Use of Force Education

[Jarhyn]

Use of Force/Use of Weapon/De-escalation classes, in this context would be classes designed to help people:

1. learn safe and respectful weapons handling,
   • handling "dummy" weapons,
   • Learning De-escalation techniques
2. Learn effectively how to maintain the weapon
   • Learn maintenance practices, handling permanently disabled/blunted but close-to-real weapons,
   • studying various philosophies on use of force/conflict avoidance
3. Learn effective use of weapons 
   1. Confirm sufficient understanding and competency in use of force lessons, handling and maintenance
   2. teach how to operate the weapon effectively and proficiently.

Just curious what various posters of various political alignments would think of this.

You could compare it to Sex Ed...

 

[Jarhyn]

This is roughly based on army training processes, and is formatted to systematically discriminate/gatekeeep the training of use of weapons on the condition of effectively demonstrating that one will be both responsible and sober about leveraging such use of force.

 

[bilby]

I classify myself as none of those things.

Weapons and use of force training should be taught by the army or police forces when people join those organisations; It's got no place in schools.

Job specific skills training provided to the general public is a waste of resources. Schools need to teach the basics of how to learn other skills, provide a brief sketch of human knowledge to enable a reasoned choice of further learning by students.

If your society requires routine use of force by its non-specialist citizens, you are doing it wrong.

 

[Shadowy Man]

with the impending civil war and future climate wars it is likely that learning weapons skills will be useful for our children. Maybe leaning to grow their own food and find potable water too.

 

[Jarhyn]

I have already requested thread transfer to politics.

 

[Jarhyn]

I classify myself as none of those things.

Weapons and use of force training should be taught by the army or police forces when people join those organisations; It's got no place in schools.

Job specific skills training provided to the general public is a waste of resources. Schools need to teach the basics of how to learn other skills, provide a brief sketch of human knowledge to enable a reasoned choice of further learning by students.

If your society requires routine use of force by its non-specialist citizens, you are doing it wrong.

My point is that there are many groups out there that espouse that all should be armed. I would expect that such groups would likewise believe all should be trained to be responsible while armed.

I would argue that the reality of violence in our world is as serious as the reality of sex. There is in fact an intersect between these discussions on the availability and appropriate structures surrounding use of force.

By making this education secondary or even primary, we avail folks of the knowledge that the population is well informed on the game theory of weapons and their use and so well enough informed to vote about it, in the recognition that private firearm ownership should not be banned, but properly regulated.

We put people through driver's education as well, and make people learn the rules of the road if not the philosophy behind those rules. With weapons I think the philosophy is also appropriate since weapons are dangerous, specifically, and their only use is in fact their dangerousness.

 

[Shadowy Man]

I classify myself as none of those things.

Weapons and use of force training should be taught by the army or police forces when people join those organisations; It's got no place in schools.

Job specific skills training provided to the general public is a waste of resources. Schools need to teach the basics of how to learn other skills, provide a brief sketch of human knowledge to enable a reasoned choice of further learning by students.

If your society requires routine use of force by its non-specialist citizens, you are doing it wrong.

My point is that there are many groups out there that espouse that all should be armed. I would expect that such groups would likewise believe all should be trained to be responsible while armed.

It has been my observation that the people most vociferously advocating more arms in the public sphere are not also advocates of more weapons training and education.

You might expect so but apparently it’s not true.

 

[Jarhyn]

I classify myself as none of those things.

Weapons and use of force training should be taught by the army or police forces when people join those organisations; It's got no place in schools.

Job specific skills training provided to the general public is a waste of resources. Schools need to teach the basics of how to learn other skills, provide a brief sketch of human knowledge to enable a reasoned choice of further learning by students.

If your society requires routine use of force by its non-specialist citizens, you are doing it wrong.

My point is that there are many groups out there that espouse that all should be armed. I would expect that such groups would likewise believe all should be trained to be responsible while armed.

It has been my observation that the people most vociferously advocating more arms in the public sphere are not also advocates of more weapons training and education.

You might expect so but apparently it’s not true.

Yes, that's saying the quiet part that this poll is intended to reveal out loud.

I advocate for fewer public arms and more public training and education so that bad actors are more often foiled, there is a wide pool of clearly trained persons for police employ, and that people learn early how -- and why -- not to be bad actors, so that they do not advocate for a more dangerous and unregulated public sphere.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

There is an ugly little secret to all of this. People react differently to all of this. Police have learned long ago, that even with intense training, when a fast, close up violent interaction happens, some people cannot handle it. For example, many people develop severe tunnel vision when the adrenaline hits. A bad guy with a gun that steps 3 foot right is invisible. A famous example was two undercover cops and a uniformed cop in a subway got into a three way shoot out with each other. 6 feet apart from each other. 22 shots were fired. Only 3 hit. Some people in some circumstances freeze. Even long time police do that. Training is good, but not infallible.

 

[steve_bank]

All that used to be part of culture.

Learning to shoot and handle guns safely used to be in the primary education system, but not universally. Post WWII te govt gave surplus rifles to civilian groups to promote marksmanship and safety.

The roots of the NRA are in hunting and marksmanship.

When I lived in North Idaho in the early 90s there was a spot where locvals went to target shoot. I went there myself. In Seattle I went to indoor ranges.

Movie amd TV used to portray violence and gun as a last resort. Violent people were usually bad guys.

Today we are awash in gun play 24/7 on TV, movies, and video games. The liberal and wide interprteion of the 1st Amendment to justfy anything as freedom of expression, including violence in entertainment.


The idea that education is going to counter the turn culture has taken is pissing in the wind.

It comes down t parenting.

 

[bilby]

We put people through driver's education as well, and make people learn the rules of the road if not the philosophy behind those rules.

As far as I am aware, the USA is unique in having driver's education as a school subject.

The rest of the world doesn't include it in school curricula at all - it's entirely a private matter how much of it you have, and from whom, although you may be required to log a minimum number of supervised hours before being eligible for your test, and you typically need to pass both written and practical tests before being issued a license to drive unsupervised.

My daily experience suggests that a sizeable minority of drivers don't know and/or don't understand the rules. Perhaps we should make it mandatory in schools. But it's not.

Certainly the US would benefit from restricting gun ownership in a similar way to their restrictions on driving - mandatory tests, licenses that are withdrawn for dangerous or repeated misbehaviour, mandatory insurance to protect third parties from any errors or accidents, mandatory registration for use in public places, etc.

 

[Jarhyn]

There is an ugly little secret to all of this. People react differently to all of this. Police have learned long ago, that even with intense training, when a fast, close up violent interaction happens, some people cannot handle it. For example, many people develop severe tunnel vision when the adrenaline hits. A bad guy with a gun that steps 3 foot right is invisible. A famous example was two undercover cops and a uniformed cop in a subway got into a three way shoot out with each other. 6 feet apart from each other. 22 shots were fired. Only 3 hit. Some people in some circumstances freeze. Even long time police do that. Training is good, but not infallible.

Well, we can't guarantee reflexive action to follow best practices (namely, to focus on de-escalation first), but we can at least provide the tools and the training that will bring those who can to that threshold.

Like most compulsory education, I think that it's worth educating so that we are not beset by a plague of idiots.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

We put people through driver's education as well, and make people learn the rules of the road if not the philosophy behind those rules.

As far as I am aware, the USA is unique in having driver's education as a school subject.

The rest of the world doesn't include it in school curricula at all - it's entirely a private matter how much of it you have, and from whom, although you may be required to log a minimum number of supervised hours before being eligible for your test, and you typically need to pass both written and practical tests before being issued a license to drive unsupervised.

My daily experience suggests that a sizeable minority of drivers don't know and/or don't understand the rules. Perhaps we should make it mandatory in schools. But it's not.

Certainly the US would benefit from restricting gun ownership in a similar way to their restrictions on driving - mandatory tests, licenses that are withdrawn for dangerous or repeated misbehaviour, mandatory insurance to protect third parties from any errors or accidents, mandatory registration for use in public places, etc.

There is zero, none, nada chance of any of this happening in Texas. We are up to our necks in morons. At least now I can freely carry if I so desire.

 

[Jarhyn]

We put people through driver's education as well, and make people learn the rules of the road if not the philosophy behind those rules.

As far as I am aware, the USA is unique in having driver's education as a school subject.

The rest of the world doesn't include it in school curricula at all - it's entirely a private matter how much of it you have, and from whom, although you may be required to log a minimum number of supervised hours before being eligible for your test, and you typically need to pass both written and practical tests before being issued a license to drive unsupervised.

My daily experience suggests that a sizeable minority of drivers don't know and/or don't understand the rules. Perhaps we should make it mandatory in schools. But it's not.

Certainly the US would benefit from restricting gun ownership in a similar way to their restrictions on driving - mandatory tests, licenses that are withdrawn for dangerous or repeated misbehaviour, mandatory insurance to protect third parties from any errors or accidents, mandatory registration for use in public places, etc.

There is zero, none, nada chance of any of this happening in Texas. We are up to our necks in morons. At least now I can freely carry if I so desire.

And this is the point of the thread. Those who would rather know but not need it, vs those who would see us all need it but not know it...

 

[ZiprHead]

As far as I am aware, the USA is unique in having driver's education as a school subject.

The rest of the world doesn't include it in school curricula at all - it's entirely a private matter how much of it you have, and from whom, although you may be required to log a minimum number of supervised hours before being eligible for your test, and you typically need to pass both written and practical tests before being issued a license to drive unsupervised.

It was part of my high school education. It isn't anymore.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

We put people through driver's education as well, and make people learn the rules of the road if not the philosophy behind those rules.

As far as I am aware, the USA is unique in having driver's education as a school subject.

It's an elective, not a required class. It's just a convenient way of providing driver's training reasonably inexpensively.

The rest of the world doesn't include it in school curricula at all - it's entirely a private matter how much of it you have, and from whom, although you may be required to log a minimum number of supervised hours before being eligible for your test, and you typically need to pass both written and practical tests before being issued a license to drive unsupervised.

Written and practical tests here, although the driver's ed teacher could sign off in lieu of the practical.

My daily experience suggests that a sizeable minority of drivers don't know and/or don't understand the rules. Perhaps we should make it mandatory in schools. But it's not.

Certainly the US would benefit from restricting gun ownership in a similar way to their restrictions on driving - mandatory tests, licenses that are withdrawn for dangerous or repeated misbehaviour, mandatory insurance to protect third parties from any errors or accidents, mandatory registration for use in public places, etc.

Insurance makes little sense because the insurance companies do not have the data to make a reasonable risk assessment. Anything adequate for risk assessment is also grounds to take away the guns, rendering the issue moot. The insurance bit is an attempt to make guns more expensive and a backdoor attempt towards the holy grail of the gun banners--a list of all guns in America.

And there's no point to registration. Auto registration is a combination of a tax scheme and providing identity to something otherwise pretty much anonymous. Unless you can quickly look at a gun and figure out who it's registered to it has no law enforcement value.

I do favor gun licenses akin to driver's licenses, although I would favor allowing their unlicensed use when directly supervised in lieu of the learner permit system used with cars.


Anyway, I have a problem with the poll. There are two separate issues here that I hold differing opinions on.

I do believe normal high school education should include class time on when and what force you can use. I also think basic safety around guns should be taught. However, I think use of force training is separate, leave that to the marketplace.

 

[Jarhyn]

However, I think use of force training is separate, leave that to the marketplace.

I think that would be a phenomenally idiotic thing to do.

People would then buy the use of force training that tells them that which they want to hear, it worse be isolated as a captive audience to a single available training source which local control can direct towards locally upheld dogmas: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

I would reckon that public education, with competency standards and a fixed minimum curriculum would do a lot towards thwarting such end-runs around effective education.

It wouldn't be perfect, of course, but it would be better than what we have, offering a first crack at effective De-escalation, use of force, and weapons competency to the public education system with a fairly well designed message.

Of course knowing even liberals would be effectively armed and have a secure framework for justifying the use of force might be too much for some.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

However, I think use of force training is separate, leave that to the marketplace.

I think that would be a phenomenally idiotic thing to do.

People would then buy the use of force training that tells them that which they want to hear, it worse be isolated as a captive audience to a single available training source which local control can direct towards locally upheld dogmas: Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition!

I would reckon that public education, with competency standards and a fixed minimum curriculum would do a lot towards thwarting such end-runs around effective education.

It wouldn't be perfect, of course, but it would be better than what we have, offering a first crack at effective De-escalation, use of force, and weapons competency to the public education system with a fairly well designed message.

Of course knowing even liberals would be effectively armed and have a secure framework for justifying the use of force might be too much for some.

Huh? We don't see that now. You can get use of force training from any trainer you can afford and who will deal with you. (A lot of them will not train people who don't pass a criminal background check.)

Maybe you misunderstood. I'm saying the state should teach when it is legal to use force, but not how to use actually use force. There should be a class on the law, this would be part of it. (People need a better understanding of what is legal and what isn't.)

 

[Jarhyn]

You can get use of force training from any trainer you can afford and who will deal with you

And this is exactly a problem: many of the private use of force classes employed by police are "use force faster, don't de-escalate."

 

[bilby]

You can get use of force training from any trainer you can afford and who will deal with you

And this is exactly a problem: many of the private use of force classes employed by police are "use force faster, don't de-escalate."

Of course they are. That's the only winning strategy if everyone involved has a gun.

Guns make rapid and unhesitating escalation to lethal force the only good survival option. It doesn't matter whether you're a cop, or a drug dealer; A victim, or a mugger. If everyone has a gun, the first person to resort to using their gun will almost always prevail in any use of force.

Hesitation or attempts at de-escalation will just mean you're the one who ends up being shot.

The only solution is to create an environment in which guns are the exception, making it reasonable to assume that a person who is perceived as threatening, will not have the ability to kill you, even if you don't apply immediate and overwhelming force against them.

That's certainly been proven effective, wherever it's been done.

But America. So no sane solutions need apply.