Why Do People Assume Teachers Want to Carry Guns?

            Let’s talk school shootings. I have discussed my stance on guns before and my feelings haven’t changed, feel free to refer back to that entry to learn why the second amendment should be repealed. But for now, I am focusing specifically on school shootings and the ridiculous solutions people have proposed for preventing them. Ridiculous solution number one: the title.

            Okay, on some very shallow level of thinking this makes sense. Every classroom has a (hopefully) responsible adult in it, give them a weapon and train them to defend their students in the event of an active shooter. Just don’t think about it for more than five seconds or you might realize… teachers are not police officers. In the event of an active shooter any self-respecting teacher, or adult for that matter, would do their best to protect the children. Does that mean that teachers should be responsible for engaging the assailant in armed combat? Imagine if we told grocery store cashiers that they would be responsible for protecting everyone in the store if someone came in with a gun. That is not their job. They were hired to ring out groceries. We as a society decided to delegate the job of protecting the public to a police force. Teachers, likewise, were hired to teach students. Why do the people who propose this plan think they would have any interest in being given a gun, being trained in using it, and being responsible for engaging a shooter should one arrive, especially given their already notorious underpay?

            Well this arming teachers argument sure lost some steam, let’s see what other holes we can poke in the plan of stopping school shootings by putting guns in the school. Oh wait. How would one manage the guns at school? Does the teacher carry the gun on them? What if that eighth grader who looks like he’s 35 and weighs 245 pounds decides to overpower the 95 pound art teacher and take their gun? What if the overly curious second grader happens upon the gun and accidentally shoots it? Let’s say we keep the guns in a safe. Who gets to know the code? What about when there is a substitute teacher? Say a teacher quits, retires, or is let go, they still know the code, do we change the codes every time there is a personnel change? Telling Mr. Arnold, the gym teacher that budget cuts mean he has to be let go is a much different conversation when he is packing heat. There seem to be a lot of logistical problems with this arming teachers idea.

            I understand, school shootings are a major issue and deserve to be addressed. The problem, is that, when given a problem, everyone feels the need to offer a solution. Everyone wants to say, “Why don’t they just…” But the reason they don’t just… is because that plan is probably very poorly though out. Rest assured almost everyone wants to do something about school shootings, no matter their political leaning, the issue is that no one can seem to agree upon a solution. And while I would argue that a less than perfect plan is better than no plan, some plans, like arming teachers, are just flat out bad. So let’s not focus on political agendas and defending our allegiances in face of the right/left wing nemesis, but rather focus on the mass casualty nemesis that seems to be sneaking by unscathed in these heated arguments.

            -AMS

I Can't Shake This Feeling That I Have Had Déjà Vu Before

            In all transparency, I sat down to write this entry with a title and general topic in mind, not to mention a feeling that I have written about this before. Sure enough, a quick “ctrl+f” (known to college students as the answer to all busy work assignments) revealed that I had in fact already written a very similar piece to what I had intended to write presently. Devoid of an original topic, then, I was left with the conundrum “what should I write about now. Well, why don’t I just write about this?” I thought. Certainly not original, as I have written about writing numerous times, in fact it is one of my favorite topics, particularly when I am able to incorporate some kind of omniscient narrator. But, I assure you, this particular piece will be unique, in that today I am writing specifically on the idea of originality, and what is more original than that.

            We all hit creative ruts, that is those of us that regularly create anything. And I do mean anything. Of course, your classic examples, musicians find themselves coming back to the same chord progressions or grooves (I personally find familiar rhythms one of the biggest traps in writing music), artists use the same techniques with which they are proficient to capture their subject or concept, and writers begin repeating themselves in their expression of ideals. But even beyond these classic examples, I am sure the feeling hits people in every avenue of their life. Teachers writing the same lesson plan with a different topic, realtors using the same pitch for every open house, and I am sure advertisers sit around wondering how else you can possibly make a soft drink look good other than putting a bunch of condensation droplets on the bottle and having a celebrity carry it around. The human psyche is a roller coaster of inspiration and repetition.

            The same concept outlines mild depressive episodes. As you continue to passively move through your daily routine the same way over and over, with little to look forward to because you are just going to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow, it is no wonder people get depressed (depression here referring to the acute emotion not the clinical pathology). So what is the cure, how do you find something to get excited about again? The good news is, this typically always resolves itself with time. Inevitably something will happen to break the streak, perhaps something as simple as the weather finally warming up so you can go outside without being miserable. However, you are also more than capable of intervening yourself. While there is likely nothing you can do about the weather (and if there is I have a business model I would like to discuss with you), certainly you can find something new, or even old, so old that you have forgotten about it, in your life to excite you again. So explore new hobbies, explore old hobbies, just explore in general. Go somewhere you have never been, or go somewhere you haven’t been in years. Write a blog, learn an instrument, train for a 5k, 10k, half marathon, what have you, learn to ride a motorcycle, most anything you can think of you can learn/do online or through an app (I do not, however, recommend learning to ride a motorcycle via an app). The point of it all is, when life continues to give you lemons week after week, stop making lemonade already. Make a lemon meringue pie or a nice lemon butter sauce to pair with fresh lobster tail.

-AMS