mass shooting incident. In real life (as opposed to reel or Hollywood movie life), you don’t know how many shooters there might be, how heavily armed, what they possibly look like, whether they’re going to come down the hall to your room or bypass it. Will the shooter double back, or proceed in a methodical room-by-room fashion? Is the shooter very calm and measured, or just blazing away at anything that moves? Or, if there’s more than one shooter, do they have different methods?
If you as a lone person are going to attempt to engage a shooter, you’d better be ready to shoot anyone that moves, because you just plain don’t have any information. That’s why the cops go into these situations in force, from several different angles, and communication among all the parties. Even at that, it’s still an even bet that any individual cop is going to catch a bullet before the situation is resolved.
Alain the site fixer
Mobile users, enjoy the tweaks. I’ll get the link in your nym tomorrow. I’ve got a short list of cosmetic items also on the list for tomorrow.
Enjoy the debate everybody!
Baud
@Alain the site fixer: Thanks
Any chance if getting the next post buttons at the top of the mobile screen, so it’s in the same location each time.
I also have to manually refresh on mobile sometimes. Will that be fixed?
chopper
@gratuitous:
exactly. these simulations put in place people who know some shit is going to go down. the element of surprise is not really there and that makes a huge difference.
the fact that even with that variable changed, the outcome is still so bad for the victims, goes to show how in a real life active shooter situation having more armed victims is going to be pretty meaningless.
jl
@Villago Delenda Est:
‘ Fat Tony says the “well regulated” stuff in the 2nd is just boilerplate. The Founders didn’t mean a word of it, they were just appeasing the politically correct of the time. ‘
Yeah. It was just throat clearing, the founders might just as well have said ‘hunting being necessary safeguard against starvation’, or ‘Some fools feel better with a second stiffer dick they can hold on to, or ‘Duck hunting passes the time so well on weekends’.
I also don’t understand how these people, who are so worried about ginning up new rights out of thin air, ignored what ‘necessary to the security of a free state’ means, and got to a right to personal self defense’ which was interpreted as a right to wave around a gun, without any consideration of total social welfare or common good (but I guess that is a commie notion or ‘applesauce’). I personally think there is such a thing as a natural right to self defense, and it is such an important one that I think it should be penumbra-ed into one of those un-enumerated Constitutional rights. But I don’t see where the majority decision did a careful job of describing and balancing it against the common good and providing a good descriptions of tests for its limits. They just needed something that sounded right minded and convincing to stomp on a policy supported by the lefties, and so tossed it in there just to get to their conclusion.
But, IANAL, and it’s been a long time since I read the decision and sobered up afterward. Maybe I misremember it. I remember it as one of those patently BS opinions that doesn’t pass a laugh test. There have been so many it is hard to remember the specifics of those POS.
Josie
@John Cole: If I were not old enough to be your mother, I would fall in love with you.
jl
@John Cole: I don’t mean to be a tattletale, but the recipe people have been posting their food pics before sending me a sample. Sometimes when I’m pretty hungry and they should know better than that.
RSA
@Hungry Joe:
By an odd coincidence, I have some direct evidence about my own behavior in real life. Here’s how I described it a couple of days ago on my FB page:
“A few days ago I talked with a psychologist who studies the effectiveness of combat simulations. Would I like to try out theirs? I knew I’d regret saying no, so…
“I’m standing in the middle of an enclosure the size of a small room, surrounded by a panoramic view of a local quarry (rocks and buildings and so forth), hearing equipment sounds and other outdoor noises. Kinda loud. I’m holding an M4 carbine. It’s been modified so that it doesn’t hold bullets but instead shoots a frickin’ laser beam. The enclosure is instrumented so that when I fire the gun, a simulated bullet hole appears on the scene. I have a thick belt velcroed around my middle (more on that in a second).
“I’m listening for a signal, a beep that tells me which direction to turn. When I hear it, I turn and see two people who have popped up out of a rock pile or appeared in a doorway. Okay, that one’s talking into a cell phone. That other one? He’s pointing a gun at me. I have two seconds to decide whether there’s a threat, then possibly aim and shoot. If it things don’t go right, I get zapped with a small electrical shock from the belt. Not really painful, but it gets my attention.
“I lasted less than a minute. I did feel a sense of immersion. I have a greater appreciation for the stress that soldiers may come under.”
Back to now: It was very, very different from a video game or anything else I’ve experienced. The psychologist walking me through the procedure, to start, rattled off all the things I would need training for to perform adequately in the simulation, aside from being able to hold and aim and shoot a carbine (first time for me): localizing a threat by an audio signal; visually scanning an area; identifying a threat correctly; remembering the “rules of engagement”; and so forth.
jeffreyw
@Josie: I stole your cookie crack recipe. Deliciously addictive!
SiubhanDuinne
@John Cole:
Fixed back to original typo. Because better.
Alain the site fixer
@Baud: yep, I think…
Alain the site fixer
@Baud: refresh the page or the site? There are some wacky quirks in the mobile site that I’m trying to figure out with as little disruption as possible to readers.
jl
Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t see this riveting documentary of a simulation posted.
JORDAN KLEPPER: GOOD GUY WITH A GUN PT. 1
http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah/cast/jordan-klepper/xqleli/jordan-klepper–good-guy-with-a-gun-pt–1
jl
JORDAN KLEPPER: GOOD GUY WITH A GUN PT. 2
http://www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah/cast/jordan-klepper/w2bq3a/jordan-klepper–good-guy-with-a-gun-pt–2
BillinGlendaleCA
OT: OMG, OMG…It’s raining!
sherparick
@rea: The military spends a large amount of its time breaking down resistance to killing and making reaction to combat as “rote” as possible in chaos. And still there are those who never fire their weapons when in combat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killology
Baud
@Alain the site fixer:
Each post, I think. Sometimes when I click on a post it brings up a cached version with an older comment count. I have to manually refresh the page to get the newer comments. It’s more intermittent now than it used to be.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I blame Obama.
Lee
Since the site fixer is here: I consistently get the desktop format in Chrome on Android.
Suzanne
As an architect, I frequently have to discuss how buildings are designed to function in states of emergency with clients. The rules regarding emergency exiting, fire alarms, sprinklers, occupancy, etc, are robust and complex. But I am always amazed when I have clients question a specific design decision, to which I reply that something is a code requirement, and then the client acts pissed that the building code is so strict regarding XYZ issue. I have to explain over and over and over that the building codes are written in response to panic, that every time there is a major building failure in the US or elsewhere that the code gets more strict, and that “We’ve been doing it this way for thirty years and haven’t had a problem yet!” is not a defense.
You have a prescribed quantity, size, location, and design of emergency exit stairs BECAUSE we know that people do not calmly walk in an orderly fashion to an exit. We have discharge identification at the level of exit discharge BECAUSE we know that people don’t stop to read signs. We fire-rate lobbies BECAUSE we know that people don’t follow exit signs all the time, and we decided as a society that that didn’t mean that you should die. (Oddly, the fire codes do presume a certain amount of loss of human life.)
The jackasses who talk about good guys with guns seem to sincerely believe that having a few armed “good guys” will somehow see and know exactly how to behave in an emergency. But over and over and over, I can tell you that this shit isn’t the case. People panic, or something happens that prevents them from being able to escape quickly and safely, and we see that in many cases, in all types of emergencies. I have no doubt that some of these people “mean well”, but that and and $7.50 will get me a latte at Starbucks and nothing else.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I had to go out to make sure my sunroof was closed and I got wet.
Thanks Obama.
ETA: The sunroof and windows were closed.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: You found it that sexually arousing?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I find everything sexually arousing.
elmo
@BillinGlendaleCA: I lived in Mammoth for ten years, and I still obsessively follow the snow reports there because my friends in the area all live and die with the ski area. It’s been a great year so far!
My first winter there was 96-97, with the 8 foot storm before Christmas and then the 8″ of rain that melted it all over New Years and made the Walker River massively flood, washing away the campgrounds and inn and a good bit of Highway 395 in the canyon. Everyone said that if we could handle that as our first winter, we could handle anything.
It’s been a very rough few years for them. Thank God for snow.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: It’s a good way to go through life IMHO.
Omnes Omnibus
@BillinGlendaleCA: Even Ted Cruz?
jl
@Baud: That’s a gaffe, buddy.
elmo
@elmo: And why in God’s name am I awaiting moderation?!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Even I have my limits.
Baud
@jl: What is?
PurpleGirl
The cops who shot at Amadou Diallo supposedly were trained in the use of handguns. Yet they fired 41 times and hit him 19. Trained shooters??? Doesn’t seem like it. Oh, and they thought he looked liked a rape suspect they were “sort of” looking for. They were plainclothes cops riding around the Bronx and were half a block away from him when they decided to reverse the car(s) and go back to check him out. He was in the vestibule of his building about to take out his keys to go home. He was reaching for his wallet and his ID when they shot him. Shot at him 41 times.
ETA: Seventeen y ears later, his tragic death still rankles me.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PurpleGirl: It there’d only been “a good guy with a gun”; oh wait…
Adam L Silverman
@John Cole: I didn’t ask.
And in case anyone cares: when I started drafting this I saw that AL was doing he pre debate thread, so I set it up to post about an hour later. Then I went to the gym and did a TRX workout for 45 minutes. And now I’m home. So please update your files.
JMG
The military historian S.L.A. Marshall, official US Army historian for WW2, estimated that as few as 10 percent of soldiers fired their weapons in their first exposure to combat. That’s when the Army was draftees and not volunteers with perhaps less reluctance to violate moral norms on killing, but it’s a pretty big tell. Under real stress, our armed nuts would likely do nothing. They need the guns for the happy day they can shoot unarmed people who aren’t white and get away with it.
Adam L Silverman
@Calouste: @Villago Delenda Est: @gratuitous: And even then the simulations are never conclusive and the findings always need to be taken with caveats. That said there are people, every day, that manage to respond well under tremendous stress and defend themselves with firearms, with whatever is to hand that can be used as a weapon, and in some cases just with their bare hands. And many of these folks have little or no training. That’s the problem with this stuff: it involves humans and humans don’t really react in very predictable ways.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Madison’s original draft read:
This was then redrafted by the committee working on the Bill of Rights into:
Which was then amended in the House to:
The Senate then revised it into:
And the final form as adopted:
The necessary to portion between being and the security was added when it was entered into the Congressional record in the House.
A lot of different wordings were bouncing around. Many of the individual states had their own versions, some seemingly strong, some about the same, as what would become the 2nd Amendment. And there were different thoughts as to what could be included. Given that the first Federal mandate was made by President Washington and it involved keeping and bearing arms, we know that the Founders and the Framers had no problem with issuing regulations or with issuing mandates (Madison issued the second one, it involved health insurance…).
Mike J
Did somebody decide to make boomantribune “better”? Been down for several hours now.
Adam L Silverman
@Lee: Unlikely to happen. Even if it made it through Congress, it wouldn’t make it past the states. And if we went with just a new constitutional convention, my impression is that the Union would simply cease to exist in its current form.
And even if the Federal 2nd Amendment was repealed, each state has their own version. Some of them older than the 2nd Amendment and many of them much, much stronger in terms of emphasizing personal ownership and self defense.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Because I didn’t know about it. So you didn’t miss it per se…
Adam L Silverman
@elmo: Because I was at the gym, you are now free. Fly, fly Elmo, fly away home…
Adam L Silverman
@PurpleGirl: Stress does amazing things to people’s responses. Another issue in NY now, though I’m not sure if it was then, is that NYPD use GLOCKs with what is referred to as a NY trigger. Its a GLOCK that has a 12 lbs trigger pull weight. Stock GLOCK’s just purchased should average around 5.5 lbs. So not only are NYPD officers fighting stress and an adrenaline dump and then all the environmental factors – people moving, target moving, cover/no cover, good light, bad light, no light, screaming, etc – they’re also fighting the gun. Even folks I know that prefer shouting double action or prefer double action/single action don’t like their DA triggers above 10 lbs.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I think there would be a lot of negligent discharges. I can’t prove it, because there’s no real way to run replicable experiments as it wouldn’t be ethical, but my guess is that the adrenaline dump and the rest of the stress and the environmental factors would all negatively contribute.
And it would depend on amount of training, regularness of training, and a whole host of other harder to measure variables.
Steve from Antioch
Adam,
It is a treat to read a post like this.
Most of the posts on Balloon Juice that reference firearm issues seem primarily written to just make the poster and a few commenters feel good about their uncompromising (and ill-informed) knee-jerk opinions. “Hey let’s solve this complex problem by belittling everyone who disagrees with us!”
Please, keep up the good work.
Josie
@jeffreyw: I’m so glad you liked the recipe. My boys have loved these for years.
David Koch
Can someone post a game thread for the Dallas – Jets game
Adam L Silverman
@Steve from Antioch: Thanks for the kind words and you’re welcome. To my mind there are really several different, but interlocking issues. And I’m not really sure how anything proposed would resolve them. But the biggest issue that we don’t discuss enough anywhere is the process one. It often gets left out of a lot of policy discussions. For a great take on this in regards to national security go to Stonekettle Station and read CWO Wright’s take on the last GOP debate:
http://www.stonekettle.com/2015/12/war-face.html
In the case of firearms issues, its as I indicated in my response to Lee’s comment@Adam L Silverman: 1) you’d have to repeal or amend the 2nd Amendment, which is unlikely to happen; 2) even if Heller is reversed, then the previous understanding that the 2nd Amendment grants an implied, though not explicit, right to individually keep and bear arms is what we return to; so 3) while this would allow for greater regulation at different levels – state and/or local; 4) each state has their own state version of the 2nd Amendment in the state constitution, many of which are older than the 2nd Amendment and many of which are explicit about individual rights to keep and bear arms and/or to use them to defend one’s person and/or property. So this is the process problem. Simply repealing or amending the 2nd Amendment isn’t going to solve anything. Its likely to create more political and legislative and jurisprudential confusion. And that’s before we even get to the questions of would any legislative or regulatory proposal have stopped any of the mass murders by shooting or active shooter incidents that are being tracked?
Personally, I’ve got no problem with having to go through a background check. Partially that’s because of my work: I’ve been background checked exhaustively and as my letter from OPM tells me the Chinese (and that means the Russians and likely the Israelis) have all my information… I understand why, for others, background checks freak them out. But I also think that a lot of the sound and fury around this is, like the sound and fury around all the major political issues in the US: about raising money, lots and lots of money! And that’s on both sides. I’m not an absolutist on this either way, I understand those that are on both sides, and I have some sympathy with both sides. But given that there’s no way to design a solution that could get past the process issue, all that’s happening is people getting angry and other people making a lot of money off of people getting angry.
jl
I thought the debate started but all I see is a bunch of race touts and beery layabouts gossiping about news stories I’ve already seen.
O’Malley, Sanders and HRC drop out? Or what?
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: Sure, but I was always trained to be, and have taught others to be, very, very cautious with one’s findings. Even when I can empirically verify them. To me the caveats of the findings are as important, if not more so, than the findings themselves.
Adam L Silverman
@David Koch: See they should’ve had Secretary Clinton quarterback one team and Senator Sanders the other. Governor O’Malley would be kept for substitution. This would be a far more interesting show than the scheduled debate.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Gdmt, I like the cut of your jib. I forgot to thank you for a very informative post.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: You’re quite welcome too.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I can be an ass when its necessary. Its not pretty and I try to only do it as necessary.
Steve from Antioch
@Adam L Silverman: For what its worth, my (limited) experience confirms some parts of the ABC piece you posted.
I do firearms training and I’ve participated with different agencies in training drills featuring simunitions. For the last one, I recruited several people from a practical pistol club I belong to and we were all the “bad guys” in a hostage situation. When the HRT teams stormed the building, we got slaughtered. On the videos you would see people get 2-3 hits before they even raised their weapons. Most people did get some shots off, but they would have been dead in a few minutes later in the real world. And these are people who spend a lot of time doing competitive pistol shooting.
That said, very few real world bad guys have the skills and training that the officers in the ABC video had. For the most part they’re newbs, too. Also, most of the shootings that I have read about took place over a longer period of time so, presumably, armed people in other locations or other rooms would have time to prepare themselves as opposed to the instantaneous reaction called for in the ABC video.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve from Antioch: That’s not limited experience. Because my work potentially could put me on a deployment (I’ve been asked at least once a year, every year, for the last six years), I regularly train with a good friend, who is a SWAT sniper and law enforcement tactical trainer. He is also one of my fellow martial arts instructors in the dojo. I do this multiple times a year and then work on what he teaches me/corrects on my own. This is so that if I do ever deploy again, I will not just qualify, but I won’t be a danger to whomever I’m with if things go wrong.
While my 30 years of martial arts training reduces my fear/panic responses, I’m sure that even that combined with the regular tactical training I get wouldn’t inoculate me from having the same problems you do. Unfortunately the only way I’ll actually ever know is to have to be in the middle of something no one should ever experience. As @Hungry Joe: stated I know how I’ve been trained to respond, and I know how I’d intend to respond, but I won’t actually know until its too late.
pseudonymous in nc
Belatedly, I believe the right-wing position on this is that public school teachers are lazy feckless overpaid union thugs who need to stay trained up to Navy SEAL levels of shooter preparedness. That about right?
Persia
Yesterday, there was a fight at the local middle school. Like, literal knock down, drag out, kid kicking another kid fight. These are, I’m happy to report, incredibly rare. So rare, in fact, that the teachers kind of freaked out: The Social Studies teacher dragged (literally) one kid off, the French teacher pulled another one in the opposite direction yelling. I’m sure there’s a protocol in place for kids fighting and I’m 99.9% sure it wasn’t followed appropriately. At the same time, another kid in the attached elementary school fell off some playground equipment and broke his arm. The end result was basically chaos. The mother of the kid with a broken arm got a call from the guidance counselor that the boy’s wrist had been hurt. By the time she got there to ship him off to the office, the ambulance was there, because this was some break. (Which meant that some kids were worried that a kid had been badly hurt in the fight, because schools are where rumors breed like bacteria in a petri dish.)
I’m sure they train for this all the time. Kids fall off the playground equipment all the time (and usually, at worst, get assessed for concussion–my kid fell off and onto her head, I think three times, and I got a cheerful call from the nurse every time). But the combination and severity of events sent it all to hell.
Add guns and I can’t even begin to imagine.
Adam L Silverman
@pseudonymous in nc: I’m not sure they’re recommending SeAL training. They do recommend that teachers, and other school personnel, be allowed to be armed if they so chose and that training should be provided.
msdc
@DC: This is the most important question. Show me the simulation that estimates how many teachers would shoot themselves in the foot or groin, how many would leave their weapon unsecured around kids, how many would use it to resolve classroom disputes, etc., and then maybe you can weigh that against the lives that might be saved in one very specific scenario involving an active shooter, advanced warning, and a lockdown.
pseudonymous in nc
@Adam L Silverman:
I’m sure there are plenty of districts where public school teachers are also gun enthusiasts who will gladly pack heat and take the training, but generally those jobs that already require sufficient training required to have a hope of not fucking up in an active shooter situation are not… teaching jobs.
See, there’s an obvious NRA nose-in-the-tent strategy to imply that heat-packing is an essential part of any job that possibly maybe might be exposed to an
NRA enthusiastactive shooter, as if it were basic first aid training.Adam L Silverman
@pseudonymous in nc: Sure, don’t disagree with this take.
FoxinSocks
Everytime there’s a mass shooting, I have a co-worker who complains that he can’t legally bring his gun to work to ‘protect us.’ The co-worker is a decent guy, we spend a lot of time swapping cute animal pics, but the thought of him bringing a weapon to work terrifies me. The guy plays paintball on the weekend and thinks that makes him the second coming of Dirty Harry or Neo from the Matrix. Right now he legally can’t bring a gun to work, but at the rate things are going, it’s only a matter of time before it’s legal. Then I’ll have to worry about the copier machine breaking AND getting shot by an accidental discharge.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: anyone do a simulation with an active shooter, a few ‘good guys’ on the scene ‘helping’ and then the arrival of swat?
Carolus
TTAG? Seriously?
Sorry, these guys are gun nuts who could be expected to come up with these results. As previously discussed, we really don’t have a clue how even “trained” gun nuts might react in an active situation. Further, the negatives aren’t considered–such as a teacher misplacing a weapon or having an accidental discharge.
I want teachers to be that: teachers, not Rambo. I’ve had teachers who were outstanding but had physical limitations such as not being able to see beyond a few yards or unable to stand for more than a minute or two.
One of the big faults of “simulations” of this kind, aside from the fact everyone’s in on the surprise, is the complete lack of consequence. That is, when you’re on a flight simulator, there really isn’t the pressure or stress that would accompany a real-life situation. Everyone knows nobody gets hurt and everyone walks away safely at the end.
Snarki, child of Loki
Easy! Just designate gun-shows as ‘terrorist training camps’ and drone strike them.
Adam L Silverman
@Carolus: why TTAG? 1) Anne Laurie referred to them in her original post that served as the jumping off point for this one and 2) if even a group of 2nd Amendment maximalists, or gun nuts as you’ve described them, run these simulations and at come to inconclusive conclusions that have to be heavily caveated, then it makes the point better than if someone who is reflexively opposed to gun ownership did it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Snarki, child of Loki: Gun Owners of America and the NRA are the two most active domestic terrorist organizations in this country.
moderateindy
These “simulations” send me immediately back to my high school football days, and practice the day before the game. Specifically, the offensive side of the ball, doing the walk through where everybody on the defense did exactly the thing that the play was meant to defeat. Odd how the play worked everytime at slow speed against a defensive scheme that was known ahead of time, and yet not quite as well when we got into the actual game.
The simulation seems about as useful as a fire drill where the teacher is told ahead of time, and tells the kids about it. Then gives them directions on what to do when the alarm goes off