ARMED TEACHERS ARE NOT THE ANSWER
This is America. We want to believe that if there is a problem anywhere that involves violence, then we should be able to overcome it with even more violence. But, sometimes that just won’t work.
Following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the media breathlessly waited for a news conference the NRA announced. That press conference set a new low for sheer weirdness seeming more like a fevered nightmare that a PR pro with the flu might have in the middle of the night. By the end it was obvious that the NRA was simply doubling down on its usual response to any gun violence — more guns in even more public places.
The key statement in that strange presser was when NRA Vice-President Wayne LaPierre famously said, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”
The NRA went on to start promoting armed teachers and administrators in the schools. And right-wing legislators, especially in western states, dutifully followed orders and started passing legislation that would at least allow, if not promote, just that. The most recent and extensive has been Missouri.
My Personal Familiarity with Guns
I am very familiar with firearms, having grown up on a farm in Oklahoma where I learned how to hunt as a child following along when my family went quail hunting and later learning how to handle a shotgun. That was way back when the NRA mainly was known for its gun safety courses and publications. That was before the arms manufacturers took it over as a lobbying/astroturf wing of their industry.
20+ years ago, I was certified to work armed security, and did so while I was going back to school to become a teacher. Nowadays, I have a concealed carry permit. So I am personally familiar and comfortable with handling guns. I’m just opposed to bad schemes for the use of guns, which seem to abound these days. The worst of them is arming teachers as a way to deal with mass school shootings.
“Good Guy With A Gun” Still Makes a Gun Present
What every police officer is trained to remember, and everyone who is armed should remember: Once you walk into a room, you know that there is at least one gun present in the room. That means there are thousands of negative potentials to the situation, none of which the National Rifle Association is willing to acknowledge. And if the gun is carried openly where it is easily accessed, others can easily Armed Teachers Are Not the Answer | Life at the Intersections: