Geraldo Rivera Admits: Guns Needed in Schools

[krome2ez]

Geraldo Rivera (Sort of) Admits:

Guns Needed in Schools

By Steve Pauwels / 16 December 2012 / 5 Comments

It was, likely, unintentional, but mere hours following the Newtown, CT slaughter of a classroom full of children and half-a-dozen school personnel, TV journalist Geraldo Rivera conceded that guns ought to be in America’s public schools. Near the wrap-up of a tearful discussion about the mass-murder, the colorful Fox News fixture avowed to host Bill O’Reilly that, hereafter, ”every school” ought to have a full-time police officer present to foreclose any repeat of Friday’s bloody travesty.

An hour later on Sean Hannity’s program, former New York City detective Bo Dietl essentially echoed Geraldo’s prescription (tossing in the retired/off-duty policeman/hired security officer option, as well).

Again, although it was probably not the point of the pseudo-Liberal Rivera — perhaps not even of the more politically conservative Dietl — it’s not a radical notion at all to move from the armed-cop-at-school antidote to the conclusion that … well, at least some school employees ought to be allowed to arrive daily at the school-house door packing heat. Maybe even encouraged to do so?

Think about it: an on-premises blue suit can be trusted with protecting our children, resorting to a 9 mm if necessary — but not a handful of thoroughly-vetted, rigorously trained teachers, counselors, administrators or custodians who already are charged with their guardianship? I suppose if one occupies sports-announcer Bob Costas’ realm in which gun-toting citizens aren’t functionally up to bearing arms against imminent danger, a handgun hefting educator is a possibility not to be contemplated.

Remember, Costas recently stood by his unblanching insistence that an armed audience member at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre only would have augmented the body count. It’s a view of human beings against which Toqueville darkly cautioned two hundred years ago: regular folks ” stupifie[d] … reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”

Can’t trust “we the people” to take account of our own lives! — better await the “professionals” and “experts” who know best how to protect us, provide for us, corral us.

Why would a school’s single, easily identifiable, “official” gun-carrier be preferred to three or four, perhaps generally anonymous, adult staff fully equipped to violently defend vulnerable students if necessary? Let’s be frank: all a methodical, sufficiently prepped malefactor has to do is play innocent until he finds the unsuspecting police officer; and then cut him/her down. And where would we be then? Right back to the situation that obtained in Newtown, CT, December 14, 2012: a building full of helpless victims with no one to shield them

Metal detectors at every educational facility! some clamor. How about a TSA style arrangement at the entrances of our schools? Once more — not meaning to be morbid, only realistic — with a modicum of forethought, the thorough predator can defeat such. He only has to dispatch the technological barriers by dispatching those operating them. Dead gatekeepers can’t use fancy gadgets to keep out the bad guys.

What these gruesomely unsparing scenarios all reinforce is, bottom line, a fifth grade art teacher or fifty-five year old janitor, experienced in point, aim, squeeze, can stop the most determined beast in his tracks even when all the other, more conventional barriers have failed.

What Rivera and Dietl both affirmed, whether they meant to or not, is — despite all the worthy lionizing of courageous teachers who keep their wits about them and effectively shuttle their students out back doors or into hiding places while the rounds are flying — oftentimes, physical counterforce ends up being called for.

A bespectacled educator hurling a fire extinguisher at a gun-wielding monster? A normally mild-mannered administrator going after a snarling cutthroat with a letter opener or knitting needle? Nobody would flinch at such turn of events — in fact, the heroes would be marched down main street and covered with confetti.

But suggest these same men or women ought to be urged to keep a firearm handy? The sophisticated types gasp — the same sophisticated types raging today: How can horrors like Newtown unfold in our day?!?

Without dispute, a handgun in the classroom is a blazingly politically-incorrect answer for this era — a completely sensible one, if knee-jerk, anti-gun emotionalism can be put aside, but still paralyzingly controversial.

But, so what? The “respectable” solutions keep falling short. Maybe “controversial’ and “politically incorrect” just mean: gutsy but needful. Maybe they just mean: ugly but essential.

No educational professional, of course, should be required to carry a firearm to work; but word ought to go out that any decision in that direction would be welcomed. How about every school system’s asking that staff volunteer to fulfill a minimal quota of licensed carriers? Paying for mandatory training in responsible firearm usage? Offering a salary bonus for those who step up to this solemn but vital responsibility?

Only the local superintendent and principal or top administrator need know who compose this thin, pedagogical line — and most importantly, the criminals shouldn’t know. That element of uncertainty alone would serve as a doughty deterrent.

Teachers equipped, practically, to kill if need be? It’s an unpleasant exigency, a nasty provision. Yet, perhaps, Newtown, CT will prompt us to reconsider some previously unfathomable responses.

Founding Father James Madison noted, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” I’m minded to paraphrase him: if men were angels, neither would schools ever have to fear maniacs; nor the good guys need weapons to thwart them.

But men aren’t angels, are they. If we didn’t get that a few days ago, surely we do now.

Read more: http://clashdaily.com/2012/12/geraldo-rivera-admits-guns-needed-in-schools-well-sort-of/#ixzz2FJenverX

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[Shabibilicious]

I would love to see an armed guard, or retired police officer in our schools. With that said, I think even a well trained armed teacher/principal.....scared, shaking, adrenaline overload, would be a mistake. The first child accidentally shot by one of the school staff would be bad. As always, just my opinion.

GO RV, then BV

[SgtFuryUSCZ]

***///

If schools had a double entry system

(2 sets of doors, like they have to keep heat & a/c from escaping),

a metal detector would go off before the 2nd set of doors would open,

trapping the person and giving an on-site guard time to determine via cctv

if the perpetrator is armed, thereby not putting him/herself in danger.

Pretty sure folks wouldn't mind the occasional inconvenience of this system if

it kept babies alive.

[dog53]

This really suprises me.

Rivera lost his Ba!!s years ago.