The President and the NRA currently are recommending that we take six to eight teachers/coaches and allow them to carry concealed weapons to help prevent further school shootings. By implementing this policy, we would have around a half a million armed educators (I do not believe you could even find a tenth of certified teachers interested in this proposal) which would maybe outnumber the total amount of law enforcement officers currently employed. Which teacher does anyone know that is going to volunteer to go out of their classroom, leaving their children unattended in an active shooting scenario, armed with a pistol to face someone armed with an automatic assault weapon? What response will the SWAT officers have when they encounter an armed teacher carrying a gun in the hallway? How about another student trying to help with a teacher’s gun in an active shooting situation? Who pays for the weapons and extensive training to handle active shooting situations? The recent White House budget slashed school funding and school safety monies. Schools all over the country are routinely and somewhat purposefully already underfunded. States will be hard pressed to pick up the slack as well because they are being expected to pick up 80% of all costs for intra-structure improvements to roads, bridges and other miscellaneous projects.
Does anyone think local taxpayers won’t to be on the hook for these additional costs? What happens to school liability insurance policies when teachers start bringing guns to school? What happens to a teacher’s individual insurance liability policies when they are designated as a weapons carrier? What happens during an active shooting situation when a teacher shoots either another innocent student, colleague, or law enforcement officer? Does the teacher receive more money to carry a gun and is his/her family compensated if he/she is killed? Who is responsible if the teacher is overpowered and the gun is taken away from him/her thereby itself creating a dangerous situation?
These are but a few of the questions that need to be addressed by legislators advocating policies which bring even more guns into our classrooms.
Tom Moiser