“There’s nowhere you go that you don’t have guns. America, that’s our culture. You are not going to stop crazy people from coming in getting guns but you can stop the carnage in three to four minutes of any shooting.”
The Parkland, Florida shooting has opened a flood of emotions throughout our nation, with screams from many to ban AR-style weapons. If one were to watch the news or read the paper, they might in fact believe that the nation was unified in their desire to repeal the Second Amendment altogether. I just happened to see the front page of USA Today from February 26, and the main story was titled, “USA backs stricter gun laws.” In the article (really just a slightly veiled attack on President Trump) the author highlights a recent USA Today poll that states, “By more than 2-1, 63%-29%, they say semiautomatic weapons like the AR-15 used by the Florida shooter should be banned.”
This poll, from which they extrapolate are the feelings from all US residents, was from only 1000 registered voters. In conjunction with this, I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across the #armmewith movement. This movement is all about pushing an anti-gun movement in the schools by relating it back to what they feel they should be funded before schools have guns forced into their classes.
Yet, throughout all of this anti-gun rhetoric, there was another story I also happened upon. It was the story of Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones on FoxBusiness.com. The title was,“Hundreds of teachers sign up for free gun training in Ohio.” His response to the Parkland shooting was somewhat revolutionary by modern standards as it involved an actual proactive response instead of wishful and fanciful protesting by Facebook social justice warriors.
To quote Jones directly, “We thought we’d get 20, 25 signed up. We had 50 within the first hour. We had 100 within two hours, we had three hundred within like five hours. We offered to teachers first, then we start getting calls from a secretary that works in the school, janitors that work in the school.” It is important to understand that they had a maximum capacity for 300 in this first iteration.
Is Jones some gun-crazy law enforcement official who is bent on the total ruin of America through the implementation of some Wild West gun trend? Nope, he is simply a realist. As he is further quoted in the article, “There’s nowhere you go that you don’t have guns. America, that’s our culture. You are not going to stop crazy people from coming in getting guns but you can stop the carnage in three to four minutes of any shooting.” In those two sentences there is a whole lot of truth.
Guns are part of the American culture. The right to own and carry them is guaranteed in our Constitution. The founders felt so strongly about this need that they made it the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights, directly following the most fundamental of all freedoms: speech. If that is the case, then where is this huge disparity coming from? Why is it that supposedly two-thirds of Americans are against the Second Amendment while the Fox Business article states that, “More schools are beginning to train their educators to access or carry concealed weapons with reports suggesting there are now more than 1,000 school staffers in a dozen states with access to guns in schools spanning 225 districts.”
I believe that there are a few reasons for this. First, I would have loved to see the questions that USA Today actually asked the people it was polling and the demographics of those individuals polled. I am always quick to question polling data that does not explicitly state the exact questions posed. A question such as, “Assault rifles pose no purpose other than killing and this was the type of rifle used in the Parkland shooting. Should these rifles be banned?” will elicit a much different response than, “Should semi-automatic rifles be banned from law-abiding citizens who use them for recreational shooting and sport?”
There is also the question of political leanings from those polled. Was it a fair representation of all political sides or did it skew to those liberally minded? Given the overwhelmingly high percentage numbers, I am someone skeptical of the validity of this poll.
Yet I do not doubt the overwhelming concern amongst the teachers who are so ardently against guns being allowed in schools. I believe the sincerity of those who are part of the #armmewith movement and even support them completely in principle. I do not believe that you can find an intelligent person who would ever say that they would rather spend money on guns for teachers than computers, training, additional teacher support, supplies or, for that matter, even raises. In a perfect world I would always rather put my money towards these endeavors.
In that same line of thought, I would rather spend money on medical research, parks, the roads, and massage therapy over law enforcement and military. I wish that we lived in a world where our annual budget for resourcing those who use threat of violence was roughly zero. However, this is wishful thinking and does nothing to actually protect us from foreign or internal threats.
This is why you see teachers coming out of the woodwork to get this training. It is for this exact same reason that I believe that you would find quite a bit of support from within the schools in arming certain select members of the school faculty.
In considering my point, I asked my wife (who spent over ten years teaching in grade schools, both in middle-class and lower-income schools,)what her view was. In my scenario I gave the following criteria:
- There would be a biometric safe installed in every classroom
- All teachers in the program would be volunteers
- The teachers who were armed would need to attend initial certification training
- There would be quarterly refresher training
- No one but the school admin and law enforcement would know which teachers were certified
- The teachers would receive a small stipend around $100-$200 a month
- Any teacher who was caught handling the firearm or opening the safe outside of specifically authorized events (locking it up in the morning, removing it at night, utilizing it for an active-shooter response) would be subject to prosecution and prison time
She stated that not only would she take this opportunity, but felt that a majority of the teachers she knew would also. She felt this way not because she wants guns in the classroom, or that she believes it is her job to act as a police liaison. She stated that she would be willing to do this because she knows that the truth of the matter is, if she just happens to be the teacher who is caught up in a mass shooting incident without a gun, her life or death is completely dependent upon the will of the shooter.
She equally knows that she cannot depend upon law enforcement to protect her. This is in no way an attack upon those incredible officers who put their lives on the line every day to protect our citizens. However, the police cannot be everywhere, and just like at Parkland, there was a sheriff’s deputy right outside the school who failed to act in protecting those students. In fact, she even brought up the point that you could likely find grants for both the training and the pay so it would have a zero-sum impact on the funding for the #armmewith movement folks.
It is a shame that we live in a world where we need to even have these discussions. I am not trying to insult any who I disagree with or who disagree with me. I too would love to see schools be a safe place for our students and teachers. However, whether it be a home, park, office, or school, no amount of regulation will stop those who wish to do harm to the most vulnerable in our society. I would rather protect them with equal threat of violence than with angry words and protest.
