1. Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick wants to arm teachers, says they are part of the "well-run" militia.
As someone who wrote an 800+ page dissertation on the historical militia, killing many trees, I would like to respond.
The short answer is no. The *longer*
huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-lt…
As someone who wrote an 800+ page dissertation on the historical militia, killing many trees, I would like to respond.
The short answer is no. The *longer*
huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-lt…
2. answer is this. Due to federal law, the militia in Texas and every other state is divided into two classes: organized and unorganized. The organized militia is the National Guard. The unorganized militia is a statutory nominal manpower pool that was made obsolete by the
3. draft. Moreover, the whole purpose of the unorganized militia was to *do nothing*, because it was created in response to opposition to the militia (I explain this at some length in this thread: ). So, there are undoubtedly some teachers in Texas who
4. are part of the organized militia, i.e., the Texas National Guard, but they bear no responsibility as such for school security. And there are even more teachers who are technically part of the unorganized militia in Texas, but they have zero responsibility as such for anything
5. at all.
Moreover, neither the National Guard nor the unorganized militia are police forces, with any of the requisite training required to act as such. They are (actually, for the NG, nominally for the UM) intended as military forces--and our schools are no place to station
Moreover, neither the National Guard nor the unorganized militia are police forces, with any of the requisite training required to act as such. They are (actually, for the NG, nominally for the UM) intended as military forces--and our schools are no place to station
6. military forces.
The fact is that armed teachers, regardless of whether or not they are in the organized or unorganized militia, are not a solution or even a palliative to the carnage that gun violence is currently causing in our nation's schools. Nor is more police in
The fact is that armed teachers, regardless of whether or not they are in the organized or unorganized militia, are not a solution or even a palliative to the carnage that gun violence is currently causing in our nation's schools. Nor is more police in
7. schools a solution.
The solution to gun violence is gun control. There is a reason guns cause carnage in the United States every year but not in other modern western countries. It is not rocket science. And no amount of ideological blindness to this problem, no amount of
The solution to gun violence is gun control. There is a reason guns cause carnage in the United States every year but not in other modern western countries. It is not rocket science. And no amount of ideological blindness to this problem, no amount of
8. casting about for some other thing, any other thing to blame for gun violence in schools or elsewhere--not ritalin, not video games, not mental illness, not anything--is going to change this basic fact: the it is the ubiquity of guns that is the most important factor in this
9. violence--that and the extreme gun culture promoted by the likes of the NRA that serves to silence, redirect or obfuscate conversation in this country about common sense, rational gun control--no matter how much that conversation is needed.
