Nerditorial: Sure It's Fun to Pick on The NRA...

...but it's wrong.

Instead of lashing out at the NRA reflexively, or defending the NRA (also reflexively), I am going to take the recommendation at face value. [LINK]

Doesn't mean I agree with it (which is good, because I don't agree with it), but if this is a real problem, and we are about solving a problem and not winning an argument... then we have to take any solution proposed in earnest at face value.

On the matter of placing armed security or police in our public schools... three questions spring immediately to my mind...

1. How much would it cost?
2. Will it be funded at the National, State, or Municipal level?
3. Will these armed police/guardians be prevented from being members of a union?

All of these rather mundane questions would have to be answered and answered with specifics before such a solution could actually be implemented.

How Much Will It Cost?

I mean how much per classroom, and how much total. In dollars.

Tax dollars.

I would conservatively place a back-of-the-napkin estimated cost at $100,000 per armed person per year. That is extremely conservative... and is more likely to be $250,000 per armed person.

So, then we need to find out how many classrooms there are in the United States Public School system.

I mean... how many could there be?

A quick google search sent me to NCEF (the National Clearing house for Educational Facilities) for some basic info bout the scope of the public education system in the US.
http://www.ncef.org/ds/statistics.cfm#

About 50 million students in about 100,000 schools.

Lets assume that to follow the NRA's advice, we will need one armed guardian per every... lets say... 50 students.... That is about 1 million armed guardians.

Wow. Job creation.

I'm liking this more and more already.

So, 1 million armed guardians, times $100,000 per year for salary and benefits and training and... oh yes... bullets... (can't forget the bullets)...

That is... $100 billion.

or as it actually appears...

$100,000,000,000.00

How much do we spend on our k-12 public education system now?

Just under $600 billion

or as it actually appears...

$600,000,000,000.00

source: http://www.edreform.com/2012/04/k-12-facts/

The problem with large numbers is it is easy to not see the difference between a million and a billion when it is written as words...

...but when compared as numbers... (say $600 billion as compared to $1 million)

$600,000,000,000.00

      $1,000,000.00

...the difference becomes clear.( Especially when you use a monospaced font like courier to line the numbers up...)

Will it be funded at the National, State, or Municipal level?

The estimate of Question Number One answers Question Number Two with near certainty.

A program of this size, scope and cost, requires funding and administration at the Federal level.

So, we have a huge new federal program. And, as a liberal, I'm warming up to this more and more as I type this...

Will these armed police/guardians be prevented from being members of a union?

Question Number Three is actually the thorniest question I'm posing.

Because, try as I might, I can't imagine a scenario in which those jobs aren't union jobs. If this is happening in every state of the union... well, that includes California and New York... so... yeah... those are going to be union jobs. Easy Peasy.

So, a multi-billion dollar Federal program that creates about one million new union jobs.

Oh yeah, the Congressional Republican Caucus will just eat this whole thing up with a spoon.

All of the other questions that attach to such a solution... such as what sort of tax will pay for it, or what programs would be cut to allow for it... must wait until we get these basic questions hammered out first.

And, remember, this isn't the brain... uh... child... of Teachers' unions. This is from the NRA. So, I'm sure that the Republicans will be open minded about this idea.

After all... it's for the children... right?

Right.