The Wrong Path To School Safety

 

Following the St. Valentine's Day Massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, there has been the easily-predictable wave of calls for even more civilian disarmament, but this time it's different.  Those calling for more stringent gun control are the students of MSDHS in concert with schools all across the country.  Florida has passed a law that, among other things, raises the minimum age for buying a long gun to 21; federal law sets the minimum age at 18 for long guns and 21 for handguns.  Unspoken by the mainstream media is that the student protests, including rented buses for getting their voices to Tallahassee and Washington DC, are being funded by deep-pocket anti-gun organizations like Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety among others.

Naturally, politicians of all stripes are paying rapt attention to these teenagers.  They're not old enough to exercise most of their rights, but they're clearly old enough to have opinions on everybody else's rights.  It's not a surprise that Democrat politicians have jumped on the "Throw Lots Of Money At The Problem" bandwagon, but the GOP (you know, the ones the NRA buys with their campaign contributions) seems to have signed on as well.  Heck, even Governor Scott is happy to squirt a half billion of somebody else's dollars at it if it seems like it will pick up a few extra votes for Senator Scott when he's term-limited out of the Governor's mansion.

Why not the — to the gun-rights proponents — more sensible tactic of allowing properly-trained teachers to carry on the job?  This suggestion is always answered by a litany of strawman arguments:  teachers aren't supposed to be cops;  the majority of teachers don't want any more guns in their classrooms;  if you make me carry a gun, I'll quit;  what happens when a teacher accidentally shoots a student?;  and on and on...

Most of those arguments are based on pure fantasy or pure fatalism.

Teachers aren't supposed to be cops.  And nobody wants them to be, least of all the teachers themselves.  That said, a recent survey suggests that 1-in-5 teachers would, if they were legally permitted, bring their own firearm with them.  Did you catch that?  Their own firearm.  No additional expense to an already overbloated school budget for "supplying guns to teachers".  Those teachers already have firearms with which they are conversant, and with which they train — probably more often than the deputies who will be called to respond to the next school shooting.

And there will be a 'next one'.  Nothing that has been proposed so far will prevent another school shooting.  The best you can hope for is to minimize the damage.  Oddly, having teachers ready to respond immediately to a shooting may be the best option:  in the 14 states that now permit armed teachers, there have been no (0) school shootings since that policy went into effect.

The majority of teachers don't want...  What if a majority of teachers didn't want a School Resource Officer present, either?  Would you consider that something we should all pay attention to, or would you say "don't be stupid!"?  Why should a bloc of teachers who are of one mind endanger the safety of the entire school?

Oh, you think keeping teachers disarmed enhances the safety of the school?  If we look at "concealed carriers" as a class (and, yes, any teacher who goes armed would have to have a concealed carry license) and compare them against "law enforcement officers" as a class, we find something very odd:  licensed concealed carriers are more law-abiding than are the police — they even return their library books on time — and when they have to shoot, it is the police who are 5.5 times more likely to shoot an innocent bystander.  You're worried about the teachers?  Worry about your SROs!

If you make me carry a gun, I'll quit.  Nobody will make anybody carry a gun (and you know it).  Those teachers who volunteer and who demonstrate proficiency will be the only ones (legally) carrying, and since it's concealed, neither other teachers nor the students will know who is or who isn't.

What happens when a teacher unintentionally shoots a student?  It's silly to suggest that no teacher will ever unintentionally shoot a student who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing.  It is going to happen.  That unlucky student is more likely to be shot by the SRO (see above), and if that 'bad shoot' happens in conjunction with a real school-shooting event, it's fair to wonder about the odds of dying in a school without armed teachers.

If you have an open mind, you may by now be rethinking your objections to the notion of "teachers as first responders".  School shootings are like terrorist incidents:  they happen at random and without warning (that authorities pay attention to).  Because they are a diffuse phenomenon, any response, to be reasonably effective, must also be diffuse.  The remedy must be wide-spread to the point that at any moment and in any place you can say with confidence "we're prepared".

Sure, you can splash money all over the problem and get very, very close to an ideal solution.

Or you can treat your teachers as if they actually have a brain and let those who are willing provide the best solution.

For free.