Arming Teachers: A Stupid Idea

I WROTE THIS STORY six years ago. Nothing has really changed since, except the names of the victims and the increasing frequency of the carnage in our schools. 

The names of the dead at Stoneman Douglass are fresh in the news, the pain of survivors raw and terrible to behold.

Arming teachers after Sandy Hook never seemed like a good idea. 

It doesn’t seem any better today. I’ll leave this post the way I wrote in in 2012, adding only a few thoughts, italicizing them as I proceed.

VICTORIA SOTO, 27, WAS BURIED THURSDAY under a cold winter sky. Soto, as you may know, was the teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary who stood in front of students in a vain attempt to save their lives.  

Jack Pinto, 6, another victim, was buried Monday.

Tragically, that promising young man will never know if his favorite football team made the playoffs. He was laid to rest in his New York Giants football jersey: Number 80, Victor Cruz. (For Jack’s sake, let’s hope God hates the Dallas Cowboys.) In stricken Newtown, Connecticut, Jack’s best friend penned this sorrowing letter:

And now, with twenty-six fresh graves filled or to fill (and seventeen more in Florida just days ago), what do the most strident gun-rights advocates want to discuss? What do Second Amendment absolutists, those who say the right to bear arms cannot be infringed, suggest we do to protect innocents like Jack Pinto? (Or: Jaime Guttenberg, 14, or Peter Wang, 15, both among the dead in the massacre this past Valentines’ Day.)

We arm people like Ms. Soto. We arm teachers. (We arm people like Scott Biegal, 35, killed on February 14 of this year.)

Why is this idea stupid?  

As a former teacher, allow me to explain. First and foremost, it won’t work. It won’t guarantee the safety our children deserve. And we, as a nation, can no longer afford the luxury of wishful thinking where these attacks are concerned. We owe the victims of this horrendous attack (and attacks in Orlando, Las Vegas and Southerland Springs) something more. We owe it to all our children, living and dead, to face reality and craft sensible national policies. Here are a few reasons why arming teachers is an absurd place to start:

1. If we place a gun in the office, ready to a principal’s hand (or to the hand of some other school defender), as some absolutists suggest, what happens if the heavily-armed intruder shoots his way in through a different doorway?

2. What if two maniacal killers are involved? Then one defender isn’t enough (See: Columbine, 1999).

3. If the psychopath has a semi-automatic weapon clearly the defender will require (at minimum) a semi-automatic weapon. How exactly does this gun vs. gun strategy play out if the attack occurs at the start of the school day, or during a class change, when halls are crowded with children? How many bullets do the absolutists want to see flying around the schools?

4. How do we protect kids on a playground during recess if a psycho shows up and starts spraying fire? (That’s already been done. See: Stockton, 1989.)

5. What if the psycho lurks by the roadside and waits in the morning till a bus filled with children passes? What if he opens fire on them? (Same concern: end of the day.)

6. What if the killer forces his way in through the kitchen and into the cafeteria at lunch? (Arm cooks with guns? At least they already have knives.)

7. How do we defend if the perpetrator calls in a fake bomb threat and children empty out onto the lawn; and then he arrives to start shooting?

8. What do we do if the shooter pulls up in a car in front of any school, which is exactly what happened at Sandy Hook, and jumps out and starts shooting as students enter some morning? (Same idea, exiting: afternoon.)

9. What if the perpetrator parks his car, walks up to just about any first floor classroom in America and starts firing through windows?

10. Suppose a killer approaches a high school soccer field after classes have ended, during the first period of a tie game, and starts blasting? (Same idea: track meet, tennis match, marching band or cheer leading practice.)

AND LET’S NOT FORGET PSYCHO PLAN B: What if the killer can’t get into the school? What if he heads for a college campus, a theater, a Sikh temple or mall (a music concert venue, a gay nightclub, a place of employment) in frustration? (We do know that’s been done, don’t we?) 

If the idea of arming teachers is dumb, what about doubling down on dumb? After all, the Second Amendment is sacred, according to absolutists, and all gun-control is wrong. What choice, then, do we have other than to arm everyone in schools—every teacher and even school nurses.

Drop that mop, Mr. Janitor.  

From now on you patrol the halls with an AR-15. 

Is that the sad state our nation is in? Are we too cowardly and too blind to face hard American-made facts? Can’t we at least be honest about where we stand? If we have 300 million guns in private hands and those aren’t enough, then guns for all educators is but a tiny first step. Next we need to issue every public school employee body armor. And there’s the whole idea of child-size bullet-proof vests for kids. 

If we can’t pass reasonable legislation, let’s just give up and up-armor all the yellow buses. Place guards on board, riding shotgun beside drivers, like stagecoaches of yore. Brick up first floor school windows—except for maybe loopholes. 

Cancel outdoor school activities, for sure.

Come on, we want kids to be safe. So let’s create schools that resemble bunkers. Let’s add 12-foot-high perimeter walls. Let’s require teachers (when they’re not preparing for standardized tests) to take turns guarding those walls instead of “wasting time” grading and creating lesson plans and talking to kids who need help.  

Maybe we should add moats. 

A conservative friend of mine suggested recently that I should stop “prattling on” about gun control. Maybe I am. Prattling on. I don’t think so. I think I’m just pissed because Jesse Lewis [at Sandy Hook], on the day he was murdered, told his father in an excited voice before heading to school, “Dad, this is going to be the best Christmas ever.” I’m pissed because that little boy believed what he said and we as a nation allowed a killer to prove him wrong. 

I’m pissed because Ms. Soto, possessed of “captivating blue eyes,” is dead. 

I’m pissed because Grace McDonnell is no longer with us and can never follow her dreams.  

I’m pissed to know that Anne Marie Murphy, another teacher at Sandy Hook, died cradling Dylan Hockley, 6, in her arms.  

I’m pissed because all of them died in a “firestorm of bullets.” 

In the wake of great tragedy, I’m pissed because gun-toting absolutists refuse to admit that it’s an indictment of a gun-loving culture when teachers and children are swept away in a “firestorm of bullets.”

Like mechanical men, they keep repeating a single refrain: “My Second Amendment rights cannot be infringed. My. Rights. Cannot. Be. Infringed.” So let’s follow their logic and end with a look at the amendment in question: 

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Clearly, the rights of gun owners are sacred. Clearly, they cannot be infringed. Clearly, to protect our freedoms the Founding Fathers understood that what was needed was a well-regulated militia. Got all that? We need armed citizens to repel foreign invasions. Check. And to shoot back at our potential government oppressors. (There’s a strong element of anti-Obama paranoia at play in the minds of a number of absolutists.) Sure. There are already 300 million guns; but that’s not enough, even though it’s more than one for every adult in America.  

In other words, we need to man up. A modern militia—even though the militia no longer exists—would logically require firepower. (You can argue, and should, that the National Guard is now the militia; but then you get stuck, because they already have their own guns.) Therefore: a private citizen, following absolutist logic, who thinks he’s part of an imaginary militia, and thinks he’s getting ready to repulse imaginary invaders (because, frankly, the U.S. Navy can’t do it) or boogie man oppressors (Muslim Obama), has a god given right to purchase any kind of weapon his heart might desire. And come to think of it that should include a .50 caliber machine gun, an M1A1 tank and an F-16 fighter jet if they want.  

SEE, THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS SACROSANCT. So we do the next best thing. We put ourselves in position to brag to foreign visitors (of the non-invading type), “Here in America we build schools that double as forts!”

We owe Grace McDonnell and the others better.

*

SIX YEARS AGO, the slaughter at Sandy Hook was carried out. Try to think of one step our lawmakers have taken to address the problem.

I can’t think of one.

And now I’m pissed all over again.

I can only say: the brave teen survivors from Stoneman Douglas, their families and friends, their courage in calling for change.

That.

That gives me hope.

How many victims must there be before we realize, "We already have more than enough guns?"