April 4, 2013

• Gunning up and your local school building...

  I've been pondering this post for quite some time.  No matter how I write this, I am bound to offend one or more groups of individuals and their beliefs.

  Not that such offenses will stop me.

  So...here goes.

  Wayne LaPierre, spokes-mouth of the NRA has put forth a multi-hundred page proposal for arming the school buildings of our nation. 

  English teacher everywhere just sighed and said, "No, the buildings were not armed...the people were."  (Offense number 1)

  In this proposal, the NRA would promote the training of individuals, paid or already working in the building, who would be armed to guard against the intruder who will blast his or her way into the building with intent to harm those inside.

  While such incidents have happened, the number of such incidents is incrementally SMALL....if you take the number of incidents and compare them to the number of school buildings in this country, the chances of an outside intruder coming in and creating the kind of mayhem found at Newtown or Columbine are really, really small.

  Individuals who firmly believe that armed intruders are not a question of IF but WHEN and now huffing mightily.  (Offense number 2)

  I am not minimizing that these incidents have happened.  They have. With tragic results and innocent lives lost unnecessarily.

  But I'm not running in a blind panic believing for a minute that there are armed armies, not unlike the zombie hordes that live in the imaginations of so many, who are just lying in wait to storm PS 101 and create a killing field.

  Those who did not read carefully what was written and believe that I am being merely an innocent are now offended.  (Offense number 3)

  I do not believe that we need armed forces in our buildings and I believe that promoting laws that require such armed forces are misguided.

  Those who believe that guns are the only answer to the madness are now offended.  (Offense number 4)

  Will there be more incidents of guns being  toted by the angry and the mad and will some of those guns find their way into school buildings?  Perhaps.  But I do not believe that such a scenario is as inevitable as the NRA and the panicked would have you believe.

  Those who believe that I don't put the safety of kids first are now offended.  (Offense number 5)

  No one has convinced me that introducing weapons into a school building will create a safer environment.  I work in a high school.  I've seen behaviors of the mentally ill, the suicidal and the goofballs who might think that getting a hold of a gun and waving it around would be a good idea.  Using the math, the more guns in a school, the MORE likely it is for there to be incidents, accidental or intentional, where guns go off and people are killed or injured.

  Those who believe that we cannot train people to work with guns safely have now branded me a gun hater.  (Offense number 6)

  Unless the NRA, who gains by more gun sales and interest in guns, is willing to put its money where its mouth is and actually fund these gun toting protectors of the schools, then those hired to patrol the schools will most likely be those hired at minimum wage and who cannot get better jobs.

  Those who believe that I don't want to support the local economy are now offended.  (Offense number 7)

  Former policemen and military personal may be available, but forgive me if I happen to believe that their training (great in weapons, seeing everyone else as a potential perpetrator) might not be the best group to have in a school building where kids often act in ways that may be construed by some as threatening when they are, in actuality, merely goofy.

  Those who believe that I am anti military and anti police are now offended.  (Offense number 8)

  Perhaps it is time to step back and take a deep breath about protecting our school buildings.  At the moment, our new normal includes having all doors locked and closed.  That, we have been told by the police, will keep armed intruders out and the school population safe.

  But what if the intruder isn't an intruder after all?  What if the gun is in the room?  If the door is locked and no one can get out, then the locked room becomes a barrel in which to shoot the innocent.

  I appreciate that the police are working with their training and mindset.  But the police prefer to work with their clientele kept in cuffs or behind bars.  Students are not that clientele.  Creating an armed encampment to keep them safe creates a mindset that this is how society should be kept.  If you can't see the problem with that, I pity you.

  And now I have offended those who believe that whatever the police say we ought to do is what we must do.  Ever heard of a police state?  It is ironic that those who scream the most about the second amendment are the same folks who want a police state in our school buildings. 

  And now I've offended the conservatives.  (Offense number 9)

  Banning gun ownership is not the answer.  Barricading schools with armed guards is not either.  We need to step back, take a deep breath and institute some common sense protections into our schools without turning them into armed encampments.

  Ok, that should just about wrap up offending everyone else.  (Offense number 10)

   

   

  • 8:30 pm
  • 7 Comments