Some Thoughts on Guns in Schools

There's a line in Flannery O'Connor's short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" that has been haunting me in the wake of the Parkland school shooting, specifically the resulting gun control debate and the discussion of arming teachers. In the story, The Misfit guns down a vacationing family on the side of the road in rural Georgia. He shoots the grandmother after the situation spurns in her an uncharacteristic moment of grace: after she's dead, he says "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her all her life." Have we come to a crossroads in our society where The Misfit's words are coming true for us all? Are we only good when someone is either pointing a gun at us or has the potential to point a gun at us? I suppose gun supporters would argue that had the vacationing family been armed they would have at least stood a chance against The Misfit. That being said, who takes a gun with them on vacation? Now that I've written that sentence I am sure there are several people in our country that take a gun on vacation with them. These are probably the same people that feel the need to bring a gun to Thanksgiving dinner. But, aren't there some places that are perhaps too sacred for guns? Isn't a school one of them? Maybe I am being hopelessly naive. In the case of the school shootings, would the students have stood more of a chance if their teachers were armed? Statistically speaking, probably so. That being said, why am I against the idea of teachers carrying guns in the classroom? Let me try to explain.

I have fielded student complaints about assignments in which they claim their teacher was "holding them at gunpoint" to write a letter, or do an essay, etc. While this was hyperbole on the part of the student, had the teacher been armed it would have been a little too uncomfortably close to the truth. The authority an armed teacher derives in the classroom (especially if the students knew the teacher was armed) would bleed into the authority with which they view the teacher as their scholastic mentor and moral guide. Blurring this line of authentic authority with a gun's cheap authority will irrepairably taint our educational environment.

Funding for school psychologists is important and can impact teen mental health in a positive way. The psychologist can themselves be a resource for the student and potentially connect the student to a network of other professionals that can help. I believe School Resource Officers should be in every school building. These individuals not only help provide a safe school environment by carrying a gun, they can also be role models for students. I believe it's important for law enforcement to work closely with the community, and SROs are just one way in which this is possible. I have heard the legislation that allows some school staff to be armed. I don't think this is a good idea for the reasons I've outlined above. 

I'm a fan of Mike Rowe, but he doesn't think teachers are heroes. He calls them "do-gooders." He further draws the distinction: "do-gooders are people who make the world a better place through acts of kindness. Heroes make the world a better place though acts of bravery." And that heroism requires more than "just showing up." Mike Rowe probably wants to reserve the word hero for teachers like Aaron Feis and Scott Beigel who took bullets for their students. Although by and large I agree with Mr. Rowe, his definition of teacher as "do-gooder" just doesn't ring true to me. Ultimately it's a teacher's job to hold students to a certain standard. In today's society of broken marriages where maybe a single parent wants to score points with their kid by defending them against the teacher or against the school, this is not always the easiest job. In a society in which it has become commonplace for parents to second guess or even undermine the teacher's authority, this is not always the easiest job. In a society where no one is ever wrong, failure is unthinkable, and it's never anyone's fault, this is not always the easiest job. In a world where everyone believes they are an expert because they can simply ask Siri, this is not always the easiest job. In a culture where we value quantities over qualities, this is not always the easiest job. There are cases day in and day out where teachers are holding their students to a higher standard, and by believing in that student enough to hold them accountable, we face a challenge. The best teachers bend over backwards to help their students reach that higher standard; in doing so we face a challenge. I believe it takes bravery to face that challenge. Sometimes we're going up against a parent. Sometimes we're going up against a culture. Sometimes we're going up against a kid who thinks he can't do it. In the back of all of our minds is the question, "If I discipline this student is he going to come back and shoot up the school?" So are teachers heroes "just for showing up?" Of course not. The teachers who are heroes have the bravery to help their students reach a higher standard. Joseph Campbell once defined a hero as "someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." There doesn't need to be a gun involved for that kind of bravery to exist in my world.