Teachers With Guns: Don’t Mess With Texas?
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?
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A look at the causes
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, © 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.
Pasquale Bottiglieri | 1 year, 5 months ago
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Whats wrong with people!!!
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!
Pro Star | 1 year, 4 months ago
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An actual police ...
Why not just post an actual police officer/s on the school grounds? Maryland has done this. That would take the weapon out of the hands of the teacher and put it into the hands of someone expertly trained and ready to pull the trigger if necessary. Should Mr. Science Teacher be the one who has to live with the guilt if the day comes he has to shoot somebody? That’s not really in his job description. Another option is to take some teachers who are former military or already weapons trained and put them through some sort of auxiliary police training like volunteer officers go through.
Aitch | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Teachers need guns
Not all teachers are qualified to carry guns and thus should not be required to do so. However, over 1/2 of all USA homes have guns and usually a person is trained to use them. Also, there are many ex-military people trained extensively in the use of guns. I think it is criminal to prevent a qualified teacher from defending himself and his pupils! The President of Virginia Tech should be prosecuted for his gross negligence in exposing his charges to being slaughtered by his decree that no teacher is allowed a gun.
Don Wolf | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Either/or equals nor
Many comments focus on either arming the teachers or on creating a civil environment…almost as if the two were mutually exclusive. They belong together.
Bullying and disrespect must be stopped. The weak are penalized by our tolerance of cruelty (and often, the victim is punished more severely for reacting than the perpetrator is for attacking…because the weak are an easier target for the system as well as the bully; I’ve seen the bully suspended for one day, and the victim expelled for the year!).
But there must still be someone there to protect the children. The police will tell you they are not there to keep the crime from happening; they cannot be everywhere, and we do not want a police state where they are. We have to take responsibility for protecting the weak. If that means training, so be it. If it means screening carefully for who can carry in a school, fine. But the idea that teachers as a group are not qualified to protect the innocent is absurd. That is more of the elitist idea that the people cannot be trusted, only the government. Continue down that road and you end up with a handful of enabled officials who make all the decisions for the helpless masses who cannot be trusted. I have no desire to live under such insult and oppression. That is the opposite of taking responsibility.
mygyro | 1 year, 4 months ago
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WOW
Come on people. Yeah, guns in the hands of the untrained are dangerous, but in order to carry a concealed weapon, you have to have a CCW license. To get a CCW, you have to be trained. Therefore, teachers who carry a gun will be trained. Yeah, some could be over-powered, but there are thousands of people everywhere who will train in self-defense and some places are free. Just add a CCW and self-defense and advanced self-defense to a teaching certificate – not that much trouble.
mvctc | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Wisdom Required
Let’s be realistic and wise about this. The liberals’ approach: wait your turn to die. Obviously not good. Each teacher must be evaluated through a background check to determine if they are capable of handling a gun. The principal would have the final say because he/she would have a feel for the temperament of a teacher. A new teacher may have to be in the system for a while to build trust. Many teachers are ex-military or grew up hunting, shooting, etc… Many of them would be fine with it. Training once per quarter at the local police facility. And of course put some of the other procedures in place: screen/profile students for possible attackers; Random, unannounced metal detector checks;no-bullying policies (gee,traditional discipline IS important, isn’t it). Do teachers have to have guns? what about Tasers? stun guns? pepper spray? at least communication devices. I left my last school, run by a hopeless liberal. Gangs were taking over, teachers on duty were not trusted with radios, security guards usually AWOL, recurring discipline problems…I did not feel safe, so I left. Now where I teach, the liberal administrators just rely on luck that nothing has happened and that the community is pretty upscale, but that means nothing. They have absolutely nothing in place to protect us, other than lock down, where you lock the door and wait for them to blast the window out and stick the gun barrel in…or just reach in and turn the handle, and come in….One deputy in the school, that’s it. That’s not enough. Columbine was a team, they could take him out, the element of surprise. Liberalism is a social suicide mental disorder.
Richard Howell | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Police Type Training
It’s a good idea as long as the teachers get the proper training. By proper training I mean police academy type training. In New York State, the police handgun training lasts two weeks and more than one thousand rounds are fired through out the course. The Penal Law of Self Defense, Article 35, is reviewed and a written test must be passed. By knowing the law, police cadets know when they are authorized to use deadly physical force to protect civilians and/or themselves. All police cadets must pass a final course of fire to be qualified to carry the departmental issued sidearm. Police personnel must qualify with their gun, at the minimum, every twelve months. If that’s the kind of training that the teachers would receive to carry guns in the school, then I am in favor of this. The teachers should also receive self defense training as police officers do. Not all teachers that apply for the testing will pass the training because not everyone can shoot effectively under stress. I’m sure someone will comment on my post so I will comment more on the subject later. I know guns don’t belong in a school, but we need properly trained and armed good guys to prevent illegally armed bad guys from taking any more lives in schools. By keeping capable teachers from carrying handguns is not going to stop scumbags from coming up with and carrying out new plans. And a total ban on guns is not the solution. All a new gun ban does is to keep legally registered and owned firearms out of the hands of law abiding, tax paying citizens but does nothing to get the illegal guns that are already there off the streets.
Dave Darmstedter | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Why not just get rid of the police...
All ideas may have some merit and may mitigate the individual circumstances from which they arise as a possible option for a response. But, that does not mean it has no unintended consequences and it may well bring in more trouble than it solves. Why stop with teachers? Let us arm everyone: the bank teller, the Wal-Mart butcher, the Postal office worker, the hospital nurse. Train all of them and use the money we now spend on training police.
This debate is no longer about school safety or educating our children right but about guns and gun control in reverse. Basically we are all safer if we were all armed and ready for any armed threat and who will protect us from our armed defenders? While we are at this topic, why not also do away with the judges? Let us train our burger flippers to also spin some justice in their spare time. All it needs is some training.
uk | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Common Sense
I agree with Don. Although I do not believe teachers should be required to carry guns. However, those who have been trained (such as ex-military or police officers) should be allowed to carry them. The point of concealed hand guns is that no one knows who does and does not have one. That reduces the chance of violence and creates a deterrent for some kid to decide to just take things in his own hands.
If not, it will certainly reduce the damage done, if they do. Police are a great idea, but they announce who to take out first in an attack. All persons who can carry a concealed hand gun have had training on how to use them.
Let the attacker wonder, who and where? Just makes common sense to me. If this is made available, I do not believe that teachers should be held responsible for defending themselves and others any more than an AED responder is held to the standards of a doctor. The answer may be to have both Police Officers/Security Guards and teachers.
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Pam Strasser | 1 year, 4 months ago
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