Reading William Forstchen's argument in favor of arming teachers made me almost physically sick to my stomach [“Shooting From the Hip,” Feb. 6 Xpress].
Every month in America more than 2,500 people die from guns. That is very nearly the same amount as died in the World Trade Center attacks of 2001. Given this fact, it's astonishing that the burden is on the Ned Ryan Doyles of the world to prove that tighter regulations are necessary, and not on the Forstchen's who fight for the status quo.
Although — scratch that — he's not quite for the status quo: he thinks elementary-school teachers like my sister-in-law should be trained and prepared to kill people in class.
The argument for arming teachers over applying common-sense conditions on gun ownership isn't unreasonable: It's insane.
— Devin Walsh
Asheville
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I agree. I am a 25-year big city law enforcement veteran and chief executive, and getting teachers to where they can think and act tactically in the highest stress situations you can present them with at the same time you expect them to teach algebra or civics is completely undoable and ludicrous to propose. Also, anywhere they set a firearm down or leave it otherwise unattended in a classroom (even inadvertantly) is recipe for disaster. I am just one investigator, and I have been at at least 2-dozen accidental discharges with numerous injuries and several deaths resulting, and I am just ONE investigator in this vast country, of these types of incidents that occur accidently in schools, homes, workplaces, vehicles, city parks, churches, casinos, bars and restaurants, etc. The teachers I know do not even want this responsibility... that is not what they signed up to do...
By dealw/it
02/21/2013