I have been on vacation and was pretty stunned to read this during my brief trip back home to Iowa. I can’t seem to fathom the thinking of this legislator.
In light of the recent school shootings, a Wisconsin legislator says that next year he will propose a measure in the Wisconsin state legislature that would allow teachers and other school staff to carry a concealed weapon during the school day. The legislator, a republican named Frank Lasee from Green Bay, states that the staff would only be allowed to carry the concealed weapon after they have very extensive weapons training.
Lasee states that he wants to end the shootings that have occurred, is a representative in a Green Bay area where a school-shooting plot was recently discovered and put to a halt. Lasee also states that arming teachers is by no way a means to an end for school violence but he does believe it will help to make schools and children safer.
I have to laugh at all of this. To be honest, I am not sure what the man is thinking. Perhaps he is just upset over the wave of violence hitting our schools lately. I can’t blame him; I am upset also. I don’t, however, think arming teachers is a way to curb violence. I think it could only make a bad situation even worse.
I taught students with behavior problems, I can just imagine if I were carrying a weapon when one of them had a huge behavior explosion. Lost in anger and not able to cool down, my students had, at times, destroyed our classroom. I can imagine if I had a weapon, just what could have happened. I am trained in restraint techniques, I used them on students twice my size.
However, I can imagine should a student lose control and overpower me, grab my concealed weapon and just let loose a hail of gunfire throughout my classroom or the school. I am barely five foot tall and not much more than 100 pounds; it wouldn’t be hard for a student to do this. And let’s face it, even the though the gun I would carry would be concealed, kids know things, they would figure out that teachers had guns. It wouldn’t be difficult to figure something like that out, especially if the media announced it.
I can say though, that I would never carry a gun. Ever. I would especially never carry a gun into my place of employment and I would never carry a gun around a bunch of students in a school setting. To me, the entire idea of having teachers carry guns to protect students is pretty absurd. I honestly believe that it would lead to more loss of life than this legislator could ever imagine.
Our goal is to get guns and violence out of schools, not take them into the schools.
What do you all think? Would teachers carrying guns make schools safer? My opinion is of course, NO!