This will be a short diary, but I just want to get something out that I think matters. As everyone knows, the NRA suggested that every school in America should have armed officers stationed in them. This is clearly stupid. As several have noted, Columbine had an armed officer, Fort Hood was full of them, etc., etc., and etc. Similarly, lots of folks have noted it would cost a bundle, and of course the NRA and Republicans have no intention to pay for it (nor to pay for the national mental health care that would be required to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill for that matter). This proposal, is very simply bullshit...we all know that.
But there is another problem with the idea of putting police in schools...let's call it mission creep.
Let's just say we put armed police in every school. What do those police do in all the time they are not defending their schools from gun carrying crazies? I mean this literally. Let's face it, most of these folks will never be needed to defend the school ...these officers will be walking through empty halls, bored out of their fucking minds. They will be costing taxpayers money.
So folks will get a bright idea...why don't we involve these law enforcement professionals in dealing with more 'typical' law enforcement issues within the school. So, the resident police can look around for students who sell dope, they can involve themselves with suspected cases of children who are abused at home. Who could possibly oppose that, we don't want our kids smoking dope and we certainly want to protect children who are abused...right?
And so, the armed law enforcement we have in the schools leads, through a process of mission creep, into making in-school offenses more and more a part of the legal, rather than educational, system. Hell, this process is already happening, with all manner of idiotic zero tolerance policies for weapons, drugs, truancy, etc., etc., etc. We have all heard the various crazy suspensions--the girls suspended for bringing Motrin to school (like they don't get cramps), or kids suspended for bringing in a butter knife for their lunch.
With cops in the schools, this process will only accelerate, cause the cops are gonna be really, really bored...really really expensive and available to deal with all those little problems that the overworked teachers and administrators don't have time to do.
So, this idea is not simply stupid, not simply expensive...its even a bad idea if it was free.