Far too often, we've seen what happens when there's no one in a school willing or able to act to stop a mass murderer.
From Columbine to Virginia Tech to Parkland to Uvalde, those with evil intentions have been able to slaughter innocent people with no resistence.
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Those of us who talk about arming teachers are often scorned for the mere suggestion. Some of those doing the scorning are, in fact, teachers.
Including some who have survived mass shootings, such as this one who taught at The Covenant School in Nashville on that faithful day.
Nashville Covenant school teacher on bill to arm teachers: “I simply cannot imagine how I could have pulled out a gun with 10 children under foot and in my arms. I think of all the terrible things that could have gone wrong had I had a gun.”
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 15, 2024
“I simply cannot imagine how I could have pulled out a gun with 10 children under foot and in my arms. I think of all the terrible things that could have gone wrong had I had a gun,” she said, arguing her job was to "secure" the area rather than take out the killer.
Well, that's fine. If you don't want to carry a gun and don't think you should carry a gun, literally no one is seeking to force you to.
That's the thing that irks me about this debate. "I don't want to carry a gun so I oppose the law that would allow me to do so."
No one is trying to mandate teachers carry firearms. This bill certain doesn't.
What it does is allow those who wish to carry a gun to have a pathway to do so. It requires school board approval and it requires the teacher or staff member to attend 40 hours of law-enforcement training at their own expense, all so they can have the means to protect themselves.
What the teacher in the above video fails to acknowledge is that her area was anything but secure. She talks about trying to calm the kids so they didn't make a loud noise, but what if the killer had shown up anyway? What could she have done to make that area more secure?
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Carrying a gun is certainly one way to do it.
"But law enforcement was on the way."
Yes, they were, and in Nashville, they did it right. They entered the building almost immediately, engaged the killer, and ended the threat.
But what about Uvalde? What about Parkland or Columbine? At least in Columbine, they followed what was then standard procedure, but Uvalde and Parkland both saw police wait outside despite knowing the standard response to was to entire the building and find the attacker. Had that been the case in Nashville, she might not be there to pontificate on why she shouldn't be permitted to carry a gun.
It's funny to me how often the anti-gun side uses "I don't want to have a gun" to be justification for "You shouldn't have a gun." None of us are trying to mandate they own a firearm. We just want the choice.
And while so many who oppose this law try to claim teachers don't want it, they're focused on teachers like this. They're ignoring that it only takes one who does to change the nature of an attack from a national tragedy to a story that barely makes it beyond the local papers.
