May 31
I Want to Be an Armed Teacher
I just have a few questions
By most measures, I would be the ideal teacher to arm. I've been around guns my whole life. I had a BB gun when I was a small child. At age 12, I received my first .22 rifle for hunting squirrels and rabbits, and at age 14, I received my first deer rifle. When I was in Boy Scouts, I tied for first place in a rifle competition with over 200 participants. At age 18 I joined the United States Army and qualified as an expert marksman. I had the highest score in my platoon.
I know how to handle guns.
That being said, I am more than willing to do my part to keep our schools safe by arming myself. Before we proceed with this, however, I just have one or two questions.
One thing I am curious about is the selection process as to which teachers would be armed. Would the teachers being armed be volunteers? Given the gravity of carrying a lethal weapon in a building filled with children, I cannot imagine it being otherwise. What happens in the event no one volunteers to be armed? Are we talking about possibly arming teachers who have no experience with guns and forcing them to learn how and when to use one? I think there is some work to be done in this area. Who has the final say as to which teachers are armed? The principal? The superintendent? The school board? Someone else?
While I know my way around guns reasonably well, there are some things I am rusty on. We would need to train the armed teachers how to properly handle, load, clean, and otherwise take care of a gun, but it seems like there is more to it than just that. Would we armed teachers receive some kind of tactical training? I have been trained how to take a bunker, low crawl, shoot from behind a tree, and how to use a fox hole, but the school setting is a little different. Would we receive training in how to talk someone down? Would we learn the intricacies of hostage negotiations? I never learned any of this stuff in the Army or from hunting. In those situations, I just shot stuff. I didn't need to negotiate anything. Somehow I think breaching a classroom, library, or another part of a school where children are being held hostage would be different from shooting a deer in the woods.
I also want to express my concern about the equipment I would be issued. I am guessing we teachers would be issued something along the lines of a police revolver like a .38 or a .45. There are many to choose from. I would imagine too that these handguns hold somewhere around 15 shots.
Would you think less of me if I brought up the idea teachers might need more than that? Some of these school shooters are coming in with AR-15s with large capacity clips and tactical gear that includes bulletproof vests and helmets. I think I would be outgunned approaching someone with this kind of equipment if all I had was a handgun. Is there any hope that armed teachers might also be issued Kevlar vests and helmets to level the playing field, so to speak? It seems like a reasonable request. Also, given that the police and perhaps SWAT teams might come to the school, it might be a good idea to equip teachers with radios as well so they could communicate with law enforcement officers.
At what point would I be allowed to use lethal force? Would I need to wait until the intruder shoots, or could I lay him out right away when he enters the building? What if a student in the building is found with a weapon? Could I just walk up to him and pop a cap on his ass? I need to know.
I've taken some time to scribble out a few other questions and concerns I have. Here they are:
Would teachers who wanted to be armed need to undergo some sort of psychological testing to see if they are fit to carry a gun in school? Most teachers are reasonably well-adjusted people, but teaching is a stressful occupation, you know?
Would teachers be given sidearms, or would they be given a tax deduction for buying their own, kind of like when they buy supplies for their classrooms? If schools are required to buy guns, what kind of tax increase would be needed to cover the costs? If teachers bought their own, would there be a limit on the cost to keep the tax deduction lower?
At the end of the school day, what would the armed teachers do with the gun and bullets? Would teachers be able to take the gun home with them, or would they have to turn them over to the school administration to be locked up? If they were turned in, where would the school store these guns to prevent theft? In the Army, we turned them in to our armory and a soldier walked guard duty around the building all night to ensure no one broke in.
If the teachers were allowed to take the guns home, could they use them for personal use as well, or would that be against the rules?
I'm sorry to be taking up so much of your time, but it seems like every time I think of one question, another pops up in my head. I'm like that.
Would the gun holders be publicly known? If all the students in a given school know which teachers are armed, the intruder would also know if he or she was from that school. Would being armed make this teacher a target? I also would be concerned that other teachers might see them as a badass and not like them as much.
Would the teacher receive a stipend for being a gun carrier? Coaches receive stipends for their work outside of the school day. So do the advisors of student groups, department chairs, and the like. It seems reasonable to pay a stipend of some kind to those teachers who pack, doesn't it? Or do you think the prestige alone would do the trick? Who is worth more, the armed teacher or the football coach?
Nevermind. I withdraw that question.
Teachers sometimes miss school due to illness. What happens if the gun carrier is out sick? Would there be provisions to have alternative armed teachers, or would there be enough to begin with to cover any anticipated shortages?
Under what circumstances would they be stripped of being allowed to carry? If a teacher was, say, convicted of driving while intoxicated, would they lose their position as an armed teacher? What if they were accused of unethical conduct? What if they taught CRT?
When the shooting starts, there's no telling who is going to be on the receiving end of a bullet. In what ways would these teachers be held liable? What would happen if the teacher accidentally shot a student when they meant to hit the intruder? What if they accidentally hit the principal? Would they be accused of fragging?
Would gun-carrying teachers be present at extra-curricular activities too? So far the mass shootings at schools have happened inside the school during the school day, but there is nothing preventing someone from doing it during a football or basketball game, is there?
Finally, what would happen in the event that a teacher's gun came up missing, either because the teacher misplaced it or it was stolen by a student? Teachers are misplacing things all the time. I can't tell you how many times I have had to look for my stapler or a roll of masking tape. As for the students, I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but we have some students who steal anything that isn't nailed down. Cell phones are a popular item, but I imagine making off with a teacher's sidearm would get special recognition in some circles.
One time when I was in the Army, one M-16 rifle came up missing and they shut down the entire base. No one was allowed to leave and no one was allowed to enter until the missing weapon was recovered. Would we close the school and seal it off? Would we search every student? Would the teacher whose gun was stolen be in trouble?
Arming teachers is more complicated than I first thought. It seems to me there are a lot of unanswered questions on this important topic that needs answering. Is anyone studying this important issue?
In the meantime, would anyone think ill of me if, after giving it more thought, I changed my mind about being an armed teacher?
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