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POLICE STATE

Ron Paul Opposes Armed Guards In Schools

Says NRA plan would expand government

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by David Mark

Editor-in-Chief t

Image: AP.

Rep. Ron Paul doesn't agree with the National Rifle Association's call to put armed guards in every school. The Texas Republican, who retires after next week, says in a statement on his congressional website that "government security is just another kind of violence."

"Do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches?" Paul wrote.

"We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders. This is the world of government provided 'security,' a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse. School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state in America."

And officials in a country invoked by NRA leaders in the armed guards-in-schools debate are taking issue with the plan.

Appearing on "Meet the Press" on Sunday, NRA honcho LaPierre said: "Israel had a whole lot of school shootings, until they did one thing. They said we're going to stop it and they put armed security in every school and they have not had a problem since then."

But Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said the situation in Israel was "fundamentally different" from that in the United States, reports the New York Daily News.

"We didn't have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism," said Palmor.

Via paul.house.gov and the New York Daily News.

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Is the NRA’s armed guards-in-every-school plan a step toward a police state?

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Comments (view in Forum)

  • marine1
    !
    Dr. paul is correct, we have too much goverment as it is,WHY make it bigger. That said, most of our problems are people behaviours and though we try to legislate behaviour it will never be 100% effective.
  • Hillbillyhunny
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    @hwyangel you are absolutely right!! They are no better than our children. Also, if this was the fact before the murders it may not have happened. Have anyone ever heard of a massacre in private scools?
  • hwyangel
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    @Hillbillyhunny

    I also believe in parent responsibility. We are talking about guns purchased by adults. I was just now talking to a guy who was telling me about his friends son who had gotten hold of a gun and shot someone with it. He was explaining that the kid did not understand the  seriousness of what he was doing. He (the kid) thought it was a game. It seems some people really don't know the impact the violence from video games and T.V. has on children. It may seem harmless enough but once this trash permeates the mind and heart it doesn't just magically disappear.

  • View all 6 replies >

  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Ron Paul does not believe in the military, protecting our children, nothing. I love all of his fiscal policies, they were the best of the bunch of Republican presidential candidates. However, his beliefs that we should not invest in the military and protecting the U.S. and then also him not believing in protecting our innocent little children give me great pause about this man.
  • u
    IMAQT
    !
    Is it really the job of our military to protect our children? How about if they defend our country? Wouldn't it be nice if our military could secure our border as well as they have secured S Korea's?
  • u
    IMAQT
    !
    "However, his beliefs that we should not invest in the military and protecting the U.S. and then also him not believing in protecting our innocent little children give me great pause about this man. " To say he does not want to invest in the military is an outright lie. He just thinks we should follow the Constitution and defend our country.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    Well it probably won't surprize you, or maybe it will, that in both 2008 and 2012 I would have voted repub if he had been choosen, for the very things you dislike. His support for the fourth amendment and his liberty adgenda, his non-interventionist foreign polices, and his willingness to cut military pork.

  • View all 9 replies >

  • PNWest
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    The NRA will be calling for arming the firemen now. 2 fireman were shot dead and others wounded in another gun nut shooting this morning in Webster, NY. Ron Paul was right on this issue.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    Firefighters go into many dangerous situations. I'm not opposed to them being able to defend themselves. I'm not understanding the whole 'confiscate all the guns' movement that is being pushed lately.
  • marine1
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix Is it just me or are we all missing the issue? Why are we wanting to kill "each other" ? Don't we have enough outside entities trying to do the same thing?
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    @marine1 - Criminals always want to kill someone, and every society will have its share of criminals. The rest of us are peace loving and don't want to harm each other at all. However, any sane person would recognize no matter how loving a society we are, there are those who don't share our values. Arming the good guys is not about wanting to kill anyone, it's about recognizing that even though we obey the law, it doesn't mean others will as well. You were a marine so I know you know better than me how evil this world can be.
  • az-rents
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    why cant firemen like my dad be armed, they are depended on smart enough to drive a ten ton truck through red lights at their discretion, get put in more dangerous situations than police, albeit not criminally. they should be offerd the same training as policemen and take the same gun firing tests.
  • az-rents
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    @marine1 i dont want to kill anyone. i just want criminals to know people are not helpless. to think twice before robbing someone because they might have a gun.

  • View all 6 replies >

  • DARSB
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    @dkpayton I expect there is no number of people like me who could manage to rationalize our gun laws.

    But I'm pretty sure 20 dead first graders will manage it just fine.
  • morepower
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    I can't for the life of me figure the logic in thinking that taking guns away from people that obey the law will prevent the ones that don't from killing people
  • o
    woodtick57
    !
    To all our wonderful editors at Politix that give us such a fun site to vent, bloviate, pontificate, etc, etc...

    Happy holidays, enjoy the new year and best wishes and thanx for a job well done!
  • o
    OhWiseOne
    !
    I agree. I pick on PolitixMary and PolitixDain quite a bit but they do a wonderful job with this site. I really enjoy coming here to read everyone's opinion. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to all.
  • Post Removed by Moderators
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    Elephonkey K
    Politix Diplomat
    !
    Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you! Thanks for being great contributing members of our Politix community!

  • View all 7 replies >

  • Jeff_Woehrle
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    Many schools currently fund 'resource officers' from local or state police departments to be on hand at all times. This is what the NRA is saying, and it's not much of a leap from what is done now.

    One this is certain; "gun-free zones' are a failure. Time to stop disarming the good guys.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    @PNWest - Adam was going to get a gun regardless. Too bad the Sandy Hook principal didn't have a gun. Things would have been so much different.
  • PNWest
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    @Neo_NtheMatrix That kid was nuts. He tried and failed to get a gun earlier that week didn't he? If his mother wasn't a gun nut that thought she needed guns for "protection" she would still be alive.
  • PoliticalSpice
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    @PNWest The loss of his mom may have been a good thing. If she hadn't made the guns accessible to him tge kids would probably be alive today. I blame her more then him or anyone else. If you have a mentally unbalanced son you keep the guns locked up, unloaded, and the ammo under lock and key in a seperate place. If you need one for self defense keep it with you. His mom was an idiot. Needed guns to protect herself? It was her own gin that killed her.
  • Neo_NtheMatrix
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    @PNWest - He could have gotten a gun through some other means, illegally most likely. However, if he was intent on getting a gun he would have gotten one. Too bad there wasn't a counter force of good to send him to the devil when he tried to use those guns.

    I want to put every single person who is for gun control in prison. That's right, in jail. I'd make the COs in the prison of their choice. However, no guns. I'd like to see how long they'd go before they understood the need to be armed. For every nut we catch and can lock up, there's 2 or 3 hiding behind a tree hugging lawyer that we couldn't lock up.

    Let's free the good guys to be good and put the fear of God into the bad guys.

  • View all 35 replies >

  • u
    Romney_Rube
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    We could just really fix all of this by having ALL CHILDREN report to enclosed military-style camps for 24-7-365 schooling, training, and programming, oblivious to all of the nasty ways of the world.
  • John_Matrix
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    I'm going to miss Ron Paul. One of the few politicians that actually wanted to serve for the best interest of the people instead of himself. Saw the world for what it was, stated his opinion without wavering, and was able to actually back his arguments up. Ron Paul is a true patriot.
  • John_Matrix
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    @PoliticalSpice

    I could give a shit less about Republicans or Democrats and the bullshit that comes with each party. I vote for the man and his stance on the issues. If that means "wasting" my vote then so be it. When everyone else is bitching about the place this country is headed I'll simply point out they only have themselves to blame for their stupid bipartisan loyalty.
  • PoliticalSpice
    !
    @marine1 Oh, I don't delude nyself about that. Problem is it is so hard and expensive for an alternative to these two parties to emerge. There have been three sufficient to change the election since 1980 (anderson, perot, nader) but the last that won was Theodore Roosvelt...

  • View all 30 replies >

  • Bobolinsky
    !
    That was my initial reaction to the NRA's suggestion, especially if we're talking about a Federal Government program.

    That doesn't mean that school districts can't take measures to train and arm key individuals who already work in their schools. Perhaps the principal and a few volunteer teachers. Heck, a janitor might have what it takes to save the day. ;-)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch...
  • hwyangel
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    @Vance1

    Even with drug pushers and child predators, security for our children is very late in coming. It's offensive that children are not considered at least as valuable as government offices, shopping malls, or parades.
  • WMCOL
    !
    >>>"We didn't have a series of school shootings, and they had nothing to do with the issue at hand in the United States. We had to deal with terrorism," said Palmor.<<<

    We don't have suicide bombers and bombs planted, but, unexpectedly going to a school to shoot it up IS terrorism. The victims sure saw it as terrorism.
  • WMCOL
    !
    The citizens should be able to go armed to our schools and protect them. We don't necessarily need a big brother state to do it. We volunteer all the time at our schools. Protecting them should be no different.
  • u
    CaryNickel
    !
    @While I agree with Ron Paul in theory, the "horse is out of the barn" on this one. Nationwide Federal standardized schooling, and then forcing kids to go by law, already expanded government beyond what was intended by the founders. Providing a secure school environment is expected, particularly when kids, and parents, do not have a choice in the matter. If we aren't going to provide armed security in schools, then we must allow adult teachers and administrators the same right to carry a firearm as they have outside school. Advertising schools as "gun free zones" has proven to be a failure.
  • u
    Annonn
    !
    Short of allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed in schools (and many anti-gunners will froth with violent outrage at this idea), the NRA's proposal is the most logical one of all that has been proposed.

    However, that does not make what Dr. Paul said wrong: such a policy indeed makes the government larger and the people more dependent upon the government. It IS a step toward a police state.
  • Dan_Tien
    !
    ""Do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches?" Paul wrote." As in random police checkpoints for drunk drivers, surveillance cameras in stores, banks and public transport, metal detectors in schools and courthouses, x-ray scanners in airports, warrantless physical searches due to "probable cause", etc., etc. We are already there Mr. Paul. The main thing that George Orwell missed predicting is that we would be voluntarily paying to provide many of the avenues into our private lives.
  • o
    Sharpshooter
    !
    We're suddenly worried about making Government larger? Dr. Paul has been for a very long time so he's not out of character but some of the voices I'm hearing have me wondering when Rosetta Stone began teaching "Conservative" as a second language.

    We have money for everything... food stamps, cell phones, bailing out Unions, and footing the bill for mortgages that should never have been granted but can't afford to protect children....

    We know gun control doesn't work but we'll spend a few billion on a dog and pony show with Bozo Biden as ringmaster.

    Anything that gets in the way of another useless piece of legislation that won't work will only assure that we'll get to see Feinstein and the Brady Bunch jumping on the bodies of more murdered children to get every last drop of their blood to grease the skids of their agenda.

    If we don't do something in place that works, politics be damned... we will lose more children. Armed Guards is a logical solution.... bad guys with guns vs. good guy with guns OR bad guy with a gun vs. cowering frightened unarmed child....

    Which way do you want it?

    We have ARMED guards at the bank protecting money. Armed guards at the door of The Capital Building. Armed guards at the White House. Even Armed Guards at Wal Mart in certain communities... Did I mention anyplace containing ANYTHING more important than children?

    Put in guards while we wait on Bozo's Circus to come up with something better.... Our most valued treasure will be safe while the grown-ups act like children.
  • az-rents
    !
    I went to a school in atlantic city and was patted down every day and made to go through metal detectors. it didnt bother me except for the annoyance. but none of the security guards had guns, and if lanza had come in he could have killed every one where they stood. unarmed guards and pat downs at schools are not the answer, 1 policeman for every couple hundred kids could be.
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