“How would you like to be…

…a black teacher with a CCW after a school shooting.”

Yes, someone actually made that argument as a reason for not allowing teachers who are licensed to carry to do so at schools.

So, let me get this straight.  Since the police are late (requiring the armed teacher to intervene in the first place), incompetent (incapable of doing threat assessment and differentiating between an armed intruder attacking students and an armed teacher defending them–hint:  as a starter, look which way the gun is pointed) and racist (else why mention “black”?) then the teachers should not be armed.

Well, they might have a point with those arguments but far from being an argument for keeping the teachers disarmed, it’s more one for disarming the late, incompetent, racists.

Other arguments they make:

A student might get the gun.

Concealed means concealed.  Look.  It’s not that hard.  I am licensed by the State of Indiana to carry a handgun (Indiana does not differentiate between “concealed” and “open” carry; they are both legally the same and the same license applies to both).  When I carry, which is, frankly, anywhere I am legally permitted to do so, no one knows I even have a gun, let alone where it is on my body.   There are a variety of handguns from small “pocket pistols” that are very easy to keep concealed on up.  There are numerous holsters and other arrangements that will comfortably hold a handgun all day with no one the wiser.

Likewise there are “retention” holsters that won’t release the handgun unless you know the particular “trick” to release them.  So even if somebody spots the handgun, gets close enough to grab it from your body, and actually grabs it, it isn’t going anywhere unless they know the particular retention type.

The teacher might snap and shoot a student.

I’ll be blunt, if a teacher has that poor impulse control and is that prone to violence they need to be out of the classroom entirely and nowhere near my child.  A teacher likely to “snap” will do so without a gun.  They are a menace and need to be replaced immediately.

Do you mean to tell me that you have such menaces in positions of authority over my  child?  Is your vetting of school teachers really that bad?

An accident might happen

Well, maybe.  If the teacher is so childish as to want to play with the gun (or some policy requires them to take it off in some instance while they can wear it in others) and the teacher is too stupid to learn and follow Cooper’s Four Rules of Gun Safety:

1. Treat every gun with the respect due a loaded gun
2. Never point a gun at anything you are not willing to destroy
3. Keep finger (or anything else) off the trigger until you are ready to shoot
4. Always be sure of your target, what’s in front of it, and what’s behind it.

In a circumstance where all of those apply (in which case why are they a teacher again?) then there’s the possibility of an accident.

How much possibility?  Well, in the more than ten years where Utah has done exactly what people are arguing against–allowing teachers who have a Utah CCW who wish to do so to carry in schools–there has been exactly one “accidental” (some insist on the word “negligent”, but I’m willing to “accidental” to include “human error”) discharge.  The only injury was to the person carrying (the most likely event–nearest and largest target).

While it’s not perfect, neither are the police.  Case in point there’s this DEA agent:

 

I fail to see the justification to hold teachers to a higher standard than police when it comes to safe firearms handling.

The rule should be simple enough:  when in school keep it in the holster unless you actually need it and you’ll never have an accidental/negligent (take your pick) discharge.

The police might mistake you for the bad guy

Well, they might.  It happens, unfortunately.  But that only happens after the bad guy comes through shooting.  So you need to choose between the greater risk of the bad guy shooting you, and the certainty of the bad guy shooting other people and the lesser risk of you stopping the bad guy but the police coming in later and shooting you instead.

Anyone with any sense learns what to do after a defensive shooting when the police arrive.  You put the gun down or away, you comply with police demands.  You sort it all out later with lawyers and judges.  Now, even so, there’s the possibility that the police may just come in shooting, or they may give conflicting confusing commands and then shoot you when they say “zig” but you thought they said zag.”  It happens in situations far away from schools.

Frankly, if the police where you live and work are that incompetent and trigger happy, I don’t think it’s the teachers  that need to be disarmed.  Once again, police incompetence is being used as an excuse for denying the right to self defense.

Teachers aren’t SEALs.

They don’t have to be.  We’re not talking CQB, breaking into a building with entrenched opponents, finding and taking out the bad guy.  It’s not hunting where you’re stalking the halls trying to find and eliminate the bad guy.  It’s none of that.  It’s self defense.  You take a defensible position with your charges and you wait.  You don’t hunt the bad guy, you let him come to you.  If he comes, he’s easy to identify.  He’s the one trying to kill you and your charges.  You defend yourself.

It’s not rocket surgery.

Nobody has time or money for this

Maybe you don’t but, again, seven States permit it.  Utah, as one example, has allowed it for more than a decade.  There are a lot of teachers out there who have their CCW license.  They own guns.  In one case a sheriff offered to teach his states CCW class for free to up to 50 teachers.  250 teachers immediately applied.

Nobody’s seriously talking about making this mandatory.  You don’t want to get your license, get the training that goes with that license, and carry to protect your charges?  Fine.  Nobody is insisting you have to.  But others would like to choose differently.

Let them.

Time and time again we’ve seen spree killers going on shooting sprees chose “gun free zones” at their targets.  They will go out of their way to find one if there isn’t one handy.  The overwhelming majority of shooting sprees are at “gun free zones.” The time has come and passed to stop making these free fire zones for bad guys.  You can’t rely on the police to protect you.  Even if they are there, as in the case of the four deputies from the Broward (Coward) County Sheriff’s Department, they are under no legal obligation to act to protect you.  In the end, you are on your own:

You don’t want to act to protect yourself and others?  That’s your decision.  Allow others to make that choice for themselves.  Don’t make it for them.

It’s called “Freedom.” It’s a provocative concept, I know.