Guns In The Classroom
Pete’s Big Mouth invades the classroom! Pete is still luxuriating in Sicily and Mr. Ellis Henican is keeping the seat warm. During Monday’s show Ellis discussed the new plan that the board of a small community in Texas, unanimously approved, which allows their teachers to carry concealed weapons. We heard some interesting opinions during the show but we need to hear what Todd in Florida and the rest of the PBM bloggers think. I recall one day in Elementary School when there was a threat of a drive by shooting on the school. It turned out to be total bullshit but I wonder if some of the students would have felt safer in that situation if they knew that the teachers were packing heat. Knowing some of my teachers I probably would have been more afraid.
As a former teacher there were times when standing near a student’s desk I had to force myself to keep my hand on the student’s desk in order to keep from throttling him/her. :-) I’m afraid some teachers who have really bad tempers might resort to using the gun on the students rather than in their defense. Also, what about kids getting their hands on the gun? I’m totally against the idea. There are teachers out there who have some nasty tempers and there are students who would use the gun on the hated teacher/administrator/counselor, or other student/s. Not a good plan.
I tend to agree with Mama Mary on this one. I had a teacher in my school slap a student and teacher refer to a couple girls as "little bitches". I’m from Wisconsin and used to be associated with a few students including the daughter of the principle who was shot at killed in Cazanovia at the Weston School District. I can almost guarantee if the principle had a gun and attempted to use it, he would not have in fear of the students and faculty. When faced with that kind of pressure you really needed to be trained on how to handle the situation and also trained on hitting your target and nothing else. And this kind of training requires being paid for, and whos going to pay for it? The answer is not in teachers carrying or neccisarily even detectors. The answer is in parenting and paretning properly.
I’ll get on board and say simply that, to me, and answer is not more, but less guns. Someone said yesterday that metal detectors would make kids feel unsafe, whaaaaa!!!! Better to feel unsafe, but be, than to be unsafe, and unaware. It’s exactly the same to me as keeping guns out of the cockpits of planes.
The only thing I can think of to justify this decision to that Texas schoolboard would be to deter kids from going through with their homicidal plans. But aren’t the majority of the kids who shoot up schools not right in the head already?? Seems to me that logical thinking doesn’t come into play when kids decide to rain bullets down on their schoolmates and teachers.
Scott, how can we get parents to do that? I agree that parents need to be responsible for raising their kids properly. The problem is people have different views on what is proper. For what, exactly, should parents be held responsible? You and I may agree but there are many who would not.
How can we get ALL parents to raise their children to be respectful and responsible for their actions when the parents themselves are not? In the school building where I taught the mother of a first grader entered the building, slapped the social worker’s face and pushed the teacher. Definitely not okay even if you aren’t happy with whatever she was not happy about.
Still, I know as a parent how difficult raising children is especially for those who live with poverty, illiteracy, in any difficult circumstances. It’s hard enough without those problems. However, I am not in any way, suggesting we let parents off the hook. Far from it. My job would have been much easier if all the parents raised their kids properly. Parents should be good role models and teach their kids to be good citizens.
I remember my last principal telling us that since we cannot change the parents, we have to change what we are doing to educate kids. Sure wish I knew what that was. We were already teaching them manners, right from wrong, and doing much of what parents should have done.
If a teacher or principal did use a weapon there would probably be serious, maybe career-ending repercussions, particularly if anyone else got hurt in the process. It’s too scary to even consider.
I agree with Mary, inasmuch as public schools are concerned. My county has armed Deputy Sheriffs as resource officers in every public middle and high school, I think the risk of tragedy via insufficient training or strong arm theft is too great. Violent children require removal from the civil students and a different tack.
Of course, my ideal system would require schools privately disclose their weapons policy to parents and would undoubtedly produce schools for all kinds of children, including tje incorrigible ones.
Ironically, someone got shot in a school today…
As you know Mary that answer is difficult if not impossible to answer. First things first. Guns. Growing up my family hunted, so we knew gun safety at a young age and growing up there were no "gun locks" but we either didn’t know where the guns were or afterwhile my dad got a gun safe, which locked and when locks hit the market every gun had a trigger lock on it. That is a great start and most guns come with free locks nowadays. I wish I had the answer to the parenting issue but I simply do not. I also wish teachers everywhere to be as passionate about their jobs as you and even a handful of my past teachers did. The topics were not only to the curriculum but when needed some common sense and manners were taught by some of the teachers.
I will stick to my "no guns on school, period" mindset on this because even as guns have their place in our lifestyles when used for the right reasons they don’t belong in schools unless the liason officer is the one who is carrying one. I think schools need daily random locker searches and dog searches for drugs. Unfortunetly, this is what our society has become.
One of the reasons NYPD got Glocks was because we had them outgunned…so teachers with guns is the next logical progression.
i call my nephew Baby Shaq…he as about 6′4" in junior high, and BIG…most teachers couldn’t handle him if he was real hoodlum—but his mother [5′4"] kept his ass in check—yeah, it’s the parenting.
Now that i think of it, there’s probably more than a few teachers who would’ve capped me though if they had the right to bear arms, so maybe tazers first, to see if there’s a lot of Death Wish teachers out there…although nuns with rulers always put the fear of god in me when i was in Catholic school—yeah, when i didn’t see them in public school it was an anarchistic picnic:)