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Quote of the Day: It’s Not Rocket Science Edition

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Teachers, parents and students opposed to the St. Helens School Board's decision to lift a gun ban in their district rallied outside the city's high school on Monday. (Shane Dixon Kavanaugh/The Oregonian)

“I wouldn’t expect a teacher to be prepared to use a gun for the same reason I wouldn’t expect a police officer to teach advanced chemistry.” – Sam Chapman quoted in Rattled St. Helens residents criticize school board’s lifting of gun ban [via oregonlive.com]

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Robert Farago

Robert Farago is the former publisher of The Truth About Guns (TTAG). He started the site to explore the ethics, morality, business, politics, culture, technology, practice, strategy, dangers and fun of guns.

0 thoughts on “Quote of the Day: It’s Not Rocket Science Edition”

  1. So police are the only ones that can use a tool of their trade? I guess I’ll tell my wife I can’t use a hammer because I’m not a builder/carpenter, and we can’t drive to work because were not bus drivers.

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    • Funny how many of us are good at more than one thing. I happen to be able to teach any high school science course and still be decent at running and gunning… Funny that.

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    • I think they’d be rather surprised to see how easy it is to raise a pistol at a doorway when a madman is about to enter to take your life and then pull the trigger multiple times when on center mass. Survival is natural, what they preach is not natural. If they were in that situation they’d feel how unnatural it actually is, but they’re standing on the outside thinking it’s unnatural to engage in a James Bond type of gunfight. I don’t think teachers should go out as hunter-killers to neutralize any threat in the building, they would still shelter in place, but they wouldn’t be sitting ducks in their shelter. The fallacy used here is that teachers would replace police for all police duties, and that’s not the plan outlined by the NRA or by anyone else. Ignorance and emotion is their platform.

      I would really like to speak to some of those people face to face and have them explain to me how teachers are not intelligent enough or have enough training to raise a pistol at a doorway 10 feet away and pull the trigger.

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  2. Why not? Is the only activity in the teachers life, teaching? The teacher is expected to do all the other necessities of life, managing their finances, maintaining their household, negotiating traffic, interacting with their social circle, being an active member of their community.

    If all a teacher can do is teach, then maybe you got an idiot savant on your staff.

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  3. Guns are SOOOO easy to use that any child can pick one up and instantly become the bringer of death for 1,000’s of people… but we don’t want teachers to have guns because it’s so difficult to use them.

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  4. To me that’s like saying “I wouldn’t expect a teacher to be prepared to use a gun any more than I’d expect a teacher to be prepared to use a fire extinguisher.”

    Balderdash.

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  5. Just convinced to cancel my plans about buying a Mossberg! Sound like a schlock house. Think I will bite the bullet and go Browning.

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  6. As a certified teacher in three states, of kids from 5th grade through college, police officers, lawyers and judges; who has also held an NRA personal protection and gun safety instructor certification since 1991. I can only reply to Mr. Chapman: ‘HUH?”

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  7. High School “advanced” chemistry is not very advanced. Most cops have College level educations and very well could teach high school level advanced chemistry. Its not as if high schools teachers are doing so great a job of it in most cases.

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  8. Is every teacher teaching Advanced Chemistry? Is that the expectation? I sure there are police officers who could. I do know many gun toting Marines and Soldiers who could (and often do) teach American and European History, Political Science, and even Advanced Chemistry, Physics, or Biology. That kind of statement obviously didn’t come from someone who teaches logic as part your standard mathematics curriculum or philosophy studies. That quote is just inane, disrespectful, and unjustified.

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  9. Just because someone has a “concealed permit” DOES NOT mean that they carry a gun on them. I’m sure that the mother knew that the school did not allow guns on their property.

    Also………sounds to me like the principal was “stalking” the mother’s facebook page…I mean how did she know?

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  10. Shannon Watts was already gloating about this on twitter last night. She says that it’s a clear victory for gun control. However, I think Bloomberg and the disastrous Obamacare rollout are why KC almost closed a 15 point gap in just one week.

    The VA house has a GOP supermajority, and with any luck TMac will before long be joining all the Illinois governors in disgrace for selling visas with that other sleazebag Tony Rodham. Maybe this will hurt Hillary’s presidential campaign a bit too. The more these slimy cronies and creepy brothers of hers are in the news, the worse for her. I can dream anyway. What a dirty smelly pile of baggage the Clintons have.

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  11. I don’t buy this blame the Libertarian voter line. The Republicans nominated just about the most polarizing figure in Virginia politics. They should have darn well known they were gonna lose women voters- and they did, he got only 42% of the female vote. And women, I should point out, are 51% of the electorate here.

    A more appealing candidate could have pulled in enough votes to win against the profoundly unappealing McAuliffe. Heck, my Democratic, liberal wife voted Libertarian rather than endorse McAuliffe. It’s the first time she’s EVER not backed the Democrat. The Libertarian voters were too evenly split to sway the result from the polls I’ve seen.

    Regardless, this is not a rousing endorsement of McAuliffe by the electorate, and he will not get massive restrictions on the 2nd A. passed. The legislature is quite safely divided between parties.

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  12. First off, yay for Vault Boy! Second, I’ve always been concerned by the idea of predetermined locations for things like bomb drills. If a student decided to plant a bomb and wanted to inflict maximum casualties, what would prevent them from calling into the school and having the faculty herd the student body right into the area of attack?

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  13. Can we officially rename the country to the Utopia States of America? Where life, liberty and pursuit of happiness are 100% in the Governments hands.

    My country; where you have the right to cower in fear in a dark corner somewhere. I am so proud!

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  14. Great job on the fallout pic from the vault text manual.

    Sorry if this is spam but check out this game it is the sequel to the game that inspired fallout , and by the same creator too

    Www. wasteland.inxile-entertainment

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  15. Wow great plan just make sure you don’t tell the shooter you’re closing the door, closing the blinds and turning the lights off. Haha those crazy bastards will be so busy looking in the well lit open door classrooms they won’t be able to find the sitting ducks.

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  16. If I was a student and I heard gunshots from within the building or from an outside area well away from the windows my classroom faced I would go out through a window even if I had to throw a chair through it — the hexx with the rules — and run like a wild teenager chasing after free beer.

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  17. Understanding budget constraints, but having an SRO in the majority of schools in my county gives me some piece of mind. Having teachers carry is still, in my opinion, the best defense against an active shooter. Locking the door and lying down under a desk is not the position I want my daughter or son in if, God forbid, they have to endure something like this.

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  18. They seem to be laboring under the delusion that police officers are experts at firearm use. Shooting a 2 foot wide target at 20 feet and being given ten rounds to do it with doesn’t exactly show any expertise with firearms. Don’t get me wrong. Former military and those who pursue firearms outside of their work have experience and knowledge…but most cops are not great with firearms. I’m a bean counter for a career and I’m better with firearms than some police officers…and a police officer is the one who told me this.

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  19. The GOP can’t keep pushing far-right candidates; if I were in Virginia I would not have voted for him; I am as pro-choice as I am pro2A.

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  20. I would disobey those laws in a heartbeat.

    I will never let me or mine get hurt or killed because I didn’t have some way to defend myself, with lethal force, against the person that was doing it. That may not be the mindset EVERYONE has, but I just scoff at the sad people that obey laws designed to enable criminals to be MORE successful.

    That is insanity.

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  21. This type of thinking shouldnt be a surprise to anyone who knows the truth about the average educator of recent years. I personally know of two acquaintances who nearly failed math and science (intro college courses mind you, not anything advanced) who are now teaching high school chemistry and middle school algebra. No longer are the people who are knowledgeable and passionate about teaching others becoming educators, its the people who are mediocre students who dont see themselves as a worker bee in a cubicle. I actually worry that the vast majority of teachers from recent years ARENT smart enough to properly carry and/or use a gun.

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  22. IGNORANT CONSERVS -I hear all DAY, by the way- r as MUCH the prob as the cunning Lib-socialists… They BOTH perpetuate the term. Lets get them BOTH off the streets!!

    ** Next time u hear that term: STOP THEM! CORRECT THEM!! TELL THEM U NEVER WANT TO HEAR THAT TERM AGAIN OUT OF THEIR IGNORANT MOUTH!

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  23. Legal Question. Say a teacher says “to the hell with the rules”, has a CCW, and packs heat anyway. The unlikely event of an active shooter happens, some people are unfortunately killed, but said teacher smokes the active shooter and halts the attack shortly after it begins. Besides most likely being fired for breaking the school’s rules, do you think any DA is going to touch that case and try to prosecute? Loss of CCW? The same scenario could be applied to a college student doing the same? What say you legal experts out there, either legit or jail-house? Thanks, always wondered about this one and how the MSM would paint it (e.g. Fox = Hero MSNBC = Zero)

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  24. Least we forget that Norway is home to the worst mass shooting by a single individual; and hell, he only got 20 years for killing 70 people!

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  25. I have a full size SR1911 that I bought for home defense. It’s a beautiful thing which I keep next to my bed. Seems to me that — given the current methodology of digitally controlled robotic machining — there’s little reason why ANY two guns of the same design and materials shouldn’t be just as good as one another. That leaves only one difference and that difference falls under the heading of ‘romance.’

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  26. Never got a single issues of G&A, never planned to, and this helped drive the umpteenth nail into the coffin. I really don’t understand why anyone would buy print magazines since there’s a vast amount of knowledge available online for the price of a wireless connection.

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  27. I’ve seen one that was actually a battery charger. The mag well was molded a touch wider to allow the battery to fit inside. All the internals from the charger were fitted in. The upper was a real SBR or pistol upper.

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