NC Legislator Suggests Arming Educators: Gun Worship Continues in the Tarheel State

In February, in the aftermath of the Stoneman Douglas, I posted my opinion about the idea of arming educators. (Arming Educators: A Bad, Smelly Idea That Won't Go Away) Now, even with two month's perspective and email exchanges and personal discussions with both proponents and opponents, it still smells as bad as it did then. Turning our schools into armed camps just isn't the answer. Yet, one of our very own North Carolina legislators is still sounding the call for gun-toting educators roaming the halls of our buildings. What's worse, he's saying that if they (the legislators) don't arm our teachers, administrators, and others within our schools, then "their blood will be on the hands" of the state legislators (see "NC Legislator Says Children's Blood 'Will Be On Our Hands' If State Doesn't Allow for Armed Teachers").

I can think of several things that could happen if guns were suddenly a prominent appliance within the school buildings, and none of them are good. One of these possible scenarios seems even more probably after a Stoneman Douglas teacher was arrested for leaving a loaded gun in a public restroom (see "Stoneman Douglas Teacher Arrested After Leaving Gun in Public Restroom"). I can only imagine an absent-minded and distracted teacher doing the same within a school by leaving a loaded gun on their desk or in a restroom. Or, a student wrestling away a gun from a teacher in anger, then unloading it on that teacher and anyone else standing by. The bottom line is that the potential for harm is greater than any possible deterrent value that gun might have.

But I honestly didn't mean for this post to get back into the argument about arming teachers; what I really wanted to point out that this NC legislator's argument and call to arm teachers points actually to the cause of all this violence in the first place.

It may be rather simple: We Americans put all our faith in the ability of firearms to solve all or most of our problems. After all, when our forefathers settled the score with the British, and when developing our Constitution, they made sure that if a pesky tyrannical government every arises again, "We'll be ready for'em." Our guns, with this way of thinking, are a necessary deterrent for anything seen as our enemy. That's often the spoken and unspoken rationale for the 2nd Amendment too. But perhaps at heart, we as Americans have settled so many of our differences with guns, and naturally, like Mr. Pittman, our North Carolina legislator, arming more and more of our populace is the answer. This kind of thinking may also provide some explanation for why we like words and phrases such as "Shoot first and ask questions later," or "Go ahead, make my day." We simply have an infallible faith in the power of Smith and Wesson as the means to solving our societal problems. That thinking will probably be the end of us though.

But getting back to Mr. Pittman's call for arming educators. It is still a "trainwreck" of an solution. It is also amazing how he can try to make a "moral" argument for carrying a weapon, but then again, that seems to be how we solve our problems.

The bottom line is that until we begin to see that our real enemy is ourselves, none of this gets resolved. Having a bunch of gun-toting teachers and administrators isn't the answer, unless, of course, your want to turn out schools into battlefields.

Arming Educators: A Bad, Smelly Idea That Won't Go Away

NOTE: I originally published this post when the calls to arm educators began after Sandy Hook. It seems with every school shooting, the knee-jerk response by politicians is to once again turn to arming educators. North Carolina Republican lawmaker Larry Pittman once again renewed his
"educator-call-to-arms." (See "NC Republican Wants to Arm Teachers in Response to Florida Shooting.") For politicians who have accepted thousands of dollars from the NRA this isn't surprising; the NRA successfully promotes the interests of gun manufacturers, helping protect the ability of these manufactures to sell these weapons.

At any rate, the arguments and questions I had about arming educators in 2012 are still relevant today.

After the Sandy Hook incident in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been a flood of calls by lawmakers and news pundits on the news networks to call for allowing educators and school employees to carry weapons as a part of their regular duties. That is a Bad idea!

While I understand some people place a lot of faith in Smith and Wesson, I however, do not share that same faith. Introducing a weapon into a school environment, even if that weapon is being carried by a well-meaning individual, has the potential to be disastrous  on so many levels it’s unfathomable. I will concede that I am not opposed to a law enforcement officer being hired to do this, if having gun in the building will allay the fears of those who think guns are the answer, but turning our schools into armed camps is a bad idea and non-starter for me, for several reasons.

1. Keeping these guns secure at all times could be a problem. As an administrator, this would be extremely important. Even if one child were to get their hands on a misplaced or unattended weapon and harm themselves or another, it is totally unacceptable. Or, what about the situation where a teacher tries to break up a fight, and in the process, one of the students takes his gun away and starts shooting? I would not accept the death of any child or individual under these circumstances as “the price we pay for security.” In spite of the common talking point put out by the pro-gun organizations, “Guns do kill.” They kill both when criminals use them, and when “law-abiding citizens” either get careless or give in to powerful emotions and use them. Schools are often very unpredictable places, and introducing firearms into them makes them even more unpredictable and potentially volatile.  Making sure that these guns brought into the building are secure at all times is another impossible task, since we can’t even guarantee that same security in our homes and in our businesses.

2. What Detrimental effects does  “gun-carrying” on the relationships between educators and their students have? Since we do not have many instances of educators carrying guns, there is of course, no research that I am aware of for this concern. However, I can’t help but wonder how an administrator carrying a weapon suddenly changes how students and staff suddenly begin to view this individual. I’m an administrator, not a police officer. I do not wish to be seen as the “law-and-order” sheriff of my building: the one who is going to shoot the bad guy when he tries to get into our building. That kind of relationship is far removed from my current relationship with students and staff. I suspect that if educators begin carrying guns, there will be changes, even subtle changes, in the relationships between educator and student.

3. Lack of adequate fire-arms training. Filling out a form and attending a class or two hardly qualifies you to engage in using deadly force in public. Using deadly force requires making snap decisions while assessing your surrounding environment. It requires thinking like a police officer, which simply having a concealed weapon permit does not qualify you to do. No educator I know is trained to think like a law enforcement officer in these kinds of dangerous situations. Putting guns into hand of educators who do not have the kinds of gun and gun violence training in extremely volatile situations is a disaster waiting to happen.

4. Guns do kill people. The purpose of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines is to kill as many people as possible is a short period of time. As we have seen in recent events, these do that highly effectively. We already keep a number of weapons out of the hands of ordinary citizens because they have no reason to have them. Bazookas, hand grenades, and rocket launchers pose a threat because they kill people, lots of people at once. Just by saying “Guns don’t kill people” does not make it so.

There are certainly other reasons that I personally oppose arming educators. By introducing guns into our schools in the hands of our teachers, what kind of message does a “gun-toting” teacher or administrator convey? I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to worry about is having a “Rambo” as a teacher in my building.

An Innovative Way to Increase Police Presence in Schools

In the wake of Sandy Hook, there have been a number of suggestions on how to best address safety in our schools. Those suggestions have ranged from arming teachers and principals to paying for armed security guards for each building. As a building level administrator, the last thing I want in our building is an untrained person toting a weapon around. And, as I indicated earlier, I would want nothing short of having a police officer fill that role, because they have been trained to both handle the weapon properly and with handling crisis situations. My district, Newton-Conover City Schools has found an option that perhaps allows that to happen without adding an enormous amount of costs to our already tight budget. (Check out the press release here.)

My district chose to bring a police presence into each of the elementary school buildings by partnering with the Newton Police Department and by providing office space for police officers in our elementary schools. While no specific officer is assigned to these offices, any police officer may stop at the school at any time and use these offices for completing administrative tasks.

Newton Chief of Police, Don Brown, had this to say about the partnership, “We feel the presence of police officers will provide another layer of security for the schools and its students. This partnership is an opportunity for the city and the schools to work together to strengthen our community.”

Regarding this innovative solution, Newton-Conover Associate Superintendent Dr. David Stegall added, “Having police officers on campus will enhance the security measures that are already in place. Additionally, students will get the opportunity to interact with the police officers, which will encourage responsible behavior as they grow up.”

Solving the school security issue takes more than just looking for cheap, quick solutions. Those kinds of solutions only bring about even more problems. To address school safety, we need the combination of thinking outside-the-box and partnerships with our community and civic organizations.

Can Smith and Wesson Save Our Schools? Or, Will Guns Be Our Undoing?

Several weeks after Newtown, the debate about what to do to make our schools more secure continues. The NRA has called for armed guards in every school. Some school districts in Texas and Utah are arming teachers and administrators. One school district in Ohio is arming its custodians. (Montpelier Ohio School Board Votes to Arm Janitors) In typical American fashion, many reactions to the Sandy Hook tragedy have been to grip our guns even tighter and declare certain ideas like assault weapons bans and more extensive background checks as “off-limits.” We simply avoid considering that this insane insistence that “having our guns because the Second Amendment says so” is perhaps part of the problem.

The problem with the idea of arming school employees is that it will not work. Just placing a gun in the hands of a school employee with minimal firearms training is ludicrous. At minimum, these individuals need the same kind of crisis training that law enforcement officers get, and I would argue that they need to keep training continuously to ensure that they react in the same manner a police officer would in a shooting situation. If there is anyone carrying a gun in my building, I want them to know more than how to load it and shoot effectively at a target. I want them to be able to react and respond to threats just like a trained police officer would.

What happens when you simply place a gun in the hands of an individual after giving them a basic program of firearms training? Check out this ABC 20/20 special video entitled “If I Only Had a Gun.” Clearly from the video, you see why this kind of measure is simply a futile attempt to “Do Something” and avoid asking the serious questions. Each of the individuals in the video who are placed in a shooter situation are ineffective because simply having a gun will not make anyone safer. This is because individuals who lack extensive crisis situation training and experience like that obtained by law enforcement will not react in effective ways to deal with the shooter.

If we want to really deal effectively with school shootings and gun violence, we need to look for multiple solutions, not just a simple one which is how I would classify arming educators. The whole idea suggested by NRA Wayne LaPierre that “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” betrays his and many American’s misplaced idolization of the power that guns really have anyway. It is the typical “Wild West” reaction to the gun problem. "Let’s arm up, and if we have any issues we can shoot our way out of the problems." I would add this question, “ We've been doing things that way for a couple of hundred years, so how is it working out?” That the trail of gun victims continues to grow is the answer.

LaPierre and many Americans idolize the whole idea of having a gun, and perhaps that is one of the issues we need to look at as part of our multi-solution approach. We need to reflect a bit and ask ourselves why do so many Americans believe so strongly in salvation wrought by Smith and Wesson in the first place?  Are we really that afraid of ourselves and our government? Do we really see the only solution to violence is more violence? Just maybe, at the heart of our American gun problem is both the belief that guns only solve problems and not create them and a stubborn insistence on having guns in the first place because of our Second Amendment rights.

I want to be optimistic and say that we will resolve the school shooting and gun violence issue in our country, but I am not sure we are reflecting deeply enough and asking the right questions. The NRA is not going to offer anything but a gun solution because they look out for the interest of gun manufacturers, not the interests of students in our schools. I would not expect any deep reflection from them because of this. But it is inexcusable for educators to react without somehow questioning this deep American fascination  with owning guns in the first place.

Educators owe it to their kids to not oversimplify and jump at the cheapest “we-gotta-do-something” measure that comes along which is what the whole idea of arming educators looks like. I would also say that we don't need to just react and ban everything with bullets either. Instead, maybe we need to begin questioning the American idolatry of guns and why we fundamentally always believe the best response to violence is more violence.

Arming Educators Is a Bad Idea! Thoughts from a School Principal

After the Sandy Hook incident in Newtown, Connecticut, there have been a flood of calls by lawmakers and news pundits on the news networks to call for allowing educators and school employees to carry weapons as a part of their regular duties. That is a Bad idea!

While I understand some people place a lot of faith in Smith and Wesson, I however, do not share that same faith. Introducing a weapon into a school environment, even if that weapon is being carried by a well-meaning individual, has the potential to be disastrous  on so many levels it’s unfathomable. I will concede that I am not opposed to a law enforcement officer being hired to do this, if having gun in the building will allay the fears of those who think guns are the answer, but turning our schools into armed camps is a bad idea and non-starter for me, for several reasons.

1. Keeping these guns secure at all times could be a problem. As an administrator, this would be extremely important. Even if one child were to get their hands on a misplaced or unattended weapon and harm themselves or another, it is totally unacceptable. Or, what about the situation where a teacher tries to break up a fight, and in the process, one of the students takes his gun away and starts shooting? I would not accept the death of any child or individual under these circumstances as “the price we pay for security.” In spite of the common talking point put out by the pro-gun organizations, “Guns do kill.” They kill both when criminals use them, and when “law-abiding citizens” either get careless or give in to powerful emotions and use them. Schools are often very unpredictable places, and introducing firearms into them makes them even more unpredictable and potentially volatile.  Making sure that these guns brought into the building are secure at all times is another impossible task, since we can’t even guarantee that same security in our homes and in our businesses.

2. What Detrimental effects does  “gun-carrying” on the relationships between educators and their students have? Since we do not have many instances of educators carrying guns, there is of course, no research that I am aware of for this concern. However, I can’t help but wonder how an administrator carrying a weapon suddenly changes how students and staff suddenly begin to view this individual. I’m an administrator, not a police officer. I do not wish to be seen as the “law-and-order” sheriff of my building: the one who is going to shoot the bad guy when he tries to get into our building. That kind of relationship is far removed from my current relationship with students and staff. I suspect that if educators begin carrying guns, there will be changes, even subtle changes, in the relationships between educator and student.

3. Lack of adequate fire-arms training. Filling out a form and attending a class or two hardly qualifies you to engage in using deadly force in public. Using deadly force requires making snap decisions while assessing your surrounding environment. It requires thinking like a police officer, which simply having a concealed weapon permit does not qualify you to do. No educator I know is trained to think like a law enforcement officer in these kinds of dangerous situations. Putting guns into hand of educators who do not have the kinds of gun and gun violence training in extremely volatile situations is a disaster waiting to happen.

4. Guns do kill people. The purpose of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines is to kill as many people as possible is a short period of time. As we have seen in recent events, these do that highly effectively. We already keep a number of weapons out of the hands of ordinary citizens because they have no reason to have them. Bazookas, hand grenades, and rocket launchers pose a threat because they kill people, lots of people at once. Just by saying “Guns don’t kill people” does not make it so.

There are certainly other reasons that I personally oppose arming educators. By introducing guns into our schools in the hands of our teachers, what kind of message does a “gun-toting” teacher or administrator convey? I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to worry about is having a “Rambo” as a teacher in my building.