Armed guards at schools can be a real good thing!

Atlanta • A student opened fire at his middle school Thursday afternoon, wounding a 14-year-old in the neck before an armed officer working at the school was able to get the gun away, police said.

The armed resource officer who took the gun away was off-duty and at the school, but police didn’t release details on him or whether he is regularly at Price.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/world/55742445-68/shooting-atlanta-police-says.html.csp

No one disputed this.

The question is cost and efficacy.

$50,000 per cop, and that doesn't cover benefits (much more) or pension (much more).

Multiply that by almost 100,000 K-12 schools in the country and that's 5 billion a year.

One cop vs. guy with AR-15 and a couple handguns to boot?

So how many cops per school and just how many billions to throw at this, particularly in the midst of screaming about spending cuts?

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

What are our kids worth??

In response to tvoter's comment:

Apparently not a repeal of the 2nd Amendment.

Honestly...the posturing. Blech. Where's NO MO O with his "think of the childreeeeen" flattus?

The point is simple. One cop per school isn't going to stop mass shootings. Here you have one incident of a cop who stopped one. In other shootings, cops weren't able to stop things.

Question: Is TSA a waste of money?

There was an armed guard at Columbine...

And this guy was off duty.  A happy accident for those involved.  But hardly a plan for future action.

I am sure Tvoter and the rest of the "good guy" gun crowd will willingly accept a ten dollar tax on all guns to defray the cost of a guard in every school to protect us from the "bad guy" gun crowd.

In response to tvoter's comment:

Nevermind that tvoter would be more than happy to cut or do away with all sorts of safety net programs that prevent death of adults and children. Food stamps, housing assistance, all this prevents people from starving or dying from the elements.

Paint them as layabouts and who cares if they die.

$5,000,000,000 for the possibility of saving a life would bankrupt us instantly if we employed it in all settings.

Focusing just on a school shooting (of non-welfare children) is not an honest approach.

But if you want to do it, tvoter, then I'll agree on Reuben's conditions: All these cops, all their pensions, all their benefits, all their gear.....

...pay for it with taxes on guns and ammo, no matter how high they need to be.

Then we have a deal.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

Appealing the second ammendment which would take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens would NOT disarm criminals who could not careless about laws or the consitution!!

If, we had real secured borders perhaps we could eventually stop illegal importation of guns but, that is a whole different and difficult issue!

Most schools are "gun free zones" which is why most cowards attack them. Let it be known that every school has a trained, heavily armed guard with authorization to use deadly force and  they will think twice!

In response to tvoter's comment:

Says you.

I tend to think the focus on any areas where large numbers of people are likely to congregate: schools, movie theatres, malls, offices, churches.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

In response to tvoter's comment:

I am proposing the tax version of car insurance for shootings. Pay to play.

Like a non-gun owner, a non-car owner might still get killed by a drunk driver, geezer, texting teenager, or et cetera. We don't require them to insure themselves against damage, we require anyone who owns a car to insure themsevles against damage to others and to themselves.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

Did the killer only kill kids that had parents that owned guns?

Their kids will get the same protection whether their parents are gun owners or not. DUH

In response to tvoter's comment:

You seem to have missed everything after the first sentence:

I am proposing the tax version of car insurance for shootings. Pay to play.

Like a non-gun owner, a non-car owner might still get killed by a drunk driver, geezer, texting teenager, or et cetera. We don't require them to insure themselves against damage, we require anyone who owns a car to insure themsevles against damage to others and to themselves.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

In response to tvoter's comment:

I agree that the situations are not identical, but I tend to think the more important principle is that the owner of the dangerous implement pays.

In both car insurance and under my proposal for guns, law-abiding careful owners are still paying something to insure against the uncareful or not-law abiding owners.

I don't see how the place in which legal owners use their item changes things. This is because the owners aren't only insuring against their own use of the dangerous implement. They are also insuring against other owners misuse of the dangerous equipment.

Hence, car insurance includes coverage for when you get hit by someone driving illegally (without insurance).

But, in both cases, if you don't own one of the dangerous implements at all, you aren't required to pay. Even though you might still be killed by someone with one of those dangerous implements.

That seems the most fair to me.

In response to tvoter's comment:

No doubt and I think every school should have them.  

A parked car is not a threat.  A moving one is.

A gun in a safe at home is not a threat.  A gun-in-hand is.  Even if not fired or even loaded, a gun brandished is still a threat, whether at a school, a church, a baseball game...or at home.

I knew an ex-marine vietnam vet who was taken away in a padded van, because he used his guns to threaten and abuse his wife as well as any neighborhood kids he didn't like.  He would sit on his front porch on the third floor of a friend's tenement with an m-16 rifle, drinking gin.  When they finally put him away, they found an arsenal in his flat, at least 50 guns and shelves of ammo.  There was no mention or indication he had ever actually fired them anywhere but on a range.

This post has been removed.

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

In response to WhatDoYouWantNow's comment:

In response to tvoter's comment:

No. You buy (or rent at a range) a gun or ammo or gun-gear, you pay a tax. The tax pays for the guards.

You do not buy or rent any of those things, you pay nothing.

Just like car insurance.

In response to Reubenhop's comment:

Again, your focus is on penalizing the "good guy" gun crowd, with no thought of how to deter the "bad guy" gun crowd.

But, that being said, i wouldn't mind a tax that was applied to defraying the cost of securing our schools.  An easier way to do it, however is to eliminate a teacher and hire a cop.  Probably a net gain for most schools.

In response to skeeter20's comment:

Drunk by noon again?

Guards = deterrence

Gun/Ammo/Gear tax = paying for deterrence

In response to skeeter20's comment: