If This Was My School, There’d Be One Less Teacher
Me.
A Texas school district will let teachers bring guns to class this fall, the district’s superintendent said on Friday, in what experts said appeared to be a first in the United States.
The board of the small rural Harrold Independent School District unanimously approved the plan and parents have not objected, said the district’s superintendent, David Thweatt.
The reason I would quit is that it would only be a matter of time until a student steals one of the guns and shoots someone. And trust me, as a teacher, I am telling you, they will steal one.
I love the rational, too:
Thweatt said it is a matter of safety.
“We have a lock-down situation, we have cameras, but the question we had to answer is, ‘What if somebody gets in? What are we going to do?” he said. “It’s just common sense.”
How many unbelievably stupid things get done every day in the name of “common sense?” Things aren’t as simple as Thweatt thinks. To start, the chances of a school shooting occurring at all are extremely remote. Thweatt has a better chance of getting hit by lighting. Second, that there is a gun or two on campus may or may not help the situation any more than the current protections. Third, his possible solution to the highly speculative threat creates all kinds of potential harms: Teacher loses gun, or teacher loses mind, or student steals gun, or gun accidentally discharges. Finally, in my mind, the slight chance there might be a school shooting and the even slighter chance that the gun might prevent it are far, far outweighed by the much more likely injuries caused by the gun itself. In a cliche, the cure is worse than the disease.
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August 19, 2008 at 8:03 pm
OMG. My first reaction to this story was, “I would pull my babies out of that school immediately.” There is no way in the world I would allow my kids to go to a school where (1) there could be as many guns available as teachers and (2) probably 99% of the people on the school campus knew exactly where those guns were stored. Yeah, sounds like common sense to me.
August 20, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Assuming the worst case – an armed person enters the school. What happens next? The teacher coolly draws down on the intruder and disarms or disables him? In reality, civilians don’t have the training or fire discipline to handle an armed confrontation. Even police, who have that training, are not always able to call on it in an crisis.
As the Army says, “Friendly fire isn’t”.
August 20, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Yeah, Hot Momma. there would be two less kids in school. Mine. (Actually my kids are in college now).
August 22, 2008 at 8:01 pm
[…] a big proponent of spanking. However, that doesn’t mean I want a bunch of capricious, possibly armed strangers spanking my kids. Two people on this great planet have the right and responsibility to […]
September 1, 2008 at 9:43 pm
well by your logic: your kids are more likely to be hit by lightning than have their teachers lose it and shoot them, or someone with a CCW license have a negligent discarge, or have thier firearm–which is required to be on thier person AT ALL TIMES–be stolen and used against them.
and if this is such a deadly cure to an even deadlier problem, what would you reccomend we do eh? metal detectors at the gates? GREAT! now we’ll know before hand that we’re all doomed and will at least be spiritually prepared, right?
I’ve said it before and will say it again and again untill all the leftist lunatics agree with me: the only way to end the turkey shoot is to arm the turkeys!
September 2, 2008 at 8:49 am
joseph, you are an idiot.
first, i have absolutely no idea what you mean by that first paragraph.
second, yes, metal detectors would be better than armed teachers. you don’t seem to realize this, but if you know the kids have a weapon, you can take the weapon. also, the kids knowing they have to walk through the metal detector is an incentive not to bring a weapon in the first place.
third, in most schools, and especially the school mentioned in the story, none of this is necessary. school shootings are too rare for every school to go nuclear in an attempt to prevent them.