Need to stop shooter before he picks up gun.
Kathleen Morris By KATHLEEN MORRIS
Springfield Central High
With all of the controversy and fear surrounding the issue of gun violence at school, a “solution” has entered into the discussion. This solution would be to have teachers bring their own firearms to school. Instead of storing just extra paper clips and red pens in their desks, they’d have a gun in there, too.
This suggestion is quickly moving toward becoming a reality.
According to the New York Times’ website, several states already “have provisions in their laws — or no legal restrictions — that make it possible for teachers to possess guns in the classroom.”
South Dakota has become the first state to pass a law authorizing teachers and school employees to bring firearms to school.
The problem isn’t how we stop a shooter once he or she gets into a school. It’s how we stop the shooter from picking up a gun in the first place.
Stricter gun laws that call for background checks, among other things, need to be put into place.
Putting guns in the hands of educators will not help.
Telling teachers to bring guns to school is charging them with a task for which they did not sign up.
They go from being educators to being a make-shift police force.
On the School Security website, Kenneth S. Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, puts it this way: “Suggesting that by providing teachers, principals, custodians, or other school staff with training on firing, handling, and holstering a gun is an insult to our highly trained police professionals, and a high risk to the safety of students, teachers, and other school staff.”
People who support this radical idea of arming teachers in schools are taking their cues apparently from the old adage, “Fight fire with fire.”
What they’re forgetting is that when you fight fire with fire, the fire only grows larger.