Pistol Packing Teachers Not the Answer

Why Pistol Packing Teachers Are Not The Answer

Dear Editor,

December 14 I was at work like a lot of other people when I either heard or read a snippet of news regarding another school shooting.  And I have to be honest - I, like I am afraid many did that day, rolled my eyes, said a silent prayer for the victims, shook my head and went back to work.  

Why?

Because we as a nation have become almost immune to shock.  It's happening so often, in big towns and small; at small, rural schools and big colleges; at movie theaters, in malls and in people's homes, that it's become part of the landscape we live in today.  

I hate it.  I lost a family member to a husband that went on a rampage and shot her and her beautiful 12 year old son - the child was cowering behind his bed when he died.  

When I got home that Friday night I watched the news, started weeping, watched more news programs and wept more.  

I thought "When will it end? Will these children's and dedicated adult's lives be the price for better gun control laws, for tighter controls on who may own and purchase weapons, on who may sell weapons and where they may sell them?  Or will the NRA and the tinfoil hats and the racists and the homophobes and the end-of-the-worlders scream so loud that our politicians will retreat back into their shells and say 'There was nothing we could do, our hands are tied'?"

First, let me note, I believe in the second amendment.  I believe you ought to have the right to protect yourself if someone threatens you and/or yours.  I practice my second amendment rights.  

However, there is a time and a place for everything.  I have imagined each and every person I know, one by one, sitting in front of me holding a 9mm pistol, or a MAC-10, or any number of other weapons, (just holding, not pointing) and thought about how I would feel should I be in that situation.  

Many of the people I know would not frighten me.  They are good, honest, intelligent people with common sense and the right set of values and even with a firearm in their hands, would not scare me.

There is a smaller set of people whom, when visualized, it made me a little uncomfortable, but I felt that as long as these same people weren't in the wrong set of circumstances (under the influence of drugs or alcohol, extremely angry or frustrated, not taking their medication properly) while holding that firearm, they would most likely also be ok.

But truthfully, there is a small group of people whom I know, and in some cases are close to, that if I knew they were going to be in the same room with a weapon I would not be there.  Period.  Because these people are unpredictable. And you can't legislate against that.

If you are honest with yourself, dear reader, you will admit that you know people like that too, and that it makes you just a little jumpy.  

But my point is that I knew what was coming almost before it started.  The "Guns don't kill people..." thing.  The "the guns were purchased legally" thing. The "if they ban guns, only criminals will have them" thing.  

But the one I didn't expect, and am truthfully flabberghasted the most by, is this:  Teachers should be trained to use weapons and carry them in the classroom.  If these teachers had had weapons, they would have all been ok.

Well, I don't have a problem with anyone receiving weapons training of any kind. My father taught us respect for firearms starting at a very young age.  We had guns in the house the entire time we were growing up, some out in the open, some hidden, and I knew where they all were.  I would no more have touched my parent's guns than I would have set the house on fire.  It never even occurred to me.  So the idea of teachers being trained to use any kind of weapon, including their hands, is fine by me.  Those skills have only enhanced my life.

But last night I watched an interview online which I since have lost and cannot find - if someone finds it please post a link in the comments, because I'd like to watch it again - where a former firearms and hand-to-hand combat specialist and trainer from the Army pointed out that these women, even if they had been armed and trained, would most likely have still died.  

His case in point is this:  Not a single adult that was shot or killed was able to get their cell phone out and call 911 before they were shot.  Not one.  And most people carry their cell phones in their pockets, or keep them nearby.  He did say that teachers might not be allowed to do so by school rules, he wasn't sure on Sandy Hook Elementary.  

But if not a single injured or killed adult was able to get their phone out and call 911 before dying, how could we expect them to pull a firearm and kill the shooter?  

Teachers in an elementary school cannot carry a pistol on their hips around a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds - it would be a distraction at the very least and a serious risk of injury and death at most.  

Think of 5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds..which is what most of the kids of this school were.  They are grabby, impulsive, rebellious at times, and can, despite their size, be hard to handle and even violent.  

A handgun, even holstered in some sort of special kind of holster, would be a constant target for little minds and little fingers.  There's a reason scissors are rounded for kids that age.

Keep it in their desk?  Well, again, the desk would have to remain locked at all times - which takes time to find the right key and unlock - and again, if the teachers didn't have their cell phones on them, that's most likely where they were.  Which proves the Army expert's point again.

Keep it in a special box in a central location in the classroom that is high up enough that the teacher can get to it but the kids can't?  Ever put the cookie jar up on the top shelf to keep the kids out of it?  How did that work?

I have a better solution, one that I originally thought of but was actually refined by my brother-in-law.  My solution is this - every school in the nation have a trained police officer assigned to it - some schools have a "resource officer" and it could be a dual role - responsible for the security of the school as a whole.

This officer would be armed, trained in protection tactics, and would be responsible for making sure that everyone else in the school was trained properly.  There are many former military personnel that would need little or no training to step into this role, and wouldn't that help bring down veterans unemployment rates?  If we can't afford to hire these individuals to work in our schools, what about assigning local reservists and Guard to our schools on a rotating schedule?  

To me this is a much more commonsense approach than arming teachers who should be more concerned about lesson plans than about firing stances.  

And one more thing...most teachers are wonderful, special, amazing human beings. I personally would not have their jobs, because I come from the "spare the rod..." school of thought, and that school of thought is no longer practiced in our schools.  Still they do it day in and day out as a career, because they love children.  

But, just like our population at large, there are those who aren't well, who are dangerous, who have mental issues...or truthfully, may just snap one day because they can no longer handle reality.  Military and police training for the most part weed these kind of people out quickly, or trains them to maintain no matter what they may be experiencing personally.  

Teachers, however, are not screened this way.  I would really rather not think about what could happen.
We need as a nation to stop having knee-jerk reactions and really think about the consequences of our actions.  

We need to learn to think ahead and stop living so much in the moment.  No civilian needs an assault weapon, a 30-round magazine, cop-killer bullets, or any of that extreme stuff.  It should be far harder to purchase a gun or ammo than it is to buy a pack of cigarettes.  

Just because you think you CAN, doesn't mean you SHOULD.  And teachers need to teach our kids, not carry a gun in class.

Denise Painter

Seneca