Fits of rage and despair are being thrown inside the secret editor’s room at the Miami Herald. Guns in Schools? Nooooooo!

An Abomination! says today’s editorial.

But as usual, they probably did not bother to read the law.  The way they write it, it allows basically anybody to be walking around school with an M-60 and shoot the first kid that eats a pop-tart the wrong way. So, once again I take the extra bytes to link you to the proposed bill.

Before dissecting the editorial, let’s make a quick summary of what the bill states:

1) Leave to the local school boards the ability to decide for armed personnel on school grounds. It is not a mandatory thing.

2) The School Principal has also a say so in the matter as he/she has the authority to designate (or not) who can carry in the school.

3) The program is voluntary. If a teacher, employee or administrator does not want to carry, it is all fine.

4) Those allowed to carry on school property must be: a) Former Military or Police without a firearms disciplinary problem in his record, b) Active Military or Police without a firearms disciplinary problem in his record & c) Civilians with a valid Florida Concealed Carry Permit.

5) The person approved by the Principal “must submit to the authorizing principal or  superintendent proof of completion of a minimum of 40 hours of a school safety program and annually complete 8 hours of active-shooting training and 4 hours of firearm proficiency training as such training programs are defined and administered by the Department of Law Enforcement.”

So, what we have here is 2 levels of higher approval plus volunteering plus training before you get to carry among children.

Now, to the editorial:

The same body of lawmakers in Tallahassee that approved Florida’s infamous Stand Your Ground law has come up with another reckless, irresponsible and dangerous idea: Teachers packing heat.

Yeah Because Trayvon Martin would be alive if teachers didn’t pack guns…wait… not that. Oh yes, The Herald still hates SYG so they bring it up even if it is unrelated to the topic at hand.

Other than offering a great marketing opportunity for gun manufacturers, the notion of arming teachers has no justifiable reason to become law. Teachers don’t want it, nor should they be allowed to become part of a school’s security team, ready to shoot it out with an armed attacker at a moment’s notice.

“Teachers don’t want it” Remember the part where it is volunteer? If they don’t want to carry, they just don’t volunteer for the duty.  Next is “nor should they be allowed to become part of a school’s security team” but wait, they are part of the school security team (specially for fire drills, strager-danger, evacuations, etc) and who the hell are you to tell teachers they can or cannot do something to keep kids safe?

Indeed, there is no evidence that allowing teachers and staff to carry personal weapons would reduce or deter gun violence in schools.

Except Utah where you are allowed to carry in schools and apparently they don’t have mass shootings, or teachers going bonkers or any of the gloom and doom we keep hearing it will happen if we let guns in schools.

On the contrary, introducing more guns into school buildings would create additional opportunities for all kinds of awful occurrences, from nonfatal accidents to tragic deaths. Don’t think it wouldn’t happen.

Will accidents happen? Nobody is that naive to assure a 100% Accident Free environment like the Anti Gunners do. That it will be a constant problem? That would be an exaggeration and the record stands form on that. re: Utah.

Such a law would carry an ominous underlying message to students — that the only answer to violence is more violence. And it would encourage kids to do the same (which might be why the gun industry favors such proposals).

Dear Delicate Cupcakes: Violence is the Solution to Violence in many cases. That is why we have a military with real assault rifles, explosives and other toys and that is also why we have a police with sidearms and shotguns and rifles. Trying to insulate the kids from the realities of life will only create a generation of victims that will be abused over and over because they were not properly instructed on what happens out there. Maybe that is why you guys are having so much problem with bullies.

The fantasy that an alert, quick-drawing teacher can prevent a massacre would run into the reality that guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes, according to the Violence Policy Center. Carrying weapons, according to available evidence, does not reduce violent crimes.

Except that it happens and it does indeed stop crime, like the one that forced the individual to use a firearm on his defense. As for stopping crime in general, there is very little chance of recidivism from some violent felon who is comfortably lying on the coroner’s table. That alone is a plus on stopping future crimes.

Rather, as with Stand Your Ground, laws that encourage the use of guns to tame heated encounters actually lead to increased shootings. Student safety aside, imagine an argument in the teachers lounge veering tragically out of control.

1) Yes. The Herald hates the unrelated Stand Your Ground so it gets mentioned again. 2) So what the hell is going on inside teacher’s lounges? Are they having gladiator fights we have not heard about? Or are we hiring teachers with absolute lack of personal skills that behave like a bunch of Hell’s Angels on a drunken weekend at Sturgis inside school walls?

Neither teachers nor staff would be capable of confronting or firing at armed suspects without putting their charges at risk by getting caught in a crossfire. Police are trained to hold their fire when innocent bystanders are nearby. Would teachers with relatively minimal training be capable of such discipline?

So yes, we are hiring idiots as teachers…or at least that is what The Miami herald thinks. They are stupid, un-trainable and violent. This one in particular pisses me off royally: Neither teachers nor staff would be capable of confronting or firing at armed suspects without putting their charges at risk by getting caught in a crossfire. 

So what you are saying is that it is a better course of action, a smarter strategy to allow a shooter to murder indiscriminately as many students as he can rather than a teacher take the chance and that a student gets hit by friendly fire? THEY ARE ALREADY GETTING MURDERED! This is the equivalent of letting somebody bleed to death instead of applying a tourniquet because you fear they may lose a limb.

Is there a requirement in the Miami Herald to write editorial under the influence of alcohol or other drugs? Because the above is so stupid, only a clouded brain could come up with it.

Gun violence in schools is a real problem. There have been more than two dozen school shootings since Newtown in 2012. If the Legislature wants to safeguard schools, however, there are better — and safer — solutions than expecting teachers to strap on guns and become the first line of defense.

Oh I am all ears… get on it.

The first step would be to hold adults accountable for failing to prevent their children from having access to guns in their homes. Keeping guns secure is fundamental to gun safety at all levels.

Florida Statutes 790.174  Safe storage of firearms required. It has been in the books for quite sometime.  But somehow it ran out of magic and pixie dust before it was enacted and it does not fix 100% of the problems…what a frigging shock.

If a child takes a weapon to school, even just to show it off to peers, the parents should be accountable by law.

Florida Statutes 790.174 …again.

In Connecticut, legislators provided millions of dollars in infrastructure grants and tightened state law covering guns in school. Some of the money was used to hire school resource officers, cops posted at schools. The law states that only active or retired law-enforcement officers can serve as armed guards.

Here is where you realize that the Miami Herald editorial Idiots did not bother to read the bill (they were probably mixing mojitos).  That is why I did the quick summary at the beginning of the post. We have both active and retired Military and Police personnel specified in the bill but this somehow missed the eyes of dying South Florida rag. Somehow if Connecticut does it, it is fine but if we do it and do it without being a burden to the taxpayer, is bad. And as of one Miami Dade Taxpayer who sees that 1/3 of his property taxes go to the schools, I do want to have a say so on how that money gets spent, specially since I have no kids and I am not getting a benefit out of the school system.

Other states responded by funding emergency planning and school-safety grants. Of course, all of this would require Tallahassee to come up with more money for schools, far less likely than simply following the NRA’s dictates.

I am all for more layers of security that may slow or stop an attacker. But also, people must realize that a determines school shooter has an advantage: He knows what the passive security measures are and will have a plan to bypass them. It is always a good strategy to have a last resort which will stop the biological functions of a mass murderer.

Teachers, school staffers and parents, who are certain that their sons and daughters would not be safer in schools that have turned into armed camps must let their legislators know that they have some dictates of their own.