So is your contention that the off-duty police officers would be volunteering their time? Otherwise I am correct the NRA is advocating a massive hiring effort to staff up armed guards for each and every school. Or I guess you point is not about the massive expenditures of my tax dollars, its that the total number of armed governement employee would not increase as much because we would attempt to reduce the hiring by using existing armed government employees? Would the guards get a pension like other government employees?

Not sure where you are going with the President's kids - again I will tell you I do not want to bankroll the big governement idea of protecting each child like they were the President's. I am not made of money.

prounion.......once again, please cite evidence of the NRA advocating for a "massive expansion in the number of armed government employees".....Off duty police officers that work in the community could easily be recruited to do this work. It seems to have Obama's blessing due to the fact that his kids are enrolled in a school where this practice is implemented. One would think that it would work on a smaller scale at schools around the country. I don't know if this somewhat simple concept--after being repeated several times here--is just too difficult for you to grasp or if you are just into fear mongering?

Let's surround schools with tanks and APC's and Bradley fighting vehicles. That should do it.

I am stating that its hipocritical for the NRA to suggest a massive expansion in the number of armed government employees when they have fear mongered for so many years in regards to armed government employees.

At the same time the NRA fights any controls over who can sell guns to whom. Doesn't make sense to me.

prounion - You are for a smaller less intrusive government? Our government is the one initiating gun control laws, bans, etc, etc and and immediately jumping on the "it's the guns" bandwagon and once again ignoring this Countries mental health issues. How is that a less intrusive government?

"army of armed guards in every school"
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It's idiotic statements like this one that make it difficult to have a rational conversation with someone with an opposing viewpoint.

Milton has had an armed plain clothes officer at the school for years - and I am pretty sure that no one has been tramatized by him wearing his gun and being present in the halls- and I know that no one has been shot at the school.
I don't see this as the perfect solution, but it is a solution -
Would an officer at CT been able to save all the vitims? probobly not - but could the number been smaller? perhaps.

916 - how much more am I going to have to pay in taxes to guard every child like the President's?

No thanks 916 - I am for a smaller less intrusive government - not for expanding it to include an army of armed guards in every school.

Also would we need them for movie theaters and malls too?

Some of you act like armed police officers in schools is a new concept. It has been happening in many schools for quite sometime including locally. I don't hear of any problems there. You are afraid of putting someone in place that's already trained to do the job they were hired for. Cracks me up. You want the government officials to be protected with armed men and women, but not the our future.

“We don’t have money for a security guard, but this is a better solution,” Superintendent David Thweatt said. “A shooter could take out a guard or officer with a visible, holstered weapon, but our teachers have master’s degrees, are older and have had extensive training. And their guns are hidden. We can protect our children.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national...

Why cant we accept this is a problem we dont have a cure for?

Guns in schools! Why, what could possibly ever go wrong?
But more to the point what already has gone wrong.

Prounion.......There's no need to advocate for "more armed government employees". The school where Gregory and Obama send their children have a dozen armed personnel on staff. Almost all of them off duty police officers. They seem to think that formula works for their children, I'm surprised they don't support the idea to a lesser degree for the children of others?

If their logic hold they would also need to add armed governement empoyees to movie theaters and every college in the nation as well?

Of course - doesn't the NRA always prmpt the fear that the Big G is coming for your guns? Still amazing that they would advocate more armed government employees.

Oh I didn't realize he retracted it. Well either way I am for smaller government not large government expansions, maybe we could enact the same solutions that other developed countries have and save all that hard earned tax money.

Janesvillean says: "Guns in schools! Why, what could possibly ever go wrong?" This fear mongering incendiary comment is designed to incite outrage. But of course, hundreds of schools across the country have armed police in them right now, and some even have armed civilian teachers. You just need to decide individually, do you, naively, just want the madmen armed in schools? Or, do you want the good guys armed in schools to protect the innocent ?

Yes prounion, the comment he made, something that happened almost 2 decades ago, was immediately apologized for. While there was no doubt that it was a stupid comment, let's try and keep things relevant by discussing things that have happened in this century.......

Well the same guy that suggested armed guards called police jackbooted thugs when he wanted to stoke fear of the government to sell more guns.

prounion....Nope, they will not. It would make sense if they were off-duty police officers that live and work in the community where the schools are located. That probably doesn't fit into your "drama queen" version of how this would play out, does it??:)

The solution is rather elegant. Since concealed carry licensees have already undergone background checks and training, at their own cost, just allow them to carry when at school. This could be teachers, administrators, custodial staff, or parents in the building for a teacher conference, etc. No cost at all to the taxpayer, and a potential murderer would have no way of knowing who in the building at any one time may be armed. This would also reduce the risk to any armed police officers in the building (since the uniforms that make them an obvious initial target) by encouraging potential murders to avoid a building where people may be able to defend themselves. This happened in the Colorado theater shootings, where the murderer bypasses six theater closer to his home, and went to the one with a "no guns allowed" sign on the door, marking it as a "soft target." The theaters he bypassed had no such signs, and increased the chance that he'd meet up with bullets heading his way before he got very far.

Will this new army of armed government employees be "jackbooted?"

Sigma40- It's about being alert and diligent, the way police are...It's about expecting anything and being ready for it.

Guns in schools! Why, what could possibly ever go wrong?

Prounion....No, these "people" have never said that they are afraid of armed government employees......

I say no to larger government. Don't these peopel always say they are afraid of armed governement employees? Dumb

How is an armed gaurd going to matter? Hundreds of kids will walk up behind him all the time. How is he going to know if one pulls a gun and pops him in the back of the head?

Its interesting how everyone feels there is a single solution and that all others are multually exclusive. It will take mix of ideas, but lets face it..... if your planning a bad act concerning a weapon... do you select an easy unarmed target --- or a fully armed -- capable target....???

Why all the discussion?...Armed protection in schools is already happening in many places....The only issue is which schools want the protection and which don't.

This is another article that reminds me of the fact I am glad I went to school in the sixties, a better time than going to school today.

A cop in standard uniform with his 9mm would have been the first victim.

Why is that? The shooter had two pistols, a vest and had practiced at a range. Getting hit with a vest on is no picnic. I would put my money on a cop with one gun. Beats the heck out of no protection at all.

The AR was found in the shooters car, it was not used in the school.

I would be more concerned who the people are running our govt than who the armed gaurds in schools would be.
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"What is the psychological effect on our children growing up in an armed environment?"
Why would it have an effect? The only way kids would be effected is if they were brainwashed into thinking guns were bad and evil. Guns are simply a tool, like a knife and a hammer. There should be a gun safety class at every school. Take the fear out of guns and you'll have a safer society.
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In 2007, there were roughly 15,698 emergency room visits for non-fatal firearm accidents.
http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#...
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Isnt gun safety a concern? Why dont we have this in schools? We are literally jeapardizing the safety of everyone because of peoples' fears. We need to quit being a stupid country and get back to reality.. Guns are here, they always will be. Teach people about guns, gun safety, then people will respect guns. Why is this so hard to understand??? Statistics speak for themselves, look at gun free zones, they are killing fields. Look at communities that people are enriched in firearms.... safest places in the countruy. Down in the southern states where people have gun racks in their trucks, wear pistols on their sides.... you dont see this stuff happening. Look at chicagos 2012 crime stats....HAHA!!! Laughing stock of the century. Its a killing zone.

+1 older.......The hypocrisy coming from the left on this issue is laughable. The clown David Gregory who not only broke the law by being in possession of that magazine on Meet the Press blasted the NRA head on his armed security in schools plan. It just so happens that Gregory's kids attend a school which employs--you guessed it--almost a dozen armed guards.........Seriously now.......

observer.....You're being a little dramatic......no?? I don't believe anyone is talking about SWAT teams, wearing camo/body armor and brandishing grenade launchers and M-16 machine guns, while patrolling the halls:) I don't believe that anyone is talking about "big government" either. These positions should be administrated and maintained by the local school districts. I don't think anyone has discussed the creation of a federal department that would oversee such a program.....

1. Are we prepared for the pscychological effect on our kids of having an armed guard in full body armor with an assault rifle patroling the halls of our elementary schools? A cop in standard uniform with his 9mm would have been the first victim.
2. Where will this officer be stationed...at the front door? In Newton the perpetrator shot his way in. This could certainly be done through a back or side door. Many could be shot before the officer arrives at the location.
3. Who will pay for all these armed guards? I thought you right wingers were opposed to big government. Shall we privatize the police so you profiteers can get in on the ground floor of this new thriving business? How about some Blackwater people in every elementary school! The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a culture that doesn't proliferate them.

Careful how you comment libs, Clinton proposed this first. No one had a problem with it then.

Turner's idea is more than a little bass-ackwards. Beefing up (or bloating) the school staff with psychologists may identify some of the mentally ill who might conduct mass murder in the future, but the Newtown, Connecticut, shooter was not a student. Even if every school (public and private) in the country had psychologists and they were 100% effective, they would not catch the home-schooled (a substantial percentage of which are teacher's children) mental cases. It will not catch people who don't show symptoms of mental illness during their school age years.

Armed protection for all our schools is an immediate requirement. Developing the means to identify, diagnose, and control the mentally ill need to be created, but we should not be allowing schools to remain unguarded "soft targets" while shrinks are working on creating a worthwhile system of handling the potentially violent mentally ill.