bang, you’re dead

Do you really want your kid’s teacher packing in the classroom? Really? Boy oh boy I am neither a sociologist nor an education or behavioral expert but even MJE can see the (literal) fatal flaws in this idiotic idea. The conald has revised his blanket suggestion that all teachers be armed to a vague recommendation that only teachers that are “adept” with guns should carry. Hmmmm. Adept, does that mean someone who can hit a target in the protected confines of a gun range? Or someone who is a pretty good deer hunter? Or maybe someone who is terrific on his or her playstation shooting up all the aliens?

Proficiency with a gun is obviously vital, but what about the psychological ability of an educator to actually shoot another human being, even in a relatively calm situation of danger. Never mind in a chaotic atmosphere of panicked students and staff members wildly running amidst a hail of gunfire? What are the chances that the armed teacher would remain icy calm, take accurate aim at the gunman and hit him (I just say him because virtually all mass shooters are men…another good topic to explore) without harming any innocents? I imagine those odds are pretty slim.

I think perhaps a far more likely scenario might be a student who gets pissed off at another student or his teacher and advances on the teacher, overwhelms him or her, takes the gun or gets the key to the drawer where it is locked and is so pumped up that he just starts shooting. Or say a troublemaker kid starts towards the teacher in a menacing manner, does that teacher have the psychological capacity to take out a gun and shoot the unarmed student? Without the availability of a gun there might instead be a fist fight in the hall or a melee on the playground, leaving some bruises, black eyes and detention slips when it’s all over. No one is dead or mortally wounded and there are no traumatized and heart broken survivors.

And what are the consequences for the armed teacher who may commit murder or inflict grave injury on an unarmed student? Censure, suspension, criminal charges? Even without any punishment, would that teacher ever be able to face going back to teach her students as though nothing had ever happened. I suspect that he or she would be damaged forever from the terrible guilt.

And now we have the news that the armed and trained broward county deputy charged with protecting the students from harm at parkland simply stayed outside the building “in a defensive posture” as he heard the gunfire inside. He couldn’t bring himself to do what he was actually trained and hired for. When the gunfire stopped and the bodies lay dead on the floor he finally summoned the courage to enter. Which begs the question, if this experienced person could not handle the situation, why in the world would anyone expect mr peplum in the department of fashion design and teacher of the wildly popular ap class “from the bustle to the hustle” or mrs cruller in the cafeteria, who can serve up 500 lunches, tray to trash, in under 30 minutes, to be more effective in such harrowing circumstances. The idea is absurd on its face and its being put forth by the president is the highest form of crass political gamesmanship. He glibly throws this red meat to his base, knowing full well that it has absolutely no chance of going anywhere. Then when the next school shooting happens, and it will, he will puff himself up in righteous indignation saying if they’d only listened to me those kids would be alive today. Using dead children to promote oneself politically is truly the vilest form of indecency I know of.