Arming �underpaid, disrespected, and overstressed� teachers

More details have trickled in about the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the most disturbing of which, besides the shooting itself, is the allegation that four Broward County deputies were outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the massacre but did not enter. This should help us understand why President Trump spent last week emphasizing the need to have teachers armed inside of schools.

Last week, in my column entitled "Schools, unveil your plan to protect our kids," I stressed the importance of schools doing "every single thing" possible to protect kids -- not leaving one thing undone that is within their power. "Everything is on the table," I declared.

One of those things is arming teachers. This suggestion has been bandied about for years and is met with intense emotion -- both criticism and support. Trump supports it, explaining during meetings with children and adults a system whereby capable teachers opt for training in concealed carry and receive "bonuses" to carry their weapons throughout the school day. He also decried "active shooter drills" and insisted, "I'd much rather have a hardened school."

While some are not comfortable with teachers carrying guns, preferring armed guards, the president prefers the former and adds that it would be less expensive. A teacher is already there and already drawing a salary, so adding a bonus will help keep safety costs down. Perhaps even more importantly, the president said, teachers "love their students. They don't want their students to be killed and to be hurt." Therefore, he said, they "could become schools' first line of defense against crazed attackers."

I am not opposed to armed security, but I am also in favor of teachers being armed. Is it ideal? None of this is ideal. Having to engage in this conversation is not ideal. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a world that has made our children targets. We live in a world where parents are going to bed now without their kids in the next room. We live in a world where families are nervous as they head out the door to receive an education. We live in a fallen world that requires people to rise up and take action.

Someone wrote on social media the other day something that, as a former teacher, I found insulting. He suggested that we cannot arm teachers because they are "underpaid, disrespected, and overstressed." This young man is a thinker and bright, so I am not disparaging him, but his comment doesn't hold up. Teachers have always been all of those things. Every day, teachers do what may arguably be the most important job in our society. Most of us have always done so with passion and integrity, despite being "overstressed" by the enormity of the job, the ever-increasing mandates, the lack of supplies, the public scrutiny, the change in culture and the list goes on. And all of us have done it while being "underpaid." So what is he saying? If one's job is tough and students present challenges, he or she cannot be trusted with the Second Amendment? Teachers are so unstable that if a student mouths off, doesn't have her homework or asks for extra help, they will lose it and start shooting? Give me a break! If a teacher was going to lose it over those things, there would be no more teachers because they would have snatched up a plethora of students by now! Some of these same educators carry guns, in accordance with their constitutional rights, every other place that is not an asinine gun-free zone -- and yet, they manage not to lose it. They carry at the grocery store, at the theater, some at church -- and they are stable enough to do so. But somehow, they are too stressed to do the same in school because...you know, they just got another look at their paycheck?

Look, parents trust teachers with the education and future of their children daily, but -- what? -- they cannot trust them to wear a concealed weapon so they can protect them when their very lives are on the line? What sense does that make? If parents feel teachers aren't stable, why are they sending their kids to them every day?

I say the officers who chose not to enter the building, who neglected their jobs, are a stark reminder that we need multiple people inside the schools who will do what they need to do when they need to do it. Remember, these would be people who want to do it, have been evaluated intensely, of course, and who are trained -- who are, as President Trump said, "well-trained, gun-adept teachers and coaches and people who work in those buildings."

I have yet to hear one reason that can stand up to scrutiny for not arming teachers via concealed carry -- not one. It's not a comfortable conversation, but I'm glad we're having it. We must have it, and we must do something. I do not agree with the president's position to not have armed guards, though I see his point. But I am with him on arming teachers. No one needs to know which teachers are armed, just that some teachers are. Give it a day or two after that new policy is in place, and students will no longer have "armed teachers" on their minds. It will be business-as-usual, as it should be. The weapon will be concealed, after all -- and, prayerfully, it will never have to be pulled out, and students will, therefore, forget about it. But if it ever does have to be shown, everyone will remember rather quickly that dozens of teachers refused to be sitting ducks listening to the cries of their students cowering in a corner as they wait to be killed by a bad guy who knew what too many of the good guys don't seem to know: The task at hand requires a gun in hand.

Adrienne Ross is owner of Adrienne Ross Communications and a former Southeast Missourian editorial board member. Contact her at aross@semissourian.com.