Have Gun, Will Teach

Illustration by Barry Gremillion

 Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Oak Creek. Tuscon. Mass shootings, school shootings, domestic terrorism, and domestic violence. They float through the news cycle daily, and I don’t pay much attention any more. Then came Newtown. At first, it seemed like all the others: some crazy guy with a semi-automatic weapon shoots and kills and wounds, then takes his own life. I’d heard it all before.

      Until I read that it happened in an elementary school. Until I learned that most of those killed were children under the age of 6. I couldn’t hide from that. It has taken a few months to be able to write about it. As expected, the shooting has ignited the debate on gun control and safety in schools. Again.

     And even now, one idea is taking root across the country, and it makes me boil: teachers can stop school shootings if they are allowed to carry weapons. Yes, of course, that’s the answer. Let teachers have guns. If the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary had been armed, they could have stopped Adam Lanza, or at least prevented him from targeting the school in the first place. That’s bullshit. There’s no denying the acts of heroism that occurred at Sandy Hook that day: from the principal and the teachers who died protecting the children, to the neighbor down the street who sheltered six students he found sitting at the end of his driveway. But giving teachers guns to prevent school shootings is insane.

     And guess what? It’s already happened in the Harrold Independent School District, a small community northwest of Dallas, Texas. According to an article written by Philip Hodges (Texas School District Arms Faculty with Concealed Handguns, 12/18/2012), Harrold has 110 students, 15 teachers, “specialized security locks, video surveillance, and an undisclosed number of teachers carrying concealed handguns.”

     Implemented in 2008, only the superintendent and the school board know which teachers participate in the “Guardian Plan”. The Guardians have conceal and carry permits from the state, receive a small annual stipend, and use only frangible bullets, which crumble into small pieces on impact with a target. According to the superintendent, David Thweatt, “We insist upon them because we don’t want a bullet to ricochet and hit a child.”  He makes this sound perfectly reasonable. The fact that guns might be fired in a classroom with twenty-two children doesn’t seem to be a problem at all, as long as the bullets don’t bounce around, which, I’m sure, isn’t something a shooter thinks about before entering a school with his semi-automatic AR15 assault rifle.

     The district couldn’t afford a security guard, but they did provide training and handguns for the teachers. “As educators, we don’t have to be police officers…we just have to be accurate. We are 18 miles and 30 minutes from the nearest police station,” says Thweatt, “so we are our first responders. If something happened, we would have to protect our children. The police are true, everyday heroes, but often get to the scene when it’s too late.” Parents embraced this plan in Harrold because they believe shootings happen in places where a gunman knows there’s little resistance.

    But something is missing from the conversation here. Once a child crosses the threshold into the classroom, there’s a relationship between teachers and students that allows learning to happen. Teachers work to create an environment of trust and safety and respect, a community of learners where it’s okay for everyone to make mistakes, take risks and be curious. If teachers carry guns, the learning relationship changes. As a kid, if I know my teacher is carrying a gun, I would work really hard not to make him or her mad, do what I was told, and not question anything. Kids will know who those teachers are, no matter how much adults convince themselves they don’t. If teachers are armed, children will lose the ability to speak out. Schools won’t be places to think or create or challenge. It won’t happen if teachers have guns. Guns mean power.

     As a teacher, especially on those long, stressful, exhausting days with a thousand demands on my time and sanity, it would be tempting to use the concealed gun as a disciplinary tool, maybe just a pointed finger to where the gun rests against my ribs. Just a warning for those children with behavior issues I don’t have the time or energy or patience to deal with. No one wants to think a teacher might do this, and many would deny it’s even possible. But teachers are human and carry enormous responsibilities along with long hours and little recognition. They are overworked, and it doesn’t matter how much training they receive in hitting a target accurately. I worry about how effectively they can actually respond to an emergency situation as frightening as a gunman loose in the building. A handgun issued to a teacher is no match against the semi-automatic weapons favored mass shootings.

     Yet, five other states, along with other districts in Texas, are looking at training and arming teachers. What are we teaching children when we barricade ourselves inside fear?

     Of course, other possible solutions like gun control are met with lots of shouting and hysteria. We need to be armed and ready against crazy people, because having a gun is a constitutionally protected right. And that kind of thinking around the second amendment, says Beverly Bandler, (The Second Amendment’s History, 1/25/13), is why practical solutions to gun control remain difficult. Gun lobbyists and the NRA have been very effective in promoting the second amendment as sacred by lifting out only those parts that support its agenda: to sell guns. To do that, the individual must have a right to buy them. If you look at the history, as Bandler writes, the second amendment was actually about collective rights and the establishment of a militia. But in 2008, the Supreme Court upheld the interpretation put forth by the pro-gun folks – that the second amendment protects the individual’s right to purchase guns.

     Except that reducing gun violence doesn’t diminish the second amendment at all. Lots of people use guns safely and responsibly. The President’s plan to protect our children by reducing gun violence acknowledges this and includes four reasonable steps: close background check loopholes, ban military style assault weapons and high capacity magazines, make schools safer by providing funding for resource officers, counselors, and social workers, and increase access to mental health services. Let’s put money where it might actually do some good.

     When will we be able to throw away what doesn’t work and do what’s right to protect all citizens? A gun in the hands of the mentally ill is just too easy, and we’ve learned to cope with isolation, poverty, fear, anger, despair, and rejection with violence. In this, there is no sacred constitutional right.

     It’s possible teachers will be expected to put their lives on the line, and when they do, they will be applauded for their heroism. But teachers respond in classrooms with heroic acts every single day. They see and help children deal with the horror of domestic violence and abuse, drugs and poverty, bullying and pregnancy, learning disabilities and mental illness. Heroism doesn’t only show up when a shooter does.

     I don’t know if there’s one best way to protect children from shootings at school. I don’t know if the Obama Administration’s proposals will help. But arming teachers isn’t the answer.