Earlier today
someone wondered why the NRA hadn't said anything about the recent school shooting.
My response was that the NRA leadership - in contrast to many of its members - probably just didn't give a shit.
Oh, how I wish they'd remained silent.
The NRA's first vice president, Sandra Froman, told AP that the solution is to give guns to the teachers.
Details below.
All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota school shooting that took 10 lives -- including making guns available to teachers, a top National Rifle Association leader said Friday.
"I'm not saying that that means every teacher should have a gun or not, but what I am saying is we need to look at all the options at what will truly protect the students," the NRA's first vice president, Sandra S. Froman, told The Associated Press.
Now, it might seem from this quote that maybe the SF Chronicle or AP headline writer is running on a very thin reed here. But, Ms. Forman clarifies things for us:
Froman said if it is the responsibility of teachers to protect students in a school, "then we as a society, we as a community have to provide a way for the teachers to do that."
Froman cited the 1997 school shooting incident in Pearl, Miss., where a teacher retrieved a gun from his car when a student opened fire, then held the student at bay until police arrived.
A law prohibiting guns in schools "is not going to stop someone who has evil in their heart and who has the capacity to commit those crimes from doing them," Froman said.
Lovely, isn't it?
I am a teacher. Right now I teach college students at That Big University on Lake Washington. But previously, I have taught high school students in Orange County, and elementary school kids in south Berkeley.
I enjoy teaching. It fulfills me. It gives my life meaning. I love helping other people learn to think, learn to analyze, learn to learn. I love seeing that light go off in their heads that says "by jove I've got it" even if they cast it in somewhat different language.
Teaching isn't easy, as anyone who has ever actually done it can tell you, and it's especially not easy when you're dealing with kids. Kids have issues. Adults do too, but kid issues are at once more elemental and yet more difficult to deal with. Those issues, whether they are personal-oriented or are the creation of socio-cultural conditions, can sometimes get in the way of teaching. Nobody has found the magic solution to this matter, and perhaps one doesn't exist, but many people have studied the matter, written extensively on it, and have worked to train other teachers in how to deal with these problems.
Nowhere does arming the teachers come into these solutions.
A kid who decides he's going to shoot up a school (and it's always a "he") is doing so for reasons external to the actions of the teacher. And I assure you that if the teacher felt they could do something to prevent it, they'd be the first in line to do it. But teachers are not omnipotent. Our powers are limited by the society of which we are a part.
School shootings are a social disease. Dumping the problem in the lap of the teacher by handing them a sidearm won't solve a goddamned thing.
I'm headed out shortly, to party with some friends. So I apologize if I'm not around to follow up on any responses. But I think the NRA is fucked, as usual, with this stance. Why can't you reasonable pro-gun folks just break away and form your own, sensible, sane gun group?
