Let’s discuss for a brief moment the issue of gun violence in schools … shall we?
The Keller Independent School District over yonder in Tarrant County has just voted 4-3 to train teachers on how to use firearms and then allow them to pack the pistols into their classrooms.
Oh, my. How can I say this properly? Well … that’s a bad idea. Period.
I get that there remains considerable public support for arming teachers, allowing them to take “whatever measures are necessary” to stop a lunatic from killing people inside the school walls. I remain terribly concerned, though, about the level of training that Keller ISD is going to provide for its teachers and whether there’s a fool-proof way to ensure that teachers don’t shoot someone other than the lunatic by mistake.
Where I live, in Princeton, the independent school district has employed armed marshals. They are former law enforcement officers with considerable training and expertise on how to handle potential emergencies. The marshals will join the existing staff of “resource officers” employed by the Princeton Police Department in keeping our district’s schools safe. Every campus will be covered by heavily trained personnel who know what to do when trouble erupts.
Just down the highway, about seven miles east of Princeton, the Farmersville ISD has a staff of sworn police officers led by a Texas law enforcement-certified chief of police. All the officers in the Farmersville school system, by the way, are certified by the state law enforcement authority. They, too, are well-equipped and trained to respond correctly in case of emergency. Every Farmersville ISD campus has such an officer on duty.
Quite obviously, no one wants a teacher to pull a gun out of his or her desk drawer and start firing at a wacko. I just have this nagging fear that a young college grad entering a classroom as a teacher would be petrified at having to respond to a violent outbreak.