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Among the strongest voices against the NRA and their puppet Trump’s idiotic plan to “harden” schools and turn teachers into combatants are, well, actual combatants. The men and women who have actually served in war as combat soldiers have nothing but scorn for the hare-brained scheme.
"There is a gulf between being taught how to handle a weapon, and learning to fight. Those are two distinct things," Brandon Friedman, a former Army captain who was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and later served in the Obama administration, told BuzzFeed News. "And learning how to fight, how to stand your ground when an aggressor is trying to kill you, that's not something that comes naturally to people."
Learning how to fight takes training—military training.
"So in order to teach, now you have to be a soldier? That's insane," he said. […]
"They have this Hollywood view of what a gunfight is like," Friedman said. "Veterans know first hand (that) until you've been shot at, and seen how people react in these situations, you can't wrap your mind around it." […]
Similarly, US Army veteran Ashley Nicolas used her double experience in the military and as a high school teacher to speak out against these proposals in a New York Times op-ed on Thursday. Such a proposal, she said, would turn classrooms into "a combat zone, with desks."
"Members of the military, much like members of law enforcement, have a unique perspective in that they have experience with these weapons within the context of the purpose for which they are designed to kill," she told BuzzFeed News.
That was demonstrated, tragically, by the school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Even with law enforcement training, he wasn't able to react, to storm the gunman. How is a teacher, someone who went into the job to nurture and mentor and just fucking teach kids stuff they need to know to grow up and be adults, how is that person going to react if you put a gun in their hand and tell them to stand up to an AR-15?
Of course, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre (who did not serve in Vietnam, for whatever reason) and his puppet Donald Trump (well-known draft dodger) will have no understanding or appreciation for that reality.