Xanthippa's Chamberpot

A few points…

I do not think placing armed guards in school is a good idea – I believe each and every teacher has the responsibility to protect the children we entrust to them.  Therefore, each and every teacher MUST be fully trained and qualified in the use of guns and be armed at all times while on school property.  Loose your gun certification, loose your teaching job, just like a cop.

My reasons for this is threefold.

First, the teachers are already supervising the children.  There is no need to have a second person in each classroom to protect them from potential gun violence:  this is wasteful and unnecessarily raises the anxiety level of the students.  Simply put, it would be costly, inefficient and fear-mongering.

Second, people tend to fear that which they do not understand.  Currently, the vast majority of the teachers I have encountered have never handled a gun in their lives…especially urban teachers.  And, these are the same people who tend to be unreasonably afraid of guns.  (I do not mean that all fear of guns is unreasonable – simply that some peoples’ fear of guns goes beyond what it should reasonably be.)  Urban teachers tend to come from social circles where anti-gun hysteria is at its shrillest:  and this prevents them from reacting reasonably should they find themselves facing a gun.  Forcing teachers to become familiar with guns would go a long way towards minimizing their unreasonable fear, educate them how to behave under threat, and thus would lead to a more constructive reaction  should they ever be in the unfortunate position of having to face an armed assailant.

Third, and perhaps most important, is the lesson of self-reliance this would teach the students.  Yes, the police is there to help solve crimes and catch criminals, but once you become an adult, you are not a ward of the state but a sovereign human being responsible for your well being and for the well being of your dependents.  While it is good to accept help when you need it, it is YOU – and you alone – who bears responsibility for yourself.

This third reason would be completely reversed if the people who carried arms in school were special armed guards and/or extra police officers.  Rather than teaching students – from a young age and by example rather than through flowery speeches – independence and self reliance, putting armed guards into schools will only further deepen the chasm between ‘armed people’ and ‘the rest of us’.

Putting armed guards in schools will teach children that only those who represent ‘the authorities’ are permitted to be armed and the rest of us must cower in fear.  It will normalize the dangerous notion that carrying gun is a job in and of itself and that it is wrong for ‘normal people’ to be self reliant.

And that, in my never-humble-opinion, is a lesson each and every tyrant would like its populace to be taught from a very young age!

It is not a coincidence that prior to every major government-purpotrated massacre or genocide or pogrom, gun control laws were enacted and private arms were widely confiscated.  Learn from the mistakes of others or perish, like they did…

I’ll go even further than that:  I have very grave reservations about licensing and registering guns at all.  If the government and/or ‘authorities (or even unscrupulous civil servants – remember, weakest link, human failings and all that) know who owns guns and where they are kept, they have the ability to overpower and disarm these citizens – one at a time.  Having lived under a totalitarian system where this very thing happened, I deeply believe this is not a risk worth taking.