Arming kindergarten teachers, this was the best he could do?? #neveragain

I listened to the listening session on the way home last night. I have some concerns about how the guests were chosen. Some seemed very pro-NRA in spite of losing their children. But never mind that for now.

So, Trump proposes arming teachers and training them so that they can stop deranged shooters Matrix style. Let’s just review a few very good reasons why this is a hugely stupid idea. No, Trumpers, don’t even. If you don’t see how dumb this idea is, then your opinion here is just wasting everybody’s time. Don’t even start. I have no patience for it today. “Let facts be submitted to a candid world”:

1. Teachers are self selected. Some of you may not know this but I was an elected member of my township’s board of ed back in the 90s. I’ve met a lot of teachers and sat in on union contract negotiations and referendum for new high schools and curriculum committee meetings. This is not to toot my own horn but just to say that my experience with the educational establishment is not superficial. Teachers, for the most part, go into the profession because they have a calling to serve the interests of children. Oh, sure, every now and then you’ll find some who really don’t belong in the classroom but for the most part, there is a kind of altruism that goes along with teaching. That sense of altruism, caring and service does not usually include violence of any kind.
2. Teachers are not human shields. Many teachers will sacrifice themselves to save their charges but teachers are not police officers, soldiers or security guards. They’re teachers. Since when has it been our expectation that teachers will voluntarily take on a shooter and put their own lives in danger? This should be seen as a workplace safety issue and if I were the unions, I’d take it up with OSHA and the NLRB. So, you know, arming them and training them because we deliberately make their workplaces hazardous is a non-starter. Telling teachers to suck it up and pack heat when they go to work is unacceptable. None of us should be expected to tolerate it or put our lives at risk at work unless we’re astronauts.
3. Who is going to pay for it? Oklahoma is so cash strapped from their experiment with tax cuts on steroids that schools are operating at only 4 days per week. There are so many school districts in NJ that the addition of training and security guards and metal detectors is going to quickly put a strain on the budget and other things will have to be sacrificed. Property taxes will soar and angry residents will show up at school board meetings attacking the very teachers they expect to protect their children. So, economically, it makes no sense.
4. Who will pay for teachers’ combat pay? I mean, seriously, if you’re going to ask teachers to actively defend themselves and students, putting themselves in harm’s way, your union would be stupid to not demand extra pay, extra life insurance, disability insurance (no more GoFundMe’s), medical benefits. And who could blame them? They’re going into a war zone.
5. It’s dangerous. You are asking people who are fundamentally opposed to violence to use a gun in an emergency situation when there’s chaos, confusion, screaming, and probably no clear idea where the bullets are coming from at first. So, these teachers are going to be expected to identify the shooter, aim accurately while potentially being fired upon, and not inadvertently shoot students who are running around looking for cover. We are expecting perfectly inelastic collisions with the bullet. It will not ricochet or pass through desks or doors or walls or windows. And these teachers will need to have the presence of mind to do all of this in seconds, concentrating on taking the shooter out while their students are looking for safety and clear directions.

If you don’t see yet how insane this all is, then your mind has been completely taken over by the NRA.

And who benefits from arming teachers to the teeth? I can only see one beneficiary. It’s the NRA who represents gun manufacturers. Giving teachers gun and training them only results in an escalation of the arms race where the gun manufacturers are guaranteed to make a ton of money.

I doubt that even one child will be saved by this. But I wouldn’t be surprised if we lost a lot of teachers who don’t think their altruism is worth their lives.

You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to take this proposal to its logical conclusion. You just need to do a thought experiment.

Another thought experiment might go like this:

Question: Who is doing the shooting in schools?

Answer: mentally and emotionally disturbed young men with assault weapons.

Does the idea arming teachers and hiring security guards address ANY of those parameters? No. It does not.

What would?

What would happen if we required background checks to prevent mentally and emotionally disturbed people from buying guns? What if we authorized the local police to commit a mentally or emotionally disturbed person for 72 hours for observation and to confiscate their guns? What if we prevented people under the age of 21 from buying certain kinds of guns? What if we banned assault style weapons that really have no useful purpose in a free society? What if we required gun shows to follow the same regulations as any other gun dealer?

Will it solve all of our gun problems? No. Will these common sense proposals violate the second amendment? No. Will it save lives and let children be children and teachers be teachers? I’m betting it would.

Let’s get real, people. Surely, Donald Trump could have come up with a better plan than turning our schools into the prison season of the Walking Dead. And if he can’t, then what the f^ck is he doing being president? For that matter, the whole GOP seems to be compromised with stupidity. There’s only one last resort to getting our point across that 2/3 of the American electorate want more controls on the access to guns: vote them out.

November is Coming.

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