I first heard the story too early in the morning of 30 January 2013, while listening to National Public Radio. Later on I found a print version of it in The Los Angeles Times, but it was no less crazy. "A group of seven Republican state lawmakers proposed legislation Wednesday that would allow school districts to use education funds to train teachers, administrators and janitors to use guns so they can protect campuses from violent intruders."
San Bernardino Assemblyman Tim Donnelly is the leader of this group and says they are proposing a "school marshal" program similar to the federal air marshal program that guards flights from terrorism. Donnelly said, "The idea is to create essentially an invisible line of defense around our kids," and that concealing the identities of the weapons permit holders is the key component. He also said, "We have a moral obligation that the next Vicki Soto who is faced with inexplicable evil, that she not be left defenseless. If she was [armed] she would have the ability to stop or at least slow down the killer." But my favorite quote is this: "I think success would be when we can take down that sign that says our schools are a gun-free zone, or maybe change the sign -- cross off gun-free and put victim-free."
There are so many bad elements of this proposal that I hardly know where to begin. Let us start with the faulty premise that school shootings are now a routine part of American life. According to the U.S. Department of Education (National Center for Education Statistics. (2010). Digest of Education Statistics, 2011 (NCES 2012-001),Table 5.), there were 98,817 public schools and 6,742 private schools in the country during the 2009-2010 school year. That's a lot of schools. And how many students were being served in these schools? According to the USDA, there were 58,862,000 students in public school and 5,488,000 in private school in 2009. That's a lot of children.
Now consider the number of people who have been killed by shootings at schools. Slate.com has an interesting chart, at http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/map_of_the_week/2012/12/sandy_hook_a_chart_of_all_196_fatal_school_shootings_since_1980_map.html that shows 297 people have been killed in school shootings since 1980. That is 297 people in 30 years. While it is true that each decade has brought more killings than the decade before, and that every killing is a catastrophe, do the percentages even begin to justify arming school staff members?
Numbers are boring, so let us move on to the next absurdity, the notion that concealing the identities of weapons carriers could be kept secret on any campus. There is no privacy in a school setting. Children are curious creatures. This is why there are separate bathrooms for staff members. Children have been known to get bored. This is why every teacher has a story or two about finding children rifling through their desks or about personal items disappearing. Children are often intelligent. This is why the kids know that Mr. A. spikes his coffee and Ms. B. broke up with her boyfriend.
Support staff people are no better off. Most of them work in common spaces at open desks. Their valuables grow legs and walk off, too. If they are lucky enough to have locking drawers in their desks, they are rarely lucky enough to have working keys as well. Administrators may have the luxury of doors, but with sexual harassment such a dicey issue few administrators close them.
With no privacy and no personal space, how on Earth can any school staff member conceal a weapon? I know from movies that there are holsters one can strap to one's shoulder. How many teachers wear jackets all day? There are holsters one can strap to one's thigh or ankle. How comfortable (or accessible) are those? There are holsters for bras, but most bras are already holding cell phones. I'm a white-haired lady who works in a library. Could I hide a gun in my bun? And if I could, would it change anything? As my friend Ben notes, "Nothing puts fear into the heart of a suicidal, body-armored, AK-47-toting lunatic, bent on killing as many people as possible with a "suicide by cop" finale like knowing the librarian has a Derringer in her hair clip. He'll definitely go elsewhere."
There is one more thought I'd like to consider. Does anyone really want to hand weapons to school personnel? All of my life, because we are often members of unions, school workers have been reviled. "Teachers always expect too much money. Their days are short and their vacations are long." (People like to forget about grading papers and shopping for the supplies teachers aren't supplied with at school.) Support staff people "are leaches, sucking away valuable resources from the government." And don't forget the janitors. "I mean really, the janitors are all lazy bums who won't clean the classrooms often enough and won't do anything about the ant problem." One might think school workers are as trustworthy as the criminals. We are all overpaid, underworked pariahs. And Donnelly and Company want to arm us?
The thing is, we aren't overpaid, and we have plenty of work to do. Most of us are there because we like the jobs and we like the students. Most of us have endured years of budget cuts, added duties, job insecurity, and extra helpings of stress. Siphoning money away to arm and train us is not likely to help our situation.
I can just picture that scorching hot end-of-school-year day when the janitor has done his morning rounds picking up the used condoms and hypodermic needles from around the school grounds, painted over the graffiti for the fortieth time, capped the spewing water fountain for the seventeenth time, unclogged his thousandth toilet and cleaned up after the latest kid to vomit her lunch. He is leaning on his broom, mopping his brow, and rubbing the small of his back where his holstered pistol is chafing from inside his lift belt. Some crabby teacher comes along to nag him again about when he is going to get to the dust on her window blinds.
That could to lead to the next school shooting, right there. What will Donnelly have to say then?
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