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repealed.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
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