Liberty Mutual wants to know if teachers should carry guns

Teachers are responsible for educating their students; not determining who does and does not pose a threat. As a student, the idea that there may be guns in my school makes me feel unsafe, but the idea that the school board would allow teachers, average citizens with minimal training, to carry them is even more frightening. The presence of guns does not deter violence, it encourages it.

• Rachel Wilkinson

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Based on what I have read, the incidents of violence in schools where guns are involved have been the result of a set of combined problems: (a) literal “dungeons and dragons” fantasy thinking probably prompted by virtual reality overexposure, (b) serious lack of reality based thinking, probably enhanced by the use of drugs, © access, almost unrestricted access, to weapons of all kinds, and, probably worst of all (d) consistent bullying by members of the school community. While these problems might not exist in every case, I think they are to be considered.

I would rather arm teachers with a collaborative team based approach to student observation and behavior management such that an ongoing relationship with counseling staff was a primary rule. This would mean breaking down the gate keeping and the almost impenetrable boundaries that now exist around the walls of most classrooms.

This is not to blame teachers in any way for the problem of life threatening violence in the classroom. Rather it is to point out what the real job of teaching, especially in the diverse public school systems has become. Teaching in that environment today has entered the realm of program management with each student a separate and distinct project within that overall program. Successful outcomes, the success of each student, requires information.

In that environment, the potentially destructive student is much more apt to be profiled and resolved before a disaster occurs.

I have a long list of do’s and don’ts for classroom conduct. The top of that list is any words or actions which tend to belittle any other person, or which tend to rob any other student of their education time. Patterns of behavior become very apparent very quickly, even isolation, and those patterns need to be acted upon immediately and effectively through a team effort involving solid authority coupled with nurturing and support.

Armed intervention is an absolute last resort that will impact the lives of everyone involved. While I agree that there has to be a consciousness that, even with our best effort, it may be necessary in an extreme case. I firmly believe that arming teachers in the classroom means that, given the well known fight or flight reaction that we know precludes rational thought, we will have lost the game of education … period.

• Pasquale Bottiglieri

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Why do you agree that permitting teachers to be armed at school means we have "lost the game of education"?

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As a suggestion, I'd propose that armed teachers be required to take and pass the same course that their state requires for the firearms portion of armed security guard certification/licensing. Teachers are required to take x number of hours of training per year anyhow, and I can see substituting this for a few of those hours currently devoted to less-productive endeavors.

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skidmark wrote:

As a suggestion, I'd propose that armed teachers be required to take and pass the same course that their state requires for the firearms portion of armed security guard certification/licensing. Teachers are required to take x number of hours of training per year anyhow, and I can see substituting this for a few of those hours currently devoted to less-productive endeavors.

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Now to spin off that....

If you require teachers to take special training to carry, firearms that they carry everywhere else without mandated training, into a school; then you're acknowleding that a school is a special place that needs extra-special gun rules. I don't know if you're for campus carry or not, but making that acknowledgment would solidify the impossibility of us students being able to carry at school.

I'm not against teacher firearms training... but then again I'm FOR everyone having mandated training. In my world everyone would need to pass the same training, so schools wouldn't get the designation of some "special" place that only "qualified" people can carry to. Everyone would be qualified and everyone would be equal, everywhere.

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