An Ohio School District Is Arming Its School Custodians With Handguns

[FarCenter]

The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education, in Ohio, has unanimously voted to let school custodians carry handguns, the Toledo Blade reports.

This will be the first school district in Ohio to have armed personnel, according to the Blade.

Four custodians will be trained to carry handguns around the county's K-12 campus.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/montpelier-votes-to-arm-custodians-2013-1

[Turbineguy]

1. But first,

they have to sow a stylish and attractive bullseye on their work outfits.

[unblock]

3. yup, i guess the figure the custodian is a single most expendable employee at a school.

[Fresh_Start]

2. I hope the custodians negotiated a raise for their additional

responsibilities. I'm thinking security officers receive much larger salaries than janitors.

[FarCenter]

4. Guard services don't pay particularly well.

[Tempest]

5. That would be the very first question I would ask if I were one

And if they said no, I'd tell them to piss off. They'll become targets.

[Fresh_Start]

8. not only targets... but also they are taking on liability

as well. Today if the janitor takes on the gunman, they are a hero. Tomorrow if they don't take on the gunman, they are shirking their responsibilities

[Tempest]

34. Or if one of their stray bullets hits a student or teacher

Will the school district pay for his legal costs and settlement?

[Fresh_Start]

36. Sometimes the school district will pay

and in other cases the school district will try to shift the blame to him.
But it doesn't prevent someone who is injured from suing him personally.

[tblue]

6. How long before some student will get shot.

How long before a custodian is overpowered by a student (or 3) so they can take the gun?

This is pure insanity. People will be lining up in droves to apply for that job. What could possibly go wrong?

[ancianita]

7. Bad management practice. Stupid politics. Principals in all states are THE primary point person for

the security and safety of their communities' children. This is a stupid copout move. Principals should be the ones to man armed security at entry/exist points of their buildings. Let them hire properly trained security or local police to secure the public's schools. Maintenance staff are unqualified to do such work.

All this move shows is how stupid state politicians are about the legal status and responsibilities of principals in their school districts.

[FarCenter]

9. Hard to say about qualifications? Some custodians may be veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A number of my teachers were WW II and Korea vets. Can't recall about the custodial staff, but lots of veterans have high school educations and would be candidates for jobs like custodian.

The World History teacher brought in a bazooka to show the class when we were studying WW II. Also an M1 IIRC. He was in the local National Guard and brought them over from the armory.

[ancianita]

10. That's too random and undependable as a practice in securing schools. Having "some" isn't a

committed guarantee that the public's schools need.

Put those same vets in security uniforms at the entries and exits of school buildings and you have a real pre-emptive security presence. But just having a holstered engineers whose office is in a remote part of the building doesn't increase security -- except for himself -- one bit for hundreds of kids spread across halls and buildings. What happens when he/they are on the roof fixing something? It just won't work. It's plain stupid in concept and execution.

[Recursion]

11. A posted, uniformed, armed guard can be useful, but only if you're out of the mass shooting mindset

Posted, uniformed security people (armed or not; each has advantages and disadvantages) do in some circumstances lower rates of the much more common sort of school violence in which one student attacks another one.

Trying to prevent the next Lanza is like carrying water with a sieve, trying to prevent the much more deadly (in total number) "normal" school violence incidents that we never hear about can be a lot more useful because there are a lot of commonalities among them. And, again, we have less than half the rate of school violence that we did 20 years ago, so we're doing something right, and it would be good to figure out what that is.

The US Capitol Building is one of the most secure civilian buildings in the country, but armed guards and metal detectors didn't stop Weston from shooting four people. But they do stop people who work at and visit the Capitol from carrying guns, which prevents quite a few accidents and violent escalations (there's even a tour of all the places in the Capitol in the 19th century that somebody shot somebody else. It's a surprisingly long tour. Gun free zones work at what they're intended to do, but what they're intended to do isn't the prevention of mass shootings).

[Aerows]

13. So because it can help in some cases

but not all, we decide it's a bad idea and let anyone who wants to be armed roam around a school without a uniform and no indication that they are armed?

That sounds a little like "it won't fix the problem 100% so I'm for the idea I supported all along which is conceal carry for everybody ..."

[Recursion]

16. Well, that's the opposite of what I'm suggesting

But, yeah, there are a lot of people who make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Mass shootings are horrifying. They're also so rare and idiosyncratic that there's not much lawmakers can do to stop them. What lawmakers can do things to stop are the "normal" shootings that never make CNN, but kill orders of magnitude more children.

[Aerows]

20. They aren't rare though

Rare is once every two or three years, maybe fewer. How many have we had in the last 6 months?

And define mass shooting. I consider when 5+ people get blown away that's a mass shooting.

[Recursion]

21. I don't know who decided this, but 4 fatalities in one incident is the "official" definition

If you look back over the past couple of decades, they seem to cluster, and we seem to be in the middle of one of those clusters (the late 90s were another one).

[Aerows]

23. 607 people

have died to gun fire since Sandy Hook. That's not even a month ago. Were all of those due to assault rifles and hi-cap magazines? No, obviously not, but that doesn't mean regulating them won't help with the last 3 nutjobs that did these (Loughner, Holmes and Lanza).

Then think about a few armed, uniformed security guards at school. I don't see how a more balanced approach that isn't "everybody arm up" is a bad thing.

[Recursion]

31. I keep banging my head into this wall, but...

Were all of those due to assault rifles and hi-cap magazines?

I'd be willing to bet none of them were; these high-profile mass shootings are pretty much the only time semi-automatic rifles get used in crimes.

Now, just bear with me. I know people are sick of hearing this, but it's directly to your point:

Lanza used neither an assault weapon nor a high-capacity magazine (I catch all kinds of hell for "being technical" about this but since you're explicitly claiming the law would have helped, I think it's very important to point out that his weapon was legal under the '94 ban and under the stronger CT state ban).

Holmes had a high capacity drum, which jammed almost immediately, so he used a shotgun and handguns for almost all of the murders. The drum was in a rifle that, like Lanza's, you might assume fell under the AWB but probably didn't (unless it had a bayonet lug).

Loughner had a high-capacity magazine, which jammed after firing as many rounds as a normal magazine holds (jamming is a common problem with large magazines, which is why most people don't use them, which is also why it probably wouldn't be a huge political fight to ban them).

Cho had completely normal magazines in completely normal pistols.

Before the complaints come in: I'm not posting gun porn; I'm not claiming that if you don't know all these things about firearms X, Y, and Z you shouldn't have an opinion. What you're asking for isn't unconstitutional and doesn't (IMO) infringe on anybody's "rights", but it also doesn't do what you think it does and I think that's very important to keep in mind.

Feature based bans like AWBs are not unconstitutional or tyrannical or anything, they're just based on a fundamental misconception that how a gun looks has any bearing on how effective it is at killing people. The only thing that addresses that is a capabilities-based ban like the 1934 NFA (the one that makes actual literal military assault rifles illegal). But another AWB isn't, in my armchair political analyst's opinion, a "step towards that" as a lot of people on this board think, but a complete forestallment of that because after a very painful political struggle to pass it, politicians will roll their sleeves back down and say "there, that's done!" and not touch it for another two decades. Meanwhile, gunmakers will (once again) design guns that look different enough to stay legal while still maintaining the same firing capabilities as the old ones, just like happened in 1994 (Feinstein's current feature list is more restrictive and gives the ATF more latitude, yes, but if the problem is the availability of semi-automatic rifles with detachable magazines* it does nothing at all to address that).

Now, like has been said on this thread, school is statistically the safest place for a child to be (and the most dangerous place is in the car on the way to or from school). I don't think armed guards will improve that safety, either, so in that we're in agreement.

* Some DUers I really respect say I'm off the mark here, and that the appearance really is a problem because it plays up soldier fantasies among crazies like the people I listed above; I'm not convinced of that but I acknowledge it's possible, and I want to think about that some more.

[Aerows]

35. I'm a much bigger fan

of examining function than form, though I hadn't really considered that form (i.e. it looks more badass) might encourage some people. Lanza had two 30 mags strapped together, and used an AR-15. I'm not sure how you can say that wasn't an assault weapon. Mind you, that's a very difficult configuration to control, but that's what he used to wreak havok. Loughner got off enough shots to hit 9 people - thank heaven's the gun did jam, but suppose he would have had to reload somewhere in the middle of the mayhem?

Holmes did have a 100 round drum that jammed. He was also a certified absolute batshit crazy nut that had every intention of taking out as many people as possible. Had there been tracking of people buying 100 round drums, maybe he wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to go over the edge in the first place.

In this country, we pay attention when people buy large quantities of chemicals that can produce bombs. Even large quantities of Hydrogen Peroxide can get you checked into. Do I like it? I like it a hell of a lot better than another OKC bombing (which my sister, and her husband that worked at a hospital there, were present for).

This idea that we can't keep the more deadly configurations out of the hands of nutjobs, and the idea that we can't make our society safer ALREADY is working with things like car bombs. Hell, we regulate Sudafed for crying out loud. We can't regulate bullets and guns that spray bullets like a sprinkler? I think we can.

As far as the "macho" factor, I guess that warrants consideration, but there are plenty of other paths to also venture down to get our society in a safer place. You will never prevent someone that is hell bent on ending their life and those around them 100% of the opportunity to do so. You can prevent some of it, though. I refuse to believe that you cannot.

[Recursion]

44. Form and function

Time to get Aristotelian...

Lanza had two 30 mags strapped together, and used an AR-15. I'm not sure how you can say that wasn't an assault weapon.

Well, Connecticut said it wasn't an assault weapon, because it didn't have a bayonet lug.

What "matters" from the point of view of a mass shooter is that you don't have to cock it every time you shoot, and you can replace its magazine with an already full magazine.

That may well be what you mean when you say "assault weapon", but no assault weapons ban, not even the proposed new one, comes even close to extending the definition that far. Every AWB to date is based on how a weapon looks, not what it is capable of. I know I sound like a broken record here, but I think there's a lot of wool being pulled over a lot of good Democrats' eyes on this issue. If we want to ban the capability of firing semi-automatically and taking detachable magazines, even a "gun person" like me would support that, but that's not related to any AWB to date.

Holmes did have a 100 round drum that jammed. He was also a certified absolute batshit crazy nut that had every intention of taking out as many people as possible. Had there been tracking of people buying 100 round drums, maybe he wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to go over the edge in the first place.

No argument there. My gun-happy ex-roommate from VA (he makes his own AR-15s) thinks high-capacity ammunition devices should be banned. If he's sold on that, I think that's a doable thing and I'm 100% for it.

This idea that we can't keep the more deadly configurations out of the hands of nutjobs

OK, here comes the nerd moment again, as a warning. There really aren't "more deadly configurations". Semi-auto is semi-auto is semi-auto. Guns are no faster or deadlier now than they were 100 years ago, and the gun that looks like an M-16 isn't deadlier than the one that looks like a traditional hunting rifle if both are semi-automatic and accept detachable magazines.

I'm not saying this to make you throw up your hands and give up, I'm saying this because it's important we all understand that this capability isn't in some fringe of "extreme" guns that only crazy people buy, this capability exists in basically every firearm designed in the past 100 years and just about every firearm sold today.

Now, maybe the macho factor argument has a point; like I said I'm still thinking about it. Maybe a crazy/evil person is less likely to use a gun with the same capabilities as an AR-15 but with a more traditional shape and a wood finish. I guess by definition these aren't rational people.

[Tempest]

37. Apparently you're not up on drive by shootings

Many are done with semi-automatics.

[Recursion]

41. Not rifles, though

They're difficult to aim from inside of a car. That's also very 1996.

[Tempest]

42. Semi automatic machine guns that are legal to purchase.

And have no purpose other than to kill people with.

[Recursion]

45. Something is either semi-automatic or a machine gun

Semi-automatic weapons are, in general, legal to purchase, and machine guns are generally not legal to purchase (and are crazy expensive for the people who can buy them).

[Tempest]

49. An Uzi is a semi-automatic machine gun. So it's not either/or. n/t

[Recursion]

50. No, an Uzi is not semi-automatic

Not sure where you get your info, but that's just wrong. It's completely disjoint sets, by definition.

[Tempest]

53. How about from the manufacturer? Would that be good enough?

http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/small_arms/uzi/uzi-pistol.html

[Recursion]

54. That's an "Uzi pistol", not an "Uzi submachinegun"

Notice the four columns with the different capabilities?

The Uzi pistol is capable only of semi-automatic fire, which is why it's not a machinegun like the other three are. That's also why it's legal to buy an Uzi pistol in the US, because it's not a machinegun. It's not legal to buy an Uzi submachinegun in the US, because it's a machinegun.

The Uzi pistol is semi-automatic. The Uzi submachinegun is a machinegun.

They look the same. They are completely different inside.

[Tempest]

60. You're seriously going to debate between a semi-automatic machine gun

And a semi-automatic machine pistol?

Very weak sauce.

[Recursion]

61. Yes. One is automatic and one is semi-automatic.

And machinegun means "automatic". Words mean things; you can use them to mean something else but you'll just confuse people.

That's not remotely "weak sauce".

[bongbong]

65. Endless obsession about gun details

One of the standard tactics the Flowers use to deflect and run the clock out.

[Tempest]

66. And his clock has just run out.

There's just no getting through to some people.

[Straw Man]

72. No ...

There's just no getting through to some people.

... there isn't, is there.

He just tried to explain to you the difference between automatic and semi-automatic. This is a crucial difference in firearms design as well as in law. The "machine" part of "machine gun" means fully automatic. It also currently means the difference between legal and illegal. If we're discussing making things illegal, we have to determine what exactly it is we are making illegal. There is no such thing as a "semi-auto machine gun," just as there is no such thing as a "two-wheeled unicycle."

Do you want to make all semi-auto firearms illegal? Then just say so, and stop all this pointless nattering about "assault weapons," which is a phony category based on how a gun looks. Then you might have a case and some credibility. At least we'd have something to discuss.

[ancianita]

17. NOT true. Every security person knows that entry points are exactly the control points for school

crime and invasions. All doors in Chicago high schools have both walk-through security pillars and scanning machines. Students wear seeable, mandatory ID's at all times. Once the population inside is 'clean' and secure, preventing criminal invasion at entry points is relatively easy.

There have been NO shootings in Chicago schools for over six years, while there HAVE been shootings in areas nearby. That's more an indicator of the neighborhood than of the schools in them. Schools in Chicago, as elsewhere, are the safest places for children to be all day in this country when the adults show some adult practical knowledge of security methods. That's what principal training is for.

It's what the public already pays for. The failure on school districts' part to spend properly on best security practices doesn't make it incumbent upon the public to spend more money toward "patches' than it already spends. States and districts must show some brains and steward already-existing security budgeting. Otherwise this just smacks of cheap political protection racket leadership.

[Recursion]

19. Why do you agree with me but then say "NOT true"?

That's what I'm saying. Student-on-student violence can be made much less common by security procedures and personnel. And that's the vast majority of the (as you point out, rather rare) school violence that happens, so it's a much better thing to focus on.

I was reminding people who were coming up with all sorts of reasons that a guard wouldn't stop a mass shooter that mass shooters aren't what guards are there to stop.

[ancianita]

25. Oh. I guess because your example of how security doesn't work seemed to argue against your

example of how it does work. Sorry. I must've misread your overall point. Kinda tired right now, having stayed up too late last night. I'm not trying to be harsh or judgmental. I was addressing the idea that since no one can stop a determined criminal, we tend to wring our hands. I'm not trying to argue, but just amplify your points that entry point security is as close to perfect security as schools can get when the internal population is properly screened daily.

Too often discussants let the desire for perfect security be the enemy of the excellent, proven practices we have now. The "all or nothing" arguments that are behind people's speculated exceptions do nothing to advance adult solutions. It's like saying "I can think of one exception, therefore, if your argument isn't 100% airtight, YOU LOSE." It's an adolescent's debate practice and should be outed whenever someone uses or implies it.

[Recursion]

32. Doesn't work against lone gunman mass shooter types

Does (in some cases) work against Billy trying to kill Freddy in the hallway, but probably not often enough to justify the additional risk from having an armed guard (who, as a human, is both fallible and possibly malicious).

Sorry, I get verbose sometimes.

[Aerows]

40. Lone gunmen

are loners, though, and are by nature anti-social. They aren't going to have the connections to buy huge quantities of black market weapons and ammunition if there is sufficient regulation on it. Lanza didn't look any further than his own house. I seriously doubt he would have had the means to get hold of such weapons on his own.

Holmes? How did he get hold of the amount of ammo he had? Simple, it's completely legal to buy as much as you can afford without any regulation whatsoever or tracking, so naturally he had a massive stockpile. If we can regulate Sudafed, hydrogen peroxide and pay attention when people buy shit tons of fertilizer and diesel fuel at the same time, we can do better than we are doing with guns.

[ancianita]

43. I'm ready to address this if you can link some critical mass of "exceptions" that you imply here.

You're again leaning toward making the perfect be the enemy of good security practices. Billy and Freddy don't try anything in the hall because they've passed through metal detectors and had their bags scanned. AND hall guards don't let them be there without a pass AND teachers don't give passes for anything but emergency bathroom use because they're all so engaged in learning. See?

Lone gunman don't get past entry points with armed guards. They slip in through unguarded entrances. That's where the principal's security system needs beefing up, but it's not the occasion for public discussion of arming teachers.

Every social problem gets dumped on teachers. NOT. THIS. TIME. This is media hype to create hysteria that distracts from shenanigans going on between ALEC strategies to confiscate public employees pensions, end unions and restrict women's privacy rights.

This forum needs to back away and take a look at what actual 'work' in the public interest Congress and the President are lining up to address over the next year or two. Gun misuse and lone gunmen are symptomatic of other more important problems that need solutions. Those solutions should be the stuff of discussion around here, I'm thinking. Just sayin.'

e: extensive clarification

[Recursion]

46. I'm not against guards, just against them having guns

And I'm not terribly against even that in some circumstances if the district feels it's appropriate.

My only point remains that you shouldn't judge that plan based on how well it would prevent a mass random shooting.

[ancianita]

48. Having unarmed entry guards in a country of 300 million guns makes absolutely no sense.

In high gun ownership districts, or high crime rate districts it's always appropriate. One principal's principle should be "It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." The one time it takes to learn that lesson at the cost of human life is worth the security costs. The public must face that and provide.

[marions ghost]

63. Good security practices?

Make the schools into fortresses--oh yeah.

[Angry Dragon]

12. How come no one is asking why we need guns in schools??

Fix the underlying problem and you will not need guns in schools

[Aerows]

18. You can't fix the problem 100%

So obviously, a certain percentage of people who don't want the status quo changed for any reason are going to argue that ... we should keep the status quo.

Personally, I think there probably should be armed security guards in schools. But they should be uniformed armed guards, not half-cocked vigilantes running around with concealed weapons. While we are doing that, let's work to get rid of high-cap magazines and assault rifles that spew bullets. Then let's think about approaches involving ammo purchases.

[dkf]

26. So you are advocating confiscation to fix the problem?

[Buzz Clik]

27. Is that what was said? Even close?

Such total and annoying bullshit.

[Tempest]

38. In other words, just another post from dkf. n/t

[Aerows]

51. Yes, that's exactly what EVERYONE in this thread

is advocating.

You know, for one who claims to be a "moderate", you tend to leap for the first extreme position that you can find which defends RW positions.

You might want to think about that, because I assure you, that other DUers *DO* think about that, and don't particularly see it as moderate, reasonable or a legitimate attempt at conversation.

[Buzz Clik]

58. +1

[Angry Dragon]

67. Show me where I said anything close to what you suggest ........

I believe I said we need to fix the problems that require people to think we need guns in schools to protect the children

I went to school in this country and did not need guns in school
What changed??
Why??
Those are some of the questions .........

[2ndAmForComputers]

73. I predict you won't get a meaningful reply from that one.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1240174214#post298

[SheilaT]

14. Wasn't there an armed guard at the latest school shooting?

Of course, the gun apologists would say that there needed to be more armed guards, or all the teachers need to be armed.

I say, take the guns away. Period. Other countries don't have our idiotic access to guns and, surprise surprise, don't have very many gun deaths of any kind.

[ancianita]

30. Principals know that for every entry and exit point you need an armed guard, and their communities

should expect to pay for that.

We just can't go by other countries' standards and practices because they don't have the prevalence of ownership and use that ours does. This line of argument is useless and irrelevant.

[marions ghost]

64. Are you really advocating this?

That would really be giving in to the gun lobby.

[ancianita]

71. It's not advocacy as much as it is pragmatics.

We're so much bigger than all these other allegedly 'virtuous' countries, for one thing. We've manufactured arms since our founding, and the whole turnaround will take awhile, is all.

One armed guard in every school? That would be beyond lame.

[SheilaT]

68. Other countries have managed to take the guns away.

We could do the same thing.

Here's what I propose:

All guns are registered. No assault weapons (however they are defined) no overly large clips or magazines or whatever the correct name is. All gun owners must carry insurance. All gun owners are forever responsible for their weapons until they are legally sold to the next person to register them.

If you are caught with an unregistered gun you serve jail time, maybe a year or so for the first offense, and give up all rights to ever own a legal gun again. The amnesty period for turning in guns will have no end, because I do realize that there may be households with guns stashed away (perhaps in an attic or cellar) many years ago that have been honestly forgotten about. There is no penalty ever for turning in a gun.

What the gun apologists want is that we simply accept the idea that gun deaths will continue every single day in this country, and that we need to be arming teachers, or hiring armed guards in schools instead of teachers, or having armed guards in department stores and movie theaters and everywhere else. I say no more.

[ancianita]

69. I would totally agree with this. The problem is the registering. I've suggested that every state

with a Department of Motor Vehicles now name it the Department of Motor Vehicles and Firearms. The structures and computer capabilities can be upgraded at a cost that's probably less than current costs to society in death and destruction.

[Tempest]

39. Guard wasn't there. He was snowed in and didn't make it. n/t

[SheilaT]

74. And of course, that will never happen again

because from now on the guards will be required to live at the schools.

[Robb]

15. ...

[Brother Buzz]

22. Oh, Snap!

You know this ain't gonna end well for Willie

[Buzz Clik]

28. I have never been in a school where the janitor was anything less than a charity hire.

Some old guy past retirement. A dude with one arm. The guy who is a bit slow.

These are not the people I want to be the first line of defense -- or armed!

[msanthrope]

24. They are going to find his retirement grease. nt

[mainstreetonce]

29. In a local school district

The custodian was just arrested for selling drugs on school property.

Who is going to vet the custodians?

[liberal N proud]

33. I know that if the custodians would have had guns when I went to school, I would have been shot

I recall the custodians we had, and I would not have trusted them with a pea shooter.

[samsingh]

47. who ensures that the custodians can be trusted and won't cause more damage

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

52. unanimously... hmmph (nt)

[Historic NY]

55. Armed custodians if we can't get cops we'll used the guys with mops

isn't that some sort of knee jerk bone headed plan....what could go wrong.

Locally my intelligensia thought forming a retired cop corps might help in providing security to districts.

They were discussing things but it boils down to building design & security system. Sandy Hook had secure entrance but it didn't help.

[Politicalboi]

56. Weren't these the guys

The Repukes wanted to get rid of? Let the children clean their schools says Newt. This is so wrong on so many levels. I guess it will take a student or 2 or 3 who overpowers a custodian and takes his gun to prove them wrong.

[Rex]

57. Tell me this is an Onion article?

[JoePhilly]

59. And then it will lay them off due to the cost ...

Surely that will end well.

Armed and Disgruntled.

Awesome.

[leveymg]

62. This is like a script for a bad Splatter movie.

The custodians?

[JVS]

70. This is a bad idea. It just makes the custodians the first target of any shooter.