The Responsibility Project^®. Exploring what it means to do the right thing

Guns: The New Teacher’s Pets

61 Comments

September 16, 2008 by Kathy McManus

At the only school in the small farm town of Harrold, Texas, it’s not teacher’s pet that has everyone talking. 

It’s teacher’s pistol. 

In an effort to deter a Columbine-like school massacre, the local school board recently decreed that teachers could carry concealed weapons at school and in the classrooms, the first school in the U.S. to do so. 

“Country people are take-care-of-yourself-people,” explained school superintendent David Thweatt. “They’re not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.” 

The nearest police are based 17 miles away. Lacking funds to hire security guards, the school board decided that letting teachers carry guns would result in better security anyway, since an attacker wouldn’t know who might shoot him. 

Harrold’s school—which houses about one hundred students from kindergarten to high school—has a card-swipe security entry system as well as screening for visitors. But Mr. Thweatt, who calls himself as “a contingency planner,” says gun-free schools are simply targets for attack. “That’s like saying sic ’em to a dog,” he said. 

The armed teachers have received mandatory firearms training and will use special bullets designed to reduce ricocheting--in this case, off chalk boards and desks. 

Though “Don’t Mess With Texas” has long been a state mantra, making gun-toting teachers responsible for school security has some critics up in arms. “They are not trained to make life and death decisions,” said one Harrold resident. “There are too many things that could happen.” 

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said a Houston teacher’s association official. “It’s up there with the worst ideas in the history of education.” 

Tell us what you think: Should teachers be responsible for providing school security by carrying guns? Schools are expected to protect their students, but where does a teacher’s responsibility end?

61 Comments

What do you think? Leave a comment

• September 16, 2008 by Patrick Parker

  Teachers are traditionally expected to secure the environment for their students. I don't think this necessarily means they must carry weapons, but it should certainly be an option since it is probably the only option that will prove effective in deterring school shootings. Armed teachers may have prevented and almost certainly would have minimized incidents like Columbine, Pearl MS, and Virginia Tech.

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• September 22, 2008 by Melanie Burris

  I say let em. At first I was wondering why don't they hire security guards because if someone really wanted to hurt the students or teachers they could because the teachers aren't trained to be police their trained to be teachers. Just because someone has a gun doesn't mean they are not vulnerable. As long as they received proper training I am ok with it.

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• September 22, 2008 by Alan Winter

  It's about time someone showed some common sense in this country. Anyone who carries a gun should be trained. I say kudos to the school board for starting a precedent for the rest of the country to follow.

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• September 24, 2008 by Theresa D

  All I can say is I used to teach and if you knew, really knew some of these women in their personal lives you would not want them to have a gun. The teacher population is not so innocent just because they enjoy working with children. Like everyone else they have their professional lives and their personal lives. Don't pretend to know them. Schools have their "office crazies" just like everyone else does.

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• September 26, 2008 by Brandylynn

  In the described situation it seems like the most responsible solution to me.

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• September 30, 2008 by Mira

  The problem with gun violence is not that other people do not have guns to shoot back with. Honestly, that makes it more dangerous. You've successfully created a line of fire for people to get caught in, congratulations! When an innocent student is shot, do we now check the bullet to see if it was the teachers or the bad guy? Which one do we penalize? The fact that guns are so acceptable and, therefore, accessible in our society are an issue. Until we confront that head on, we are solving nothing. Now, a student does not need to bring a gun to school, he simply needs to tackle his teacher and take it! So no planning needed. More than those in a terrible enough mental position to plan it will kill. It's called a crime of passion, people. The take-care-of-yourself philosophy is clearly not working for this country. We are drowning in debt, disgustingly obese, below no power countries in health care services, and we have more gun violence in schools than anyone else.

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• October 1, 2008 by Bea Jones

  Mira, there are so many things wrong with your comments that it is hard to know where to begin. People who are trained to carry know how to defend themselves from an attacker who tries to take it away from them. Most people who are raised with guns carry them as a matter of course, use them proficiently and accurately, and treat them as tools for survival, not as potential snakes in a pocket. "Guns don't kill people - people kill people" - an irrational fear of guns is an outcome of a general irrational fear of people and fear of one's environment, and a feeling of the inability to control one's own environment. Once one CAN control one's environment, one can feel much more secure - and that security translates to others. Guns "are an issue" in this country, because anywhere in other countries that guns have been taken away by decree, crime and violence has increased, not decreased. Criminals will break the law, even to carrying guns when they are illegal. (GASP)The first thing that Nazi Germany did was to ban guns - which made anyone who carried them (other than government sanctioned officials like the SS) a criminal. This led directly to the Holocaust. As for people taking care of themselves leading to things like obesity and other things; you are so far off the mark there! When people accept responsibility for their own lives, instead of depending on government to involve, investigate, and supervise every facet of it, they are literally forced to make more responsible decisions, simply because they accept that they are solely responsible - fiscally, morally, and socially - for the outcomes.

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• October 7, 2008 by Stephen R

  Allowing them to be armed is common sense to me. If someone decides to commit an evil act and shoot people, they're not going to be stopped by a law that says "you can't have a gun" any more than they'll be stopped by the law that says "don't kill people". An armed teacher or student at Virginia tech might have turned a body count of 30+ into a body count of 2. Perfect? Of course not -- welcome to the world -- but vastly better than the alternative. To Mira -- let me get this straight: You're saying that if I have a gun, and you do not, *I* am in greater danger? That is the (il)logic behind the too-common "someone can take your gun away from you" argument.

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• October 14, 2008 by mrsgrim88

  "Taking care of yourself philosophy" not working? It's the reason we ARE a country. It's how we got here. Teachers with guns are fine with me. It wouldn't surprise me to find that some of mine carried them. Shoot, I know one did, she was my Sunday school teacher. "The Lord helps those who help themselves." she said. Oh, and Stephen's right. It's no easy thing, to get a pistol away from someone who doesn't know what they're doin', but if you carry a pistol and do, the chances are slim and none.

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• October 18, 2008 by Rachel Wilkinson

  Teachers are responsible for educating their students; not determining who does and does not pose a threat. As a student, the idea that there may be guns in my school makes me feel unsafe, but the idea that the school board would allow teachers, average citizens with minimal training, to carry them is even more frightening. The presence of guns does not deter violence, it encourages it.

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• October 18, 2008 by Pasquale Bottiglieri

  Based on what I have read, the incidents of violence in schools where guns are involved have been the result of a set of combined problems: (a) literal "dungeons and dragons" fantasy thinking probably prompted by virtual reality overexposure, (b) serious lack of reality based thinking, probably enhanced by the use of drugs, (c) access, almost unrestricted access, to weapons of all kinds, and, probably worst of all (d) consistent bullying by members of the school community. While these problems might not exist in every case, I think they are to be considered. I would rather arm teachers with a collaborative team based approach to student observation and behavior management such that an ongoing relationship with counseling staff was a primary rule. This would mean breaking down the gate keeping and the almost impenetrable boundaries that now exist around the walls of most classrooms. This is not to blame teachers in any way for the problem of life threatening violence in the classroom. Rather it is to point out what the real job of teaching, especially in the diverse public school systems has become. Teaching in that environment today has entered the realm of program management with each student a separate and distinct project within that overall program. Successful outcomes, the success of each student, requires information. In that environment, the potentially destructive student is much more apt to be profiled and resolved before a disaster occurs. I have a long list of do's and don'ts for classroom conduct. The top of that list is any words or actions which tend to belittle any other person, or which tend to rob any other student of their education time. Patterns of behavior become very apparent very quickly, even isolation, and those patterns need to be acted upon immediately and effectively through a team effort involving solid authority coupled with nurturing and support. Armed intervention is an absolute last resort that will impact the lives of everyone involved. While I agree that there has to be a consciousness that, even with our best effort, it may be necessary in an extreme case. I firmly believe that arming teachers in the classroom means that, given the well known fight or flight reaction that we know precludes rational thought, we will have lost the game of education ... period.

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• October 20, 2008 by Pro Star

  I honestly don't feel that schools need guns...not the students and definitely not the teachers. They're complaining about gangs and "STOP THE VIOLENCE"..but yet teachers are carrying around guns..I don't get it!! I would pull my kid out of the entire school board!

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