At least that is what you get from reading the comments from a Facebook post:
I selected three of the comments as representative of the general tone. Let’s take them one at the time.
Jeanie Helde Moen I do not have a problem with a school police officer or a trained security guard carrying a gun. Trust me ,do not put guns into the hands of the teachers. I was one.
OK what does she knows about teachers we don’t? What kind of secret life or disability do all teachers have that makes them unqualified to be trained with a firearm.
Rachel Lillian Reed Teachers were trained to teach not to shoot. I’d quit before being required to carry a gun. Not everyone is comfortable with guns. Teachers aren’t police officers….carrying a gun shouldn’t be required in order to be a teacher.
Yo Rachel! Nobody is forcing anybody to carry a gun in school. However they are forcing people to be disarmed in school because “it is safer.”
Richard Martin Police officers are regularly trained in the use of firearms, yet they make mistakes and innocent bystanders get shot. Teachers beg for training in reading, writing, and math, but are often short-changed because there’s no money, no substitutes, no (fill in the blank). No teacher should believe that there would be training commensurate with the responsibility. Besides, I can just see students getting hold of a teacher’s weapon, some teacher who shouldn’t be in the classroom using a weapon to threaten a student, and classrooms getting broken into by crooks looking for weapons. No thanks.
I have to take this one in sections:
- Police officers are regularly trained in the use of firearms, yet they make mistakes and innocent bystanders get shot.
Nope, they get training at the academy and, if the department has money, they get to re-qualify once every 6 months, but more likely once a year. - Teachers beg for training in reading, writing, and math, but are often short-changed because there’s no money, no substitutes, no (fill in the blank)
What do you mean teachers need training in the basic shit they are supposed to teach? If you can’t read or do basic math, WTF are you doing teaching? - No teacher should believe that there would be training commensurate with the responsibility.
I don’t even know what this means. - I can just see students getting hold of a teacher’s weapon.
You know, your portrayal of teachers as ignorant is making me believe this part. - some teacher who shouldn’t be in the classroom using a weapon to threaten a student,
Again, what is going on with teachers that we should know about? - and classrooms getting broken into by crooks looking for weapons.
You do know the difference between CARRY and STORING, right?
Homeschooling looks better and better everyday
I like to remind folks that some teachers are carrying now. Of course they don’t tell anyone.
Home Schooling? Oh hell yes!
I was telling people – twenty years ago – that if they were still sending their children to public school, they were committing a form of child abuse and would regret it to their dying day.
As much as I like to make fun of these idjits, I’m afraid that they might end up winning the propaganda war. If this motivates enough people to harass their state congresscritters, do they win?
Propaganda is virtually never truth, and often not even based on truth.
We can’t have calm reasoned arguments with people screaming and spitting “NAZI!! Fascist!!!”
Way back in 2010, TN GOP Candidate Bill Haslam (Now TN Governor) came and spoke to the Tennessee Firearms Association as part of his bid for the governor’s office. The idea of allowing teachers to carry came up, and he said something along the lines of (paraphrasing something from 7 years ago) “That’s a bad idea. As mayor of Knoxville I interacted with a lot of teacher, and trust me, there are a lot of them that have no business being anywhere near a firearm.”
A couple of months later, I had a nearly identical conversation with my mother-in-law, who was a teacher at the time.
My response to both of them was “My God! Why are we hiring people that we can’t trust to not murder their students?!?! You must be thinking of some specific people, why have you not reported them?”
Of course, when you put it that way it becomes obvious to them that the statement is ridiculous in the classical sense–worthy of ridicule.
In regards to the first point: I like to point out that police are minimally trained in lots of areas, not just firearms. For example, ask any open carry advocate about their encounters with police, and they all complain that the police don’t know the law. Gee, I wonder why that is? Could it be that the minimal training they received simply couldn’t cover everything, and still be cost effective? Could it be that in order to cover everything, their training would take years instead of months? Could it be that in order to cover every situation and every law, they’d have to train for multiple years, and even then, laws change?
They have tons of duties, and paperwork, and things to remember. It truly isn’t an easy job. They are tasked with walking that fine line of stopping people who have (or likely have) broken the law, but not violating their rights while conducting their investigation. They are humans, not robots with perfect recall and the ability to know every law, and every nuance of the law. They will make mistakes and sometimes they’ll even do things that are blatantly wrong. Just like other humans.
Well . . .
What you have to understand about teachers is this: From about 1965 till 1970, the only way to get a 2-S (student) deferment was to major in education. (It was LBJ’s idea.) So all the peaceniks (some sincere, most not) who tried to levitate the Pentagon ended up as teachers and are now running universities and school systems. Guess who they hire?
On the one hand, teachers not only have to face the possibility of an active shooter incident, some also face a much higher risk of being assaulted by their students. There’s a point in favor.
On the other hand, some teachers are in fact too emotionally unstable to be trusted with firearms.
I’ve met both types of teachers.
And there’s also the risk that the student might get hold of the teacher’s gun if the teacher leaves it unsecured while they’re having student-teacher sex.
I’d say, go on a case-by-case basis.