In response to the letter praising the Arkansas school district that had intended (before the state attorney general nixed the idea) to arm teachers, let me begin by saying that I am a middle school teacher, and I have a view of this issue that the letter writer does not: the reality of the classroom.
He mentions 53 hours of training. How much training did the Marysville police officer who left his loaded firearm in a cup-holder in his vehicle, with four children, have? A child died because that officer was in a hurry; distracted; and busy — like most teachers are during the school day. We have to keep track of several things going on at once all of the time. one moment of carelessness with a gun could be far too costly.
No one will know which teachers are carrying? How well do you suppose that will go over with the parents; particularly the ones who have reservations about placing their child into a classroom with a gun in it? Parents will demand to know whether their child’s teacher is armed, and they have a right to this info. So much for secrecy.
The school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut took all of eleven minutes, from the time that the shooter entered until he took his own life. Let’s see … it would probably be a minute or two before teachers knew an attack was taking place. Opening the gun safe, loading the weapon, and getting every student to get on the floor (yeah, right — 33 excited 13-year-olds?) would take several minutes. A teacher may have gone to a class about this but remaining calm would be impossible. Potential for error would be high, and likelihood of students killed in crossfire would be higher. If the gunman knew that some staff might be armed, he would immediately shoot every one of them that he encountered. He might be tempted to use a smaller student as a shield. What teacher would be so confident as to take a shot then?
By the way, remember that these individuals are not rational. Knowing that the staff was armed would merely present an additional challenge — like the next level of the video game. Most of these shooters already do not plan on surviving the event. People like this would not be deterred by the threat of being shot.
My fellow teachers and I, who are in a position to think through how this would actually play out, find the prospect alarming. Implementation of this strategy would prove to be a grave miscalculation, and I fervently hope that wise heads will prevail on this issue, and continue the ban on weapons in our schools. There would be no joy in having the chance to say, “I told you so.”
Gina Parry
Snohomish
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