Not to mention that in neither case...is the mere "presence" of a gun a valid reason to shoot someone.
Right on, Flint. Of course we are all conditioned to believe that the only people who have guns are LEOs and bad guys. Certainly in a school, right now, one can fully expect that if you have a gun you are either the shooter, or you are in a police uniform.
I don't know how I missed this entire thread this long but it's funny to see it now for the first time. It is loaded with fallacies and clouded by basic differences in philosophy.
Just to stir the pot, some fallacies:
1. Schools present some unique environment or circumstance that normal CHL holders are not equipped to handle. This is a logical fallacy that makes for good propaganda because it actually contains some truth, while implying a conclusion that is completely false.
First truth: Schools present a unique environment (PERIOD). This is, of course, true. Also, my work place presents a unique environment. So does my home! Other unique environments include: rush hour traffic, the grocery store, a movie theater, a mall, 6th Street sidewalk on a Saturday night, etc. However, while this is true, it is a half-truth. It is a unique environment, but
the teachers and staff of a school are also uniquely experienced and capable of decision-making inside this unique environment. Second half-truth: normal CHL holders are not equipped to handle the unique circumstance in a school. It may be true that a normal CHL holder
who is not a school teacher or is not otherwise acclimated to the unique environment of a school may not be equipped to handle the circumstances necessary to make the right decisions in a school. The problem here is that the people whom are being denied their right to carry while at school are the very people who are perfectly well equipped to manage the situations in the school. A school teacher who is skilled at managing groups of children or teens, who understands their behavior intuitively, who is committed to their safety and education, is regularly charged with the protection of these children and they are extremely well-equipped to do so.
2. Professional law enforcement officers or some other uniquely trained category of armed professionals are properly equipped to handle situations such as those that may be present in schools. This again holds some truth, but leads to a false conclusion.
First of all, it is true that professional law enforcement or other security professionals have unique training of some kind. I would not expect them to be able to teach my kids algebra, or to write javascript, or manage my mutual fund, etc. Certainly since their profession is law enforcement and security, and they are expected to carry a gun and encounter other armed individuals on a daily basis as a part of their job, they are fully expected to have a unique area of expertise and experience, whether resulting from intentional training or just on the job experience. However, these professionals are not normally working in schools on a daily basis. They lack the experience of managing children in the school environment that teachers have. They may not be on the scene in time to intervene anyway. When they arrive on the scene, they are perhaps better trained to make some decisions or they have better techniques on hand to deal with certain circumstances but they are at a distinct disadvantage in terms of knowing by sight who are the students and faculty at the school, what is the floor plan and layout of the school, who is likely the shooter, etc. They do not naturally have the trust of the students and faculty built by relationship from working day in and day out with the rest of those at the school. There are a myriad of other reasons. It is conceded that they have some unique training, but this does not negate the unique experience and training that teachers and school staff have, and both areas of unique experience and training are applicable to the situation at hand in any school.
3. Introducing a large number of guns into a school campus will result in tragic accidents more often than it will result in increased safety. This fallacious argument is actually true right on its face, but it is based on a false premise.
The false premise is that if you were to remove the "gun free zone" restriction from schools, it would result in the introduction of a large number of guns into a school campus. Let's take that apart. The local high school in my area has about 1500 students and a student-to-teacher ratio of maybe 20. So let's say that's 75 teachers. There are other staff members at a school, let's be very generous and say that at this school, for every teacher there is at least one non-teacher staff member (cafeteria staff, janitorial, etc.). So that's 150. Now we have about 23 million people living in TX, and just rounding, let's say that's 12 million adults. Out of 12M adults who wold be eligible to get a CHL, there are 270,000. That's 2.25% of the adult population who have a CHL. Given the teachers + staff if a large high school at approximately 150 people, you can expect about 3 or 4 of them have a CHL. Certainly less than half of CHL holders actually carry, but let's say teachers and school staff are a special breed and 3 out of the 4 teachers who have a CHL are going to carry. So now in a campus populated by 1650 people, we have three guns being introduced, and three people to be concerned about making the right choices, keeping their guns secure, etc.
Three.
4. One might support on-campus carry for teachers provided there was a mandated extra training beyond the CHL class for the teachers who are carrying. This is a fallacy on a few levels.
Firstly, no such training has been identified. All that is made clear is that the training that is deemed appropriate by the State of Texas for CHL in any environment other than a school (or other small number of venues) is insufficient. Therefore it is likely that whatever training is identified also may be subjected to the "inadequate" label.
Secondly, this is an argument based purely upon emotion and not at all upon fact or any tangible evidence. There is no documentary evidence that demonstrates that the TX CHL training is inadequate to qualify a person to carry a gun in any environment, and since CHL holders have not ever been allowed to carry in schools, there is no evidence to support the theory for schools either. In fact there is more documentary evidence to support the idea that even the TX CHL training is not necessary to improve
safety, but is more viable as a tool to encourage the CHL holder to avoid running afoul of the law, even in its minutiae. So therefore if there is no evidence that the TX CHL training is is inadequate in any environment, then there is no rational reason to assume it is inadequate in a particular environment such as a school.
Thirdly, this argument makes some presumption that there is going to be a large number of CHL holders carrying at a school. However, my numeric example above demonstrates that it is highly unlikely that at any single public primary school in Texas will have a double digit number of CHL holders carrying a gun even if the restriction were entirely lifted.
Fourth, this argument is flatly unconstitutional.
Fifth, this argument is solely constructed as an open-ended barrier to allowing carry on campus, since the "adequate training" is never precisely defined (as in, this course, this number of hours, this % passing grade, etc.). So as long as a pie-in-the-sky magic training can be held up as a barrier to CHL on school campuses, then it shifts the argument away from anything logical, and instead pushes the debate towards "what constitutes adequate training". That is a moot question since there is never any evidence that any training would be adequate, nor that any could be beneficial.
And finally, this argument makes two basic, false assumptions: 1) without formal training of some sort, a person cannot be considered to be adequately trained, and 2) any training must be legally mandated in order for it to be utilized. I expect professional teachers to be conditioned to believe that formal instruction is the only way to become adequately trained. They live their entire lives according to the concept that some system (teachers, schools, etc.) is the only viable entity for the education of our population, and they rely upon the degree and certificate they have in order to identify themselves as "qualified" to do their jobs. So it is expected that in large part, this group of people would assume that only formalized training is sufficient. However there are a great many of us who are well aware that organized or institutionalized training does not always guarantee success, and self-initiated training and experience are often sufficient or even superior to some formalized training. So for example, just because a teacher has not gone to a training class on how to deal with a shooting incident in a school does not mean that they are incapable of making the right choices under those circumstances.
Of course, the legal requirement, well that's a difference in philosophy.
On the other side of the debate, I think we have some basic logic:
1. The number of CHL holders in the general population is approximately 2% of adults. Thus the number of people we are talking about carrying at any school is incredibly small
2. There is no documented evidence that the introduction of CHL holders carrying in any venue actually increases the risk of a firearms-related injury or death
3. There is no viable reason to suspect that teachers are any less capable of rational choices and good judgment than the rest of the population, so there is no reason to restrict their rights to carry any more than you would restrict the rights of those in any other profession
4. Teachers have the same right to self-defense as do the rest of us, and they are being deprived that basic right while they are in school.
My personal opinion is that employers should not be allowed to restrict CHL holders from carrying while they are at work, regardless of whether it is a school or private business. I understand this is both not the current law, as well as being an unpopular opinion.
At present, public schools are a coercive monopoly, and this mandate on school carry laws applies to all schools. Since every single school in TX is a "gun free zone" requiring special authorization for CHL holders to carry while on campus (including the Harrold school district, which allows such special authorization), then essentially an entire class of workers are being denied their right to self defense. While I may disagree with my company's policy about carrying at work, I can quit my job here and go get another job somewhere else as an engineer. However, if I were a school teacher, I could not quit my job and go get another job as a school teacher and be allowed to carry. Likewise, education of children in Texas is compulsory, so besides home-schooling your children, parents are forced by law to deliver their children daily to a facility which legally prevents the legal defense of a third party by CHL holders. My children are home-schooled. However, most public school kids are sitting ducks. I am not just concerned with "active shooters" but also with any other type of violent crime that might take place in a school.
These schools are truly "rights-free" zones, where students, teachers and staff are subjected to a social experiment where Utopian ideals are applied to a non-Utopian population. This applies to guns policy as well as a myriad of other things in schools that would be way off-topic for this forum.
