A friend of mine, Brian Normoyle, posted this comment on his timeline around December 18th, 2012:
From my friend Lucas, a bit of reason I've been saying since Friday:
"I have heard so much stupidity over the last couple of days, so let me take one piece of it and amend it so that it makes sense. 'If only the teacher had been carrying a gun....She would have died with a gun in her hand, and several children would still be dead.'"
This kid used a military-style assault rifle than fired many, many rounds in a matter of minutes. You don't solve that problem with MORE guns in a K-4 elementary school.
I've been wanting to write my response for a few days now to this topic. I just started writing and this is what came out. I thought I'd share it with the world...you know...for perspective.
Here it is:
I've been working as a teacher the last year and a half. I can't believe that people have been saying that teachers should be armed.
As a teacher I don't want several things:
1) The expectation that I am the member of the SWAT team, or a stationed member of the armed forces in your school. I am not a trained killing machine. I am a teacher and an actor. Forget the notion that I am a soldier RIGHT NOW...but...for the sake of conversation...here are some more of my concerns.
2) The added liability of being blamed if, God forbid, any of my students should be killed by a mad gunman. I can just hear the cries now. "HE'S to blame! He had a gun and didn't use it properly! Now let's sue HIM. He clearly had an opportunity to stop this madness and didn't do it in time with his gun!" I'd really be looking forward to the double guilt put on me by myself for general survivor's guilt, and then the mad guilt of a mob looking for someone to blame as revenge.
3) Any of my students KNOWING that I am secretly packing heat... Some students are already shy. Knowing their teacher is carrying a firearm is not going to add to them "opening up." I can already see the ones who keep their eyes averted from everything in class out of some secret shame now cowering in a corner for pure fear of their teacher going off the deep end. Also, some youngsters welcome a challenge of authority. I think having a gun on a teacher would be like sticking a giant "ULTIMATE CHALLENGE" sticker on his/her forehead and dare some students to do something dumb...like reach for the teacher's gun. There are some boys with abundant amounts of testosterone, and girls with territorial tendencies who are always trying to test a teacher. In both these cases I can just imagine the ONE student who is a little erratic reaching for the weapon for the sheer bliss of saying to his/her friends, "I went for the gun! Did you see that?!" And did you see the teacher getting carted off to jail for...[fill in reason here]? This leads me to the next point...
4) As fun as it is to muse about such questions as an absurd joke (and actually...it's not), I don't want the following to become a normal reality: "When do my students become viable threats to me, and when am I allowed to draw my weapon on them?" Seriously, when do I get to consider their posturing toward me, making aggressive movements against me, or even their possible attacking me at all a reasonable enough threat to draw my weapon? When do the ones I'm protecting become threats themselves? Do I get to use SWAT team techniques with other teachers on them? Do we get to draw our weapons in the case of student fights in the corridor? Why the hell do I have to ask these questions?!
5) I don't want to consider any of the other thousand, or so, liabilities I can't imagine right now. Seriously? How many other ways will my safety and my liability be threatened if I carry a weapon in general? Will we have an "accidental discharge policy" if my weapon malfunctions and a projectile unwittingly kills one of my students? Jesus...I could go on and on.
I would also like to add that no teacher is a cross between Richard Dreyfuss in Mr. Holland's Opus and Tom Berenger in The Substitute. They're much more like Edward James Olmos in Stand And Deliver. They struggle to impart lessons using cajoling or dry wit, compassion for those who struggle to keep up, and assertiveness of character with those who step out of line with disrespect...not by drawing a gun. And...maybe don't look to movies for examples. Maybe...TALK to teachers. Actual ones.
With all the madness of idiots suggesting arming teachers (and they're STILL suggesting it!), I thought this was appropriate to post here. Supporters of such ideas think they're protecting the children because evil and insane people are always hard at work circumventing society's rules...so it doesn't matter to pass any laws to make it harder to shoot up schools. There may be no rest for the wicked, but there is also no relief from the morons.
