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Bay Boy

(1,689 posts)
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 07:58 PM Apr 2013

Guns in schools decisions ‘best made at local level’ says Elkhart official

Source: Elkhart Truth

All of Elkhart County’s public school districts have at least one local police officer working within their schools, but a proposed bill could require Indiana schools to have an armed employee in every building.

According to the Associated Press, a school protection officer could be a police officer, teacher, principal or other staffer. Those officers would all have to meet training standards set by a new statewide school safety board.

Most local school systems employ multiple school resource officers, who are officers through local police agencies that monitor activity at schools, lead safety initiatives and are a resource for students and staff. As sworn officers, they also carry a firearm.

Read more: http://www.elkharttruth.com/article/20130402/NEWS01/704029937

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Guns in schools decisions ‘best made at local level’ says Elkhart official (Original Post) Bay Boy Apr 2013 OP
Local news is full of morons. onehandle Apr 2013 #1
True. nt NYC_SKP Apr 2013 #2
‘best made at local level’ bowens43 Apr 2013 #3
Some schools have shooting teams, you would ban them? happyslug Apr 2013 #6
Only in Indiana - this state is full of morons. I'm embarrassed to tell anyone I live in Indiana. firenewt Apr 2013 #4
Call me "distraught In Indiana" Chipper Chat Apr 2013 #7
Wait, there's a decision to make? nt Deep13 Apr 2013 #5
 

bowens43

(16,064 posts)
3. ‘best made at local level’
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 08:44 PM
Apr 2013

bullshit, the only place for this kind of decision is at a national level. Only a fucking idiot would leave something this important up to local authorities. There should be no guns in school period....or anywhere else that is public....or private.

 

happyslug

(14,779 posts)
6. Some schools have shooting teams, you would ban them?
Tue Apr 2, 2013, 11:02 PM
Apr 2013

And such teams are POPULAR in rural areas, thus you would impose a restriction that the majority in many areas would want to undermine?

Worse, at least one school I know of has a shooting range in its basement, paid for when built by a local shooting club. The Club has a place to store weapons that the School can not access without the clubs permission. The only restriction the shooting club has on use of he shooting range by the school, is after school hours it has first claim to use.

If you BAN firearms in such a school, you end up forcing the school to do one of two things, come up with money to buy out the PROPERTY INTEREST of the Shooting club in the shooting range OR abandon the school. The School is now in a distress school district, so either option it can not AFFORD. What do you think the school should do if firearms are banned at the Federal Level? (Raising taxes to buy out the club is not an option and the last time a local effort was made to eliminate the shooting range, the shooting club ended up raising much more money then did the people who wanted to close the range, after the dispute ended the Club used the excess money to upgrade the shooting range and other parts of the school).

I also have to tell you that sometime what sounds good, can be quite bad. During the 1990s a local borough took up Clinton's proposal to put more police officers on the street, They agreed to take Federal Money to pay for new police officers for two years. As part of the program the Borough had to keep the officers on duty afterward for at least two more years. The money was for a start up fund, not long term funding. The problem was at the end of the two year period, the borough did NOT have enough revenue to keep the additional police on, and thus laid them off. At that point the down side of the program kicked it, the borough, since they did NOT keep the additional Police officer on, had to return the money they had spent on the additional officers. The only way they could do so was to lay off ALL OF THE POLICE OFFICERS of the Borough. They asked for a wavier, it was denied, and thus the borough went from a small police force, to a larger police force, to no police force, all within a three period.

This is one of the problem when you have a national program that is implemented at the local level. What the local needs and can afford, if often NOT what the State or Federal Government wants and is willing to pay for. A national program may sound good on paper, but terrible in implementation (just look at Bush "No Child Left Behind" program). Bush program was geared to suburban schools at the cost of urban and rural schools (more to do with getting suburban voters then anything else, Rural voters tend to be GOP, Urban Voters Democratic, thus a lot of elections are decided by suburban voters).

My state legislature and Governor did the same thing, they set up a program for "Special Education" but allocating it on a total student body count NOT how many students with Special Needs is in the School District. Urban and Rural School Districts tend to have much higher level of students from poor families and thus students with "Special needs". By using total student population instead of Special Needs Student population, more money could go to Suburban Schools at the expense of urban and rural School Districts. Again, a lot of this was to get Suburbanites to vote GOP for it improved the schools they kids were going to.

My point is that you need to have local input of national programs and adjust due to differences in what local want and need, In my first example, a national ban on firearms would lead to a closing of a school and over crowding in the remaining schools in the School Districts (and increase costs due to cost of busing the students). My second example is that a program that only funds a start up for something (in that case more police officers) shows the problem of a local government to implement a Federal Program that is NOT compatible with its needs, the third example showing how such Federal and State programs are design less to solve the actual program, then for some other political reason. All can be resolved if local input and to a degree local regulations are permitted. A one thing fits everything solution is NOT often the best way to handle things, and this sounds like one of them.

Chipper Chat

(9,672 posts)
7. Call me "distraught In Indiana"
Wed Apr 3, 2013, 12:53 AM
Apr 2013

There are now GOP supermajorities in the House & Senate. And Gubner Mike Pence is as right-wing as they come. Right now he is trying to act like a moderate but we know what he is up to. It wont be long until he signs abortion bills worse than North Dakota's. And a 2nd bill banning gay marriage and possible even civil unions is just around the bend. The fundies are totally in charge here. They don't care that the country is moving beyond their "Christian" ideology.
.
The demise of the state democrat clout ended when Evan Bayh dropped out of the Senate. I knew it then and things have gone downhill since. The dems are powerless. The state is becoming so backwards (read "right-to-work&quot that I predict progressive companies will start pulling out of Indiana for more liberal pastures. Cities like Columbus, Fort Wayne, Evansville, Jasper, and Princeton won't know what hit them. The state may never recover.

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