Israel and Thailand save lives by arming teachers.

[huevonkiller]

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Israel and Thailand set an example by arming teachers.

Islamist terrorists in Beslan, Russia, are currently holding hundreds of children hostage, threatening to execute them. No one knows how this horrible situation will end; but we do know that it could have been prevented. Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy that swiftly ended terrorist attacks against schools. Earlier this year, Thailand adopted a similar approach. It is politically incorrect, but it does have the advantage of saving the lives of children and teachers. The policy? Encourage teachers to carry firearms.

Muslim extremists in Thailand’s southern provinces of Narathiwat, Yala, and Pattani have been carrying out a terrorist campaign, seeking to create an Islamic state independent of Thailand, whose population is predominantly Buddhist.

Most teachers are Buddhists, and they have been a key target of the terrorists, who have also perpetrated arsons against dozens of schools.

As reported by the Associated Press (“Thailand allows teachers in restive south to carry guns for protection”) on April 27, 2004, “Interior Minister Bhokin Bhalakula ordered provincial governors to give teachers licenses to buy guns if they want to even though it would mean bringing firearms into the classrooms when the region's 925 schools reopen May 17 after two months of summer holiday.”

The A.P. article explained: “Pairat Wihakarat, the president of a teachers’ union in the three provinces, said more than 1,700 teachers have already asked for transfers to safer areas. Those who are willing to stay want to carry guns to protect themselves, he said.”

Gun-control laws in Thailand are extremely strict, and are being tightened even more because of three school shootings (perpetrated by students) that took place in a single week in June 2003. Two students were killed.

But though Thailand’s government is extremely hostile to gun ownership in general, it has recognized that teachers ought to be able to safeguard their students and themselves.

Will Thailand’s new strategy work? It did in Israel, as David Schiller detailed in an interview with Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. Schiller was born in West Germany and moved to Israel, where he served in the military as a weapons specialist. He later returned to Germany, and was hired as a counterterrorism expert by the Berlin police office, as well as by police forces of other German cities. For a while he worked in the terrorism research office of the RAND corporation, and for several years he published a German gun magazine.

Schiller recalls that Palestine Liberation Organization attacks on Israeli schools began during Passover 1974. The first attack was aimed at a school in Galilee. When the PLO terrorists found that it was closed because of Passover weekend, they murdered several people in a nearby apartment building.

Then, on May 15, 1974, in Maalot:

Three PLO gunmen, after making their way through the border fence, first shot up a van load full of workers returning from a tobacco factory (incidentally these people happened to be Galilee Arabs, not Jews), then they entered the school compound of Maalot. First they murdered the housekeeper, his wife and one of their kids, then they took a whole group of nearly 100 kids and their teachers hostage. These were staying overnight at the school, as they were on a hiking trip. In the end, the deadline ran out, and the army’s special unit assaulted the building. During the rescue attempt, the gunmen blew their explosive charges and sprayed the kids with machine-gun fire. 25 people died, 66 wounded.

Israel at the time had some strict gun laws, left over from the days of British colonialism, when the British rulers tried to prevent the Jews from owning guns.

After vigorous debate, the government began allowing army reservists to keep their weapons with them. Handgun carry permits were given to any Israeli with a clean record who lived in the most dangerous areas: Judea, Samaria, and Gaza.

All over Israel, guns became pervasive in the schools:

Teachers and kindergarten nurses now started to carry guns, schools were protected by parents (and often grandpas) guarding them in voluntary shifts. No school group went on a hike or trip without armed guards. The Police involved the citizens in a voluntary civil guard project “Mishmar Esrachi,” which even had its own sniper teams. The Army’s Youth Group program, “Gadna”, trained 15 to 16-year-old kids in gun safety and guard procedures and the older high-school boys got involved with the Mishmar Esrachi. During one noted incident, the “Herzliyah Bus massacre” (March ’78, hijacking of a bus, 37 dead, 76 wounded), these youngsters were involved in the overall security measures in which the whole area between North Tel Aviv and the resort town of Herzlyiah was blocked off, manning roadblocks with the police, guarding schools kindergartens, etc.

After a while, “When the message got around to the PLO groups and a couple infiltration attempts failed, the attacks against schools ceased.”

This is not to say that Palestinian terrorists never target schools. In late May 2002, an Israeli teacher shot a suicide terrorist before he could harm anyone.

On May 31, 2002, as reported by Israel National News, a terrorist threw a grenade and began shooting at a kindergarten in Shavei Shomron. Then, instead of closing in on the children, he abruptly fled the kindergarten and began shooting up the nearby neighborhood. Apparently he realized that the kindergarten was sure to have armed adults, and that he could not stay at the school long enough to make sure he actually murdered someone.

Unfortunately for the terrorist, “David Elbaz, owner of the local mini-market, gave chase and killed him with gunshots. In addition to several grenades and the weapon the terrorist carried on him, security sweeps revealed several explosive devices that he had intended to detonate during the thwarted attack.”

People can spend months and years studying the “root causes” of terrorism, and pondering the merits of the grievances of Islamic terrorists in Malaysia, Israel, and Russia. But it’s fair to say that schoolchildren and teachers are not legitimate targets even of people who have legitimate grievances.

No one knows if civilized nations will ever eliminate the root causes of terrorism. But we do know that terrorist attacks on schools and schoolchildren could be almost completely eliminated in a very short time — if every nation at risk of terrorist attacks on schools began following the lead of Thailand and Israel.

Adults have a duty to protect children. In Beslan at this very moment, seven people are dead, and hundreds more are in deadly peril, because the teachers lacked the tools to stop the evildoers. If we are really serious about gun laws that protect “the children,” then it seems clear that — whatever other gun laws a society adopts — every civilized nation at risk of terrorist attack ought to ensure that armed teachers can protect innocent children.

— David Kopel is research director of the Independence Institute.

http://old.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel200409022215.asp

It seems like people want to ignore gun-free zones hurt everyone except psychos.

 

[bluefrog]

Israel has well-known security concerns, but it limits security to the professionals. Universal army service entrusts every 18-21 year old soldier with a gun, but only lieutenant colonels and above can own guns after their service ends. Schools employ armed commercial security guards, but teachers haven't carried guns since the 1970s.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

Arming teachers is not the answer. But having armed guards I can go for.

 

[jlprk]

"Israel and Thailand save lives by arming teachers."

Love it or leave it. Why don't you lefties move there if it's so great? Stars and stripes forever.

 

[donkiez]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/12/17/1171099/-Columbine-High-School-had-an-armed-deputy#

This is the first I've heard of this about Columbine, a few good point made in the article though.

"If you really think more guns are the answer, Louis Gohmert, then please describe how many guards, at what level of training and how heavily armed, are needed to stop a killer with a semi-automatic rifle, expert in its use, wearing body armor, and attacking with the advantage of surprise at the most vulnerable spot. Because these killers are not going to stop, some of them are going to prepare and plan

I'd say half a dozen per elementary school, with SWAT-team armaments and armor. There are 67,000 elementary schools in the United States. Let's call it 400,000 full time guards, making perhaps $50,000 each. That's $20,000,000,000 per year just for the elementary schools. And since a smart, preparing, planning killer may just go down the street to the park, or the Little League fields, you can multiply that by a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand to protect every place. Who knows?"

 

[BrianFromWA]

Is the Daily KOS implying that our kids aren't worth $20B a year?

 

[donkiez]

Is the Daily KOS implying that our kids aren't worth $20B a year?

That all you got from that article?

Its about the armed guard who was at Columbine and was no match for their firepower. Sure we can spend $20B trying to protect our schools but is that the best place for an arms race?

 

[BrianFromWA]

That all you got from that article?

Its about the armed guard who was at Columbine and was no match for their firepower. Sure we can spend $20B trying to protect our schools but is that the best place for an arms race?

No, but I think it's the main point of the two paragraphs you quoted. It made it sound an awful lot like "oh noes, not another 20 BILLION!!!111!one1!" to protect schoolchildren when we're running a trillion-dollar deficit.

I don't think a SWAT team at every school is necessary or prudent. But the reason for my opinion isn't b/c it'll cost $20B to protect them.

 

[bluefrog]

The second amendment is necessary to protect ourselves from jackbooted government thugs.
Now, let's hire 100,000 new government employees, give them guns and station them in our schools.

 

[PtldPlatypus]

The thread quickly went from allowing teachers to carry guns to mandating armed guards. Oddly enough, I think armed teachers would be more effective than armed guards.

Why? Because an armed assailant would make a point to know where the armed guard is. Readily identifiable threats are easier to avoid or neutralize. If any or all of the teachers at any individual school may or may not be armed, it makes it impossible for a potential attacker to know who he/she must avoid.

 

[donkiez]

No, but I think it's the main point of the two paragraphs you quoted. It made it sound an awful lot like "oh noes, not another 20 BILLION!!!111!one1!" to protect schoolchildren when we're running a trillion-dollar deficit.

I don't think a SWAT team at every school is necessary or prudent. But the reason for my opinion isn't b/c it'll cost $20B to protect them.

ok your right that was clumsy quoteing by me. I should have posted the whole article but I was wrapping up at work and in a hurry. Money is a concern however and needs to be considered with every proposal, but if $20B fixed this problem then it would be money well spent. I think persuing this line of thought would just be an expensive failure though, and would only limit or stop the people who act on emotion and are not prepared. Guys like the Columbine and CT shooters, were well prepared and probably would only have been stopped with a SWAT team in place or a group of equally prepared counter terrorism unit, and then our schools are looking more like prisons than instituitons of learning.

 

[donkiez]

The thread quickly went from allowing teachers to carry guns to mandating armed guards. Oddly enough, I think armed teachers would be more effective than armed guards.

Why? Because an armed assailant would make a point to know where the armed guard is. Readily identifiable threats are easier to avoid or neutralize. If any or all of the teachers at any individual school may or may not be armed, it makes it impossible for a potential attacker to know who he/she must avoid.

When your considering guns in school you have to look at all angles, and the NRA is calling for armed guards on every campus. I agree that teachers being armed would be better and more cost effective, but then there are other problems to address. Like are we introducing more potential for accidents than problems we are solving? What about schools where no one wants to have a gun, is just the possibility enough? Would an armed teacher be able to stop a madman with a bullet proof vest and an AR15 anyway?

 

[PtldPlatypus]

When your considering guns in school you have to look at all angles, and the NRA is calling for armed guards on every campus.

They may be, but that's not what this thread is about. This thread is about permitting teachers to carry firearms.

Like are we introducing more potential for accidents than problems we are solving?

Possibly. NO solution is perfect or foolproof. And no one action is going to be a panacea. But I'd rather do something than nothing.

What about schools where no one wants to have a gun, is just the possibility enough?

Enough to make someone think twice before acting? Possibly. But the possibility of a teacher being armed certainly isn't going to make someone more likely to attack, so this isn't really a "problem to address".

Would an armed teacher be able to stop a madman with a bullet proof vest and an AR15 anyway?

Bullet-proof vests don't stop head shots.

 

[STOMP]

This thread is about permitting teachers to carry firearms.

I can't think of much scarier then my one ex-girlfriend or one and only mom being responsible to pack heat. Thinking back on my various teachers, there are many I would be very uncomfortable having that responsibility. This is a batshit crazy idea

STOMP