Fighting Violence with Violence
Thursday, October 19th, 2006By Mimi Rothschild
Lately it seems like logging online to check my daily news feeds incites a daily, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
Here comes another one, courtesy of the Utah News. It appears that safe gun-handling classes will be offered to not security guards, but school administrators and even teachers. In Utah.
I can’t say that I blame the teachers for wanting to protect themselves in what seems more like a warzone than a classroom these days. I’d probably feel a little safer myself If I was packing heat in a room full of disaffected youth.
And yet, that this precaution is even being considered says something about the state of our public schools. That we need to arm ourselves in order to protect us from our own children. It all seems awfully Orwellian.
The teachers union is (surprise) protesting the classes, and for once I see where they are coming from. Armed teachers could incite even more violence from students who feed off of that kind of confrontation. Also, teachers have too many other distractions to worry about keeping their firearm away from troubled teens looking for a chance to carry out terrorism.
I’m sure many of you readers will be able to guess my solution to these safety concerns. Teachers carrying guns on campus will not necessarily make school grounds safer. You won’t have to worry about the wellbeing of your child if they are safe at home.
It’s time that parents take a hard look at the big picture. The school shootings that we see on the news are only the surface result of years existing within a prison of tedium, peer pressure, bullying, moral confusion, and spiritual vacancy. We wonder why these horrific events occurr, and yet we send our kids off to the same buildings every day, waving and smiling. Mothers and fathers, your kids are worth more than that.