Teachers, books and bullets

An educator

Regarding “Trump says arming teachers in schools ‘Up to States’ (HoustonChronicle.com, Saturday), I am a teacher at a large public high school. I am not a law enforcement officer. If I wanted to be in law enforcement, I would have done that. I am not a soldier. If I wanted a career in the military, I would have done that.

I am an educator, meaning I am already a reasonable expert on a wide diversity of topics including several fields in the life sciences, education practices, state education requirements and assessments, social and learning behaviors of adolescents, a wide range of technology, social media advising and life coaching. My plate is full. The idea of arming teachers is nothing more than a marketing campaign to sell more guns and is a full-throated diversion from the idea that weapons of war do not belong in the general population.

The NRA is not operating from a moral imperative; it is purely a business lobby designed only to promote the sale of guns. We have lost sight of any common sense values in this debate. No one is advocating rescinding the 2nd Amendment and shame on the NRA for propagating that myth. This is solely about removing weapons of mass destruction from our everyday lives. Lisa Estill, Houston

Think prevention

Regarding "Push to prevent further tragedies ramps up" (Page A1, Saturday), at long last, the movement to arm teachers and staff members in our schools is getting some fair scrutiny in the press. Meanwhile, Houston's police chief, Art Acevedo continues to pooh pooh the movement and asks “Do we really want to see cases of a teacher’s gun discharging and hitting a student?”

The problem for Acevedo is that since 2012, nearly 1 in 7 school districts across Texas have allowed teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons, but there has not been a single instance of a teacher even discharging a firearm on campus, much less shooting a student. And many of these campuses also advertise that school staff is armed, introducing a gratifying uncertainty into the lives of potential mass shooters.

Acevedo needs to open his mind to the groundbreaking work being done elsewhere, instead of simply blaming guns for everything. It is clear from the experience in those 172 Texas school districts that guns in the hands of good people is the solution, not the problem. Pete Smith, Cypress