Arming teachers
Regarding “Yes, it has come to this: It’s time to arm teachers,” (June 9): No, no, no! The answer to gun violence is not more guns. We already have more guns than people, unlike other countries. More guns hasn’t fixed anything yet; what makes anyone think it will work this time?
Arming teachers may sound good on paper, but it’s wrong. I taught for 16 years. At no point did I ever have a place to lock up my purse. Where would a gun be stored, away from students?
Maybe Ms. Parker and others are envisioning teachers wandering among desks with a gun strapped to their hip. Given cases in which criminals have taken weapons from trained law enforcement, how can a teacher be expected to prevent a student from grabbing their gun? Even if every student behaves as one would hope, how unnerving and distracting would it be to have an armed person hovering nearby, even if it’s only to offer one-on-one assistance with a math problem?
There are far too many parents and lawmakers who don’t trust teachers to teach the curriculum dictated by the state, but somehow they will now trust those same teachers with guns around their children? No. Once again, the state is ignoring what the real problem is and telling schools to fix it, with no resources to implement the plan. “Mental health,” they repeat, while not providing funding for enough counselors and mental health professionals on campuses. Active shooter drills, they insist, despite the fact that active shooter training happened not long before the Uvalde massacre. Anyone insisting that arming teachers is the answer must be required to meet with a panel of child psychologists and school administrators and teachers, before then being a substitute teacher for a minimum of one week each in an elementary school, a middle school and a high school. Walk the walk before you try to talk the talk.
Jean Tanner, Houston
Fine. Let Kathleen Parker get an elementary teacher’s license, give her some time in some school and her opinion might have some validity. Or, let’s reverse it: Let an elementary school teacher who knows how to have an opinion take a shot at writing articles for the Washington Post (assuming she knows how to take a shot or two). What fun. And what an increase in salary.
William A. Wandell, Houston
Why are people so determined to do everything but the obvious? Now we should arm teachers instead of doing what every other developed country has done, which is ban certain arms from sale? The NRA has so equated that any law that restricts, is a law that will eliminate guns completely. If you need an AR-15 for home
protection, I don’t want to come to your neighborhood. Eighteen-yearolds do not need access to weapons of any kind. What would be so terrible to gun ownership if we were to require training, licensing, waiting periods and hefty fines for not following the law? I don’t begrudge anyone owning a firearm. I do think you need to go through more than just having the money to get it. I’m tired of hearing we cannot do anything about this issue. As a country we can, if we grow a backbone and make it happen. If hearing a pediatrician talk about two kids being decapitated by the weapon doesn’t change your attitude, then you’ve gone beyond help. Everyone’s kids deserve better than throwing up our hands and then sitting on them.
Stephen White, Houston