Netzilla

Nationwide policy for school shootings after Columbine* is to converge on the shooter without waiting for backup.  Presumably, if these guys had a problem with that strategy, they should have brought it up sooner.  Especially the dude who was hired as campus security.
 
I do sympathize with these officers to the degree that rushing into an active shooter situation takes a significant degree of courage.  It's an unfortunate time to discover that you don't have what it takes.  Still, if four trained, armed LEOs couldn't stop this particular shooter, what's a social studies teacher supposed to do?
 
 
* In which the SWAT team set up outside, waiting for hostage negotiations to start, while around a dozen kids in the library were executed.

There is one angle to this whole "arm the teachers" suggestion that people are rarely bringing up. Just how mentally damaging it is to have teachers ready to shoot to kill 24/7 when their potential targets are, most of the time, students they are currently working with (trying to form a functional mentor-pupil relationship with, even!) or former students? Cognitive dissonance of the harshest extreme is the likely end result of such a policy being officially instituted.

Luthor's entire plan hinged on the following: that Superman would be able to find Lois in the five seconds that it would take for her to hit the ground. And that Superman would not be able to find his own mother in ten minutes in a deliberate search. 
 
He needed both of those things to be true for his plan to work.
 
He needed Superman to hear Lois' scream and come to the rescue before she hit the ground so he could steer Supes to Gotham. And then he needed Supes to be unable to find Martha, so Batman and Supes would actually come into contact. It's probably the biggest single, most concise plot hole in a movie that was basically just a Russian nesting doll of plot holes.

People who know stuff and have relevant real-world experience tend to be biased against this administration.
 

At first I thought the article had uncanny timing, but turns out it was from 2014. Regardless, it's a good example of why you don't want undertrained people armed around your kids.

So why would Batman figure he has to kill Superman for something that he knows Supes didn't do?
 
At least it wasn't another goofy real estate scam.

Just because a dude is really strong and is also nice, that doesn't mean he knows a damn thing about governing a country.

Well well. As it turns out, the POS...excuse me, POTUS...is also keen on inserting garrisons into our schools.
 
 
Even worse: it instills a prisoner mentality in the children. Putting that burden on human beings during their formative years is a big no-no.

Well, I'm old enough to remember the youth-driven protests to the Vietnam War, which polarized the United States. They displayed a lot of persistence. But that was an issue which affected them directly and personally. Kind of like this one.

Maybe we should try arming teachers with pencils, health care, and decent salaries first. 
 
 
Never mind, probably too radical.

"Teacher" isn't a class of person I trust with firearms around children. I mean, if we can't trust them not to sexually harass students, and can't trust their union not to force school districts to then reinstate the molesters, we probably shouldn't be arming them. (And this has happened more than once in recent years in my area.)
 
Snark aside, the level of training required before I'd feel comfortable with armed teachers isn't something more than a minuscule number of teachers would go through, so why bother? Basic military training, police academy training, and certainly concealed carry permit training aren't enough IMO. You need some serious trigger time and stress training to be trusted in that situation IMO.
 
 

On that note...there have been folks suggesting that we - the public - arm teachers. I cannot adequately convey the depths of disdain I have for this "remedy". Schools already have metal detectors and security guards. An ever-increasing number are featuring security cameras. Some even utilize canines as not only biological chemical detectors, but protection as well. Barred windows come into play if a neighborhood is especially rough. Despite all of that, we ought to be able to come up with solutions that do not further increase the resemblance between our institutions of education and prisons.

And all of these things are failings of this  piss-poor version of the Batman character, not an affirmation of Luthor's genius and not an indication of Superman provoking Batman.
 
Snyder's Batman has fallen into despair,  and I get that he is exhausted from years of fighting a crusade that he feels himself losing but that will never excuse the murderous tendencies he shows in this movie.  Batman has endured the seeming deaths of Jason and Stephanie and the maiming of Barbara without going on a murder spree. Miller's Batman retired rather than become a killer in a world ruled by villains. Even in his come back, in his 50's, he never resorted to killing as an option in Dark Knight 1 or 2. He's not a killer in the Injustice Universe or the Justice Lords version either.
 
It all comes down to failure of the DC writers to understand Batman. The character the comics portray is a combination of James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, Bruce Lee and Bond's tech guy Q. Bale had Bond and  Lee but punted the brainy stuff. Affleck also has Bond and Lee without Holmes or Q. Bale's Batman is led by the nose in all 3 movies and the only thing he personally outwits is Scarecrow's fear toxin. Affleck is shown with some Holmes in him in Suicide Squad but his lack in BvS  is telling  throughout and the only real way the plot advances.
 
I also despise the trope that has the hero or the authorities go bad and their first target is another hero because "they're a bigger possible threat than the villains". It always ends in hard feelings between heroes after the error is realized and our confused hero being nicer to the villains after seeing the error of his ways. Heroes go after threats, they shouldn't attack those who aren't but could be. Otherwise you'd have to take out everyone with access to nukes and shut down all the CDC's of the world for fear on a rogue action by someone who's been law-abiding for years.

So why would Batman figure he has to kill Superman for something that he knows Supes didn't do?
 
At least it wasn't another goofy real estate scam.

I suggest the US government institute a buyback program for bump stocks, to get as many of them out of circulation as quickly as possible. After all, greed is often a stronger motivator than coercion.
 
The example of Australia suggests that a buyback program for guns in general, with or without legislation, may be another effective route to deal with gun violence: Australia confiscated 650,000 guns. Murders and suicides plummeted.

OK, I'll bite. (I've derailed enough threads in my day...)
Powerful isn't the same as unstoppable, let alone godlike. In most "Earth-bound" superhero settings, conventional military forces aren't normally a big challenge to powerful superheroes. But in large numbers, they can still wear the heroes down until they run out of END. And there are always specialty units with advanced/heavy weapons that are powerful enough to at least get a few good licks in. (Sure Superman could take out a tank battalion with ease, but he also knows if he does it's just a matter of time until someone breaks out the kryptonite.) Even if none of that exists and military forces are no threat at all to the supers, well there are still super Bad Guys, or else what's the point? A galactic game has even more possibilities because of different tech levels; the PCs may be able to punch through a Xenovore ship with ease, but try that against a Malvan ship and they're going to get spanked.
 
Again, powerful isn't unstoppable. But that aside, maybe because they're wise enough to realize that might doesn't make right, that power corrupts, and that benevolent dictatorships rarely stay that way for long. To use the classic example, Superman doesn't take over the world because he recognizes that just because he has the power to force others to do his bidding, doesn't mean he has the moral right to do so. He believes that democracy, while far from perfect, has proven a far better method of improving the human condition than any autocracy ever tried. And more practically, he knows that if he tried, every other super in the world would join forces to stop him, and even he's not THAT powerful.
 
There's already a genre term for beings who think their powers give them a right to dictate how everyone else should live - they're called supervillains.
 
Those are fair questions, but they're not exactly new: they've been explored in numerous comic titles, mostly awful Iron Age drek and Zach Snyder movies. If that's what you want to play, fine, but I find them extremely tedious myself.
 
[shrug] I could poke the same holes in just about any fictional world, including yours. It's all just a matter of what assumptions you make, and what things you're willing to handwave in order to play the kind of game you want.
 
I've found exactly the opposite: quantifying things like that put limits on things. "Am I strong enough to rip open a tank?" [checks the numbers] "Nope, I guess not." "But the Hulk can do it!" "Well, I guess you're not the Hulk..."
 
Again, the whole point of Superman is that he has faith in humanity to find their own path, and he's read enough history to know that by becoming an autocrat he would inevitably become autocratic and tyrannical. He sees his primary job as preventing other supers from trying exactly that trick.
 
Honestly, RDU Neil, I get your points, and if that's the game you and your players wanted to play, fine. But as far as I'm concerned, your "hero" became a straight-up villain by the 3rd paragraph when he decided that he had the moral right to force his beliefs on other people.
 
Huh, actually defeating and overthrowing your "hero" sounds like a solid concept for a GC campaign...
 
In the Star Wars game I just finished, the GM actually had a lot of fun simulating SW "physics." Space has a down, you see, which is why most planets only seem to be habitable in a very small zone, because if you move too far from the poles, you'll fall off.
 
Again, it all depends on whether you want to play science fiction vs. space fantasy (Star Wars) vs. superheroes in space (GC). I'm not one of one of those gamers who thinks realism is a 4-letter word, or needs to be put in scare quotes. I've played plenty of "real world plus ____" games that were a ton of fun. But generally realism (or the lack thereof) should drive the needs of the story, not the other way around. especially in any kind of SF setting, where much of the world works however you want it to work. If you want to tell a story about superheroes who are powerful, but not godlike, who are strong enough to treat most conventional militaries as a mook fight, but there are still plenty of beings/things that can challenge them...then you just set your campaign guidelines accordingly. There's nothing wrong with the take you chose to pursue, but it's by no means the only valid take.

I don't have a problem with Luthor's plan so much as I have a problem with this version of Batman.
 
Batman, the ultimate Code vs Killing character, deciding to kill someone who has debuted stopping an alien invasion and then spent the next 18 months flying around the world doing good deeds because "he could go bad." Then acting on the decision without having even met the man.  Even Waller would meet him and have "We're watching you conversation" before trying to sanction him.
 
Batman, the most prepared , best researcher in the history of comics, having no knowledge of any other meta-human's existence and having to steal the information from Luthor, a man who has not discovered any hero's Secret ID in 60 plus years on comics.
 
Batman, the ultimate stealth hero, who instead of tailing the Kryptonite to the warehouse and  sneaking in to steal it, initiates a running gun battle through a major city using 50-cal machine guns and missiles.
 
Batman, the world's greatest detective, not having a clue that someone was manipulating him or figuring out Luthor's plan faster than Lois did.
 
So yeah given this incompetent Batman, Luthor's plan has a chance to succeed but it still shouldn't. No way does one senator get Luthor access to the  Kryptonian ship without jumping through a lot of hoops and a background check from Hell which would probably show him as a risk. And even if he got access, he would never be allowed in without an escort or left unsupervised at any time. This is an actual alien spaceship that crashed to Earth as part of an invasion in a major metropolitan area. the security here would be so black,  light would warp near it.

IMHO if you can't describe your master plan within one paragraph, it's unnecessarily convoluted. If it requires several key parties to be gullible or stupid, it's inherently flawed. And as an aside, if you have to persuade people to believe in and cooperate with you, acting psychotic won't help.

"I am Barbie of Borg. You will be accessorized AND assimilated. It'll be fun!"
 
Lucius Alexander
 
I am Palindromedary of Borg. You will be assimilated coming and going.

Last night's D&D game, our party finds the cavern where a white dragon is hanging from the ceiling over his (frozen-in-ice) horde. 

Player 1:  Does the dragon see us?
DM:  Yes.  It's looking at you.
Player 2:  Should we roll initiative? 
DM:  Not yet.  It's waiting to see what you're going to do.
(long pause as nobody wants to set things in motion and get us all killed)
Player 2:  Okay, well, maybe I should walk into the room.  (bored tour guide voice)  And here, we have the dragon's chamber.  You'll note the horde - feel free to add to it as you go through.  Next on our tour is the southern tunnel...
Player 3:  And we're walking... we're walking...

Procrastination Man -- The Man Of Tomorrow!

Blasphemer.

I am Molarr, the All-Wise!
 
I grew two sets of wisdom teeth. You think having your wisdom teeth removed once is painful?
 

The Snuffler, with the mucous production of 10 normal people.

Nowadays?  Cooler than any man alive, I think.