As I’ve been thinking more on this notion of arming teachers, I realized I may have been looking at it from the wrong perspective. This could be a boon for teachers everywhere for the following reasons:
1) It now becomes a negotiating point. Don’t take just a one-time bonus, this should be an annual stipend. It would be the first raise in a long-time for so many of us. Let’s make sure it is at least a five-figure annual stipend too to help with retirement.
2) All teachers should do it because it would mean everyone gets an Educational Assistant. After all, we can’t leave our students alone in the room while we go in search of a gunman. This alone might make it worth it as who doesn’t need a little extra help?
3) Annual training, aka professional development. Here in New Mexico, it would mean an automatic score of Exemplary in some areas on Domain 4. I mean, what principal is going to score you low when one day your training in firearms will be needed to protect everyone.
4) More storage for your room. A handgun can’t just be left out in the open, it must be stored in a locked cabinet, preferably with a touch key lock so we don’t have to struggle in finding a key. Or even, why shouldn’t our electronic key card just open it to save even more time.
5) Everyone will have more respect for us teachers since we will be well-armed and we all know everyone respects you more if you are carrying.
6) We’d have better and fully paid health and life insurance since we are now putting our health and life much more in harms way, which with the stipend from above, would be yet more money in our pockets since we no longer must pay for insurances.
I’m sure you are all aware this is very much tongue-in-cheek. No type of firearm has a place in a school. So many things could go wrong very quickly and mostly likely in unforgivable and unforgettable ways.
The best thing we can do for schools is, at the bare minimum, to ban assault weapons (here is my full list of things necessary to make schools, and society in general, much safer).
I don’t want to work in, or have my kids attend, a school like this, do you?
Personal Reflections of a Middle-Aged Man 