Mendoza Line of Ideas

The idea that we should arm teachers to prevent mass school shootings is so dumb that if there were a Mendoza Line of Ideas, this idea would be below it.

The public expects a lot from teachers already. They have to be educators, comforters, protectors and God knows what else for kids. Do teachers also now have to be John McClane? Should they really take some sort of class to ensure they’re able to shoot to kill someone with a gun (who may be a current or former student)? Why the hell should they face the physical and psychic burden of being sharpshooters? As we’ve seen, teachers would take a bullet for their kids, but it should be up to the rest of us to find a way that they don’t have to.

Christ, don’t these people do enough for little pay? In some classrooms, teachers have to pay for art supplies and such out of their own pockets. I guess now they also have to buy guns? Is the Department of Education going to suddenly find the budget to arm all our teachers while claiming not to be able to afford things like books? Who’s going to train this new army? Plus, a student could get the teacher’s gun, the teacher could accidentally shoot a kid, etc.

Can we not do this?

I don’t buy the idea that arming everyone will prevent a mass shooting. It’s a very, very stupid idea that doesn’t stand up to any critical thinking. One of the police officers in Florida, even with training, froze during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting and couldn’t go in, so even good guys with guns can falter. In Las Vegas, that guy shot at the crowd from many stories above their heads. Asking people in the crowd to shoot up at a hotel in the dark is asking for a lot of wounds from friendly fire. In that case, the only “good guys with a gun” who stopped the shooter were the police, who are authorized and trained. It’s the same with the movie theater shooting: Can you imagine the chaos of a bunch of people shooting into a darkened theater when they have seconds to react and aren’t sure what’s going on? When President Reagan got shot, he was surrounded by heavily-armed Secret Service agents and even they couldn’t react quick enough to prevent the attack. Whenever I hear “arm the populace,” I think of the drunken posse on The Simpsons; for as many trained citizens who have guns, there are going to be a ton of incompetent yahoos, and I don’t know what amount of training would fix that.

I read that New York City police officers shoot their targets accurately at an average of like 18 percent. Do you think Stable Mabel is going to do any better trying to shoot someone during math class than a trained professional would? Real life is not a Die Hard movie.

It’s been astounding to see these young people from Florida who, even in their grief, have been so incisive and fearless in taking on the issue of gun control. It’s humbling to see because they’re right: So many adults have failed to keep them safe from this dystopic environment in which school shootings are common enough that they have drills for them.

It’s humbling because what I am I doing while these young adults are marching? Sitting and writing some blog while I should be working? I need to get up and do more.