In the wake of the Parkland High School shooting tragedy, President Donald J. Trump has continuously suggested arming teachers and school staff. His opinion, which reflects that of many American gun owners, is that a good guy on-site with a gun can immediately respond to a bad guy with a gun.
With police response time being around 5 to 7 minutes, any gunman armed with a semi-automatic weapon can inflict a lot of harm in that time. Instead of having teachers surrender by just using their bodies as human shields, there would now be the opportunity for teachers to shoot back.
To the liberal reader of this article, I must first state that nobody is calling for just handing out weapons to any and every adult in a school. We are merely asking for volunteers who would want to carry firearms during their day on campus or in school. Obviously, we would want every person to have a background check and then go through both physical and mental evaluations. Those who pass should then be trained initially, and then in a continuous ongoing manner.
Of course, with any school shooting or mass shooting, the calls for gun control become deafening from the media, liberal groups, and politicians. Proposing actual “common sense” solutions instead of impotent regulations causes irrational and futile arguments from these groups.
I have compiled a list of answers to these tired arguments against arming teachers or school staff.
There was an armed “good guy” at Parkland and it helped no one.
Sadly, this is a factual statement, but it is misdirection. The deputy sheriff on-site failed to enter the building while the shooting was occurring. His actions are suspect at best, and cowardice at worst.
With a student population of over 3,000, one lone officer on campus is a mere cosmetic appearance of “security.” There should have been multiple armed staff ready to respond throughout the many areas and buildings of this very large campus. Many would have already been inside the building with a pulse on the situation.
In military terms, it is called “redundancy.” That’s a fancy way of saying “a backup plan.” If there were multiple armed good guys at Parkland, the probability of all of them cowering without responding would be extremely low. If the teachers had had a firearm, how many lives could have been saved?
Who’s going to pay for it? Where will you get the money?
First, is this really a question that even needs to be asked? When did children’s lives become less important than money? All we ever see from the left is more and more programs spending money on the oft-repeated phrase “it’s for the children.” (Maybe we should stop feeding kids all 3 meals for free to pay for their security. Maybe parents can feed their own kids instead?)
Also, many Americans, like myself, would gladly chip and to help arm and train teachers at our children’s schools. Hell, I would even donate my personal every day carry, a Glock 19 to a trusted teacher/staff member in my son’s school.
There are tons of local and regional firearm training companies who would step up and donate their time.
Also, the left’s most hated organization, the NRA, would surely contribute in a large way. It’s what they do.
I wouldn’t trust teachers with guns.
We trust these same teachers with the safety of our children every day already. They have knives. They drive cars. They distribute food and drink to the students sometimes. They have plenty of opportunity to hurt our children already, yet they do not.
As I mentioned above, we would also want them to be trained and/or certified with the use of their firearm.
Multiple armed teachers would ensure that one doesn’t have the only firearm in school (again, “redundancy”).
The children will be scared at the sight of guns.
We are asking for the firearms to be carried concealed. It protects the gun and ensures that the teacher carrying is not established as a primary target by any potential future shooters.
Also, our children see firearms all the time. Police in uniform carry sidearms in plain sight, sometimes on school grounds or in classrooms.
Perhaps it’s time to teach the children the common-sense lesson that inanimate objects do not kill people?
Multiple guns in any school will cause a crossfire during a situation.
During training sessions, the teachers and staff will see each other and know the other armed individuals in the school buildings. A trained person should not blindly fire without first knowing at what he/she is shooting.
Police won’t know the good guys from the bad.
Most school shootings are over before the police even arrive anyway. However, a system can be set up during training classes for the officers to be able to recognize the “good guys.” It could be some type of sign or a closely guarded code word to yell to the officers.
As I stated above, a trained police officer should not shoot at a target he or she has not clearly identified as a threat.
I am certain that other irrelevant arguments will be attempted against arming qualified and trained teachers and school staff.
I will close this article asking a question of those who oppose this potential law/policy: If you had a child in a school where an evil, well-armed shooter was about to go on a killing spree, would you want teachers there to be able to shoot back?
If you are honest, your answer must be “yes,” because you would want your child’s chance of survival to increase, and then you are a hypocrite.
If your answer is “no,” then you are a dishonest fool who is letting their own anti-gun ideology/fear override their baseless claims of only looking out “for the children.”
John Cylc is a conservative Christian and eight year U.S. Army veteran who primarily speaks out on the Second Amendment, gun rights issues, and contemporary topics. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he currently resides with his wife and youngest son in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in beautiful East Tennessee. He is the founder of ThirteenFox.com and a contributor to LifeZette. To read more of his reports — Click Here Now.
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