We are here to teach life, not take one
TEACHERS BASH TRUMP’S CALL TO ARMS
City teachers were outraged Thursday that President Trump would even suggest guns join pencils, erasers and paper clips as part of their classroom supplies.
WHAT COULD possibly go wrong?
President Trump’s plan — parroting National Rifle Association talking points — to “harden” schools and arm teachers received a failing grade Thursday from parents, educators, school safety experts and public officials.
While Trump and his cronies at the NRA believe instructors packing heat in classrooms would act as a deterrent, the move would likely lead to more violence and more tragedies, many said.
“I think that the No. 1 most important part of the job is to educate children and not be a police force,” Rick White, a teacher at a private school in Manhattan, told the Daily News. “The more guns, the more likelihood of an accident, the more guns in any given situation, the more likelihood of tragedy.”
Trump and NRA-backed lawmakers are toying with the contentious idea, even in Florida where 17 victims of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland are being mourned.
“That’s kinda crazy. I think it’s just gonna create more violence,” said Abel Pantojas, 36, whose two teenage daughters attend public schools in the Bronx.
Experts agreed, calling the idea of arming educators a travesty.
“Teachers should be marking papers, not being trained in marksmanship,” said Michael Mulgrew, (inset) president of the United Federation of Teachers. “We need to be preparing our lessons, not learning how to reload a gun.”
Mo Canady, the executive director for National Association of School Resource officers, instead pushed to have a trained “certified law enforcement officer” at every school.
“It’s one thing to be armed and prepared to defend yourself in the home,” he said. “It’s entirely different when you have to go on the offensive in a violent situation, where a person is actively shooting, killing people.”
In a situation similar to last week’s rampage in Florida, a teacher who isn’t properly trained “could cost people their lives,” he said.
Mayor de Blasio blasted Trump’s proposal.
“I suspect the President doesn’t know anything about public schools,” de Blasio said. “There’s nothing more terrifying than the notion of putting more guns in our children’s schools.”
The president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, said a handgun would be no match for the assault-style weapons often wielded by school shooters.
“The solution is to ban these military weapons from people who shouldn’t have them,” Weingarten said.
Children as young as 14 were gunned down in the hallways of the Parkland school while teachers and coaches took bullets trying to protect their terrified students.
The suspected gunman, former student Nikolas Cruz, killed 17 people and injured dozens more before being caught by police, authorities have said.
Melissa Falkowski, a teacher at Stoneman Douglas, noted that an armed officer was on campus at the time of the carnage, but doubted arming educators would have helped.
“I don’t know how a teacher, even a highly trained one, will go up against someone with an AR-15,” Falkowski told CNN on Thursday.
It turned out that the armed school resource officer found a safe spot outside and stayed there.
Trump’s suggestion to send instructors to school packing heat also runs counter to a teacher driven movement sparked by the Feb. 14 tragedy. The #ArmMeWith movement argues that teachers need “resources and funding” to “help students experiencing mental health issues, not guns.” “If President Trump would like to arm me, I would like him to arm me with more access to mental health for students, arm me with smaller class sizes, arm me with the ability to get a student help if they need it,” Kathryn Buckley, a public school teacher from Massachusetts, told The News.
Trump and the White House offered few details about his proposal: Teachers, somewhere between 10% and 40% of all educators, would be qualified to handle a weapon, receive “a little bit of a bonus” and would be “people with great talent at guns.” Trump said he wanted concealed weapons for “gun-adept teachers.”
The White House also could not provide details about how the country would go about training
and arming perhaps 40% of the country’s approximately 3.5 million teachers.
“I want certain highly adept people, people who understand weaponry,” to have a permit to carry concealed guns in schools, Trump said during a White House sitdown with officials.
He heaped praise on the NRA on Thursday and repeated full phrases from a speech Wayne LaPierre, the gun lobby head, gave earlier in the day.
The President, who benefited from $30 million in spending from the group during his 2016 campaign, called officials from the NRA “good people” and “patriots.”
“I want my schools protected just like I want my banks protected,” the President said, calling for the “hardening” of school security.
Lawmakers in Kentucky, Colorado, North Carolina and Alabama have started discussing possible legislation to arm teachers, The Associated Press reported, and Wisconsin’s attorney general said he’s open to the idea.
Trump bristled at one suggestion during a White House meeting Thursday with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Florida Department of Education Commissioner Pam Stewart and Parkland Mayor Christine Hunschofsky.
“Active shooter drills is a very negative thing,” he said after Stewart mentioned the common preparations. “I don’t like it. I’d much rather have a hardened school.”
Trump called the drills “crazy” and “very hard on children.”
Gov. Cuomo brushed off Trump’s pistol-packing teacher plan with a sarcastic quip, calling the idea “ludicrous.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea. Let’s turn our schools into armed camps,” he said. “We can’t get teachers money to buy paper and pens, but now we are going to arm our teachers and teach them how to use a firearm . ... The NRA likes it because it means more guns.”