A White House administration that can’t seem to elicit enough superlatives to adequately describe its gaffes and blunders has now hatched what seems to be its most obtuse and perilous scheme yet.
The Trump Department of Education said yesterday it’s pondering whether to allow states to spend federal money on buying guns for schools.
Making a terrifying and alarming situation worse is that the decision appears to rest in the hands of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, a cabinet member whose consistent unintelligent and uninformed comments and decisions add an excruciating level of irony and danger to the issue.
The list of reasons spending federal education dollars on guns in schools is as long as the list of NRA activists, gun-industry lobbyists and thoughtless gun-rights extremists who are promoting this dangerous, hair-brained idea.
For a moment, set aside the long list of reasons why this would never create a safer school for students and staff. Instead, simply see that money wasted on buying guns for schools is money not spent on desperately needed materials and staff.
Rather than look for pragmatic, effective ways to ensure there are fewer guns so easily available to nefarious or mentally ill shooters, DeVos and the Trump White House will defy logic, research, expertise and common sense just to satisfy a spurious political urge.
It is the most outlandish scheme this dubious administration has cooked up yet.
Consider the long and consistent list of things genuine, educated and credible experts give to illustrate why arming teachers in schools is a bad idea:
1. Highly trained police officers in situations not even as chaotic as a gunman in a crowded school hit their targets less than 20 percent of the time. No one knows how many innocent children or school lockers would be hit by a teacher with only a few hours of training and a loaded .45.
2. Police do not want teachers armed in schools. During the chaos of an active shooting in a place like a school, cross-fire, friendly fire and the guy with the gun is likely to be killed. Police make clear, through a growing list of national and international police associations, teachers with guns would only complicate an active shooter situation and make saving lives more difficult. If you have any doubts about this, refer to the recent Aurora shooting of Richard Black. Black was shot at in his home in late July after himself shooting a crazed intruder trying to kill his grandson. In a chaotic rush into the house, police saw Black was holding a gun and demanded he drop it. When he didn’t do that, police shot him dead. It’s easy to understand why police say a chaotic, charged active shooter scene and multiple guns in the hands of civilians would be catastrophic.
3. Teachers, administrators and other experts guarantee that guns brought into schools will find their way into the hands of students. People make mistakes with guns all the times. If you don’t believe this, look simply to the fact that each year, dozens of police unintentionally fire their guns, sometimes with tragic consequences. In Colorado, state Rep. Lori Saine, R-Firestone, a staunch gun-rights activist, forgot last December that she had a loaded gun in her purse and took it through a security check point at Denver International Airport. In March, a teacher in Seaside, Calif. fired his gun into the classroom ceiling while he was demonstrating gun safety. A student was injured by ricocheting shrapnel in the neck. A school, filled with hundreds or even thousands of children is no place to make a mistake with a gun, or leave one in a lunch bag for children to steal.
4. Students learn to trust teachers as nurturers. Arming them changes that dynamic, psychological experts say. It changes the relationship between all students and teachers, not for the good. Teachers overwhelmingly think this is a bad idea. Schools already struggle with student performance. Creating militarized war zones in places that should be encouraging trust, safety and academics undermines what the role of schools are: education.
Each and every one of these reasons and many more compel an enlightened, sensible community and government to work harder to keep unstable or depraved people with guns out of the schools, rather than look for doomed ways to handle them after they get in.
American school safety depends on effective gun control, a vastly improved awareness of mental health issues and treatment, and resources for effective, enhanced school security, such as hiring trained, uniformed police as school resource officers.
Virtually the last thing any public school needs is guns, teachers with guns or guns for the lunch ladies.
The Trump Administration is incapable of understanding what a stunningly bad idea this is, and unwilling to back down from it. The only hope American students and parents have now is appealing to members of Congress.
Otherwise, prepare for a lesson no one in America should have to learn.