I'm a Gun-Shy School Librarian
"Arm teachers!"
"Teachers and school staff should carry guns and defend students from school shooters!"
"If teachers refuse to be trained to use guns, fire 'em! They obviously don't care about kids!"
"C'mon, Michaele! You're a librarian! You can use a SILENCER!!!!!!!"
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I own guns. I've used them on occasion. Thanks to my knowledge of human nature, I know well enough to be gun-shy when it comes to those who advocate for their widespread availability and eventual use.
Definition of gun-shy:
1 : afraid of loud noise (such as that of a gun) 2 : markedly distrustful, afraid, or cautious (emphasis mine).
There are plenty of colleagues with whom I have worked that I personally feel should not be given guns to accompany their staff badges. Some colleagues refuse to handle a firearm under any circumstance. A token few whose respect for both life and the tools that can end it might volunteer to become part of a shooter response team, though how they'd be able to safely abandon their own classes to make a mad dash down a hallway, up a flight of stairs, or across a campus in an effort to do any good is beyond my imagination at this point, especially considering how many teachers and staff were absent for extended periods of time this year in my building. What, we're not going to shout "Subs should be trained and armed?" Deserved sarcasm aside, I'll take a deep breath and "entertain" the possibility of being armed at school. None of my points form a perfect argument for or against arming teachers, but perhaps what I share can help to explain why educators like me exemplify temperance.
Here we go:
1. I belong to a gun-owning family, so you won't have to purchase one for me. I have bullets/rounds and my husband is a reloader, meaning he can make me more. Sounds fairly aligned to all of the books I've had to purchase with my own money, the school supplies I've purchased with my own money, the sensory tables my husband has built for my students, and the equipment I've purchased to provide to my students, with... my... own... money for over two decades in this profession. However, my husband was the soldier and MP and is the subsistence hunter in our family while I personally have not chosen to regularly use guns as tools or weapons. I crochet. And bake. My husband does not require that I share his enthusiasm for guns just as I do not test his recognition of single, double, or treble stitches. I'm not the most qualified or skilled marksman in my family, and only highly qualified sharpshooters should defend our students, correct? After all, having me accidentally shoot a student or colleague who gets in the way doesn't really help in an active shooting situation, and I'm fairly certain such liability won't appeal to my employers, considering that they'll be on the receiving end of a lawsuit they can't possibly win. Unless they make me sign some form of waiver excusing them from fault if I agree to be armed, right? No, my husband doesn't want to leave retirement to become an armed school guard. Parents don't want either one of us accidentally shooting their children.
2. Throughout my career I've defended my students from child abuse and neglect. I've defended them against hunger. I've defended them against the weather, illness, poverty, illiteracy and bullying. Yet I continue to believe in the setting of boundaries and in the expectations of standards to be met. Parents and caregivers who abuse and neglect their children are wrong and need to be stopped immediately, but I don't provide the parents therapy or parenting classes. Children need to be fed even when local agencies are unable or our government refuses to do it. I've never given parents the bill for the groceries I've provided and voters have allowed our politicians to make certain that I can't be reimbursed for what I've spent to fill tummies. Children should know they are a valued part of every community and that responsibility does not simply rest upon my shoulders, no matter how many people continue to believe it should. No, I will not become trained in trauma surgery. I will not become a licensed nutritionist. I will not become a prosecuting attorney. I will not adopt two or more students per year. I will not become a police officer, nor do I intend to become a soldier or treat my school like a war zone. I have a big heart and I am allowed to draw the line when others continue to try to take advantage of it or try to gaslight me. Society has passed the buck quite enough.
3. I enjoy target practice, using paper bullseye targets in wide open fields or on acres of empty wilderness in Alaska with no one else around. The targets don't move and I've never had a moose, wolf, coyote, dog, or cat run across my line of sight while practicing. No person either because that's not how this particular type of target practice works. While I used to shoot squirrels with a BB gun in an effort to keep them from eating the wires and insulation in the walls of my grandparents' log cabin decades ago, I am no sniper. I do not hunt. I don't play shooting video games. I play Farm Town. I am a highly trained and certified educator and school librarian. My job is full of responsibilities both grand and minor with a large number of folks refusing to acknowledge them because consideration of my role and skillset is inconvenient. Still, I will not qualify for a spot on the Olympic Rifle Team.
4. We lock our doors and windows and should someone invade our home or intend to harm our family, I plan to use any and all objects including pistols and shotguns and my phone in our defense. I will likely cry, throw up, go into shock, and develop PTSD. My life will never be the same, especially if I have to end another person's because of a poor decision they make. I will not revel. I won't wear a headband like Rambo. No matter how much others might assert that my actions were "a win" or "heroic," my bedroom, kitchen, hallway, closets, and craft room will likely never feel safe to me again, and I will need therapy and counseling for a very long time. I don't know if I'd ever be able to touch another firearm again. I do not believe as a school librarian that I must treat my workplace like my home. My job description will have to change dramatically for that to happen, and if it does, I will likely retire. Again, I am no soldier. I am no police officer.
5. I was raised that some guns were weapons and equalizers for the police and military, and other guns were for subsistence and safety. Many friends my age were too and had gun racks in their trucks year 'round ready for hunting season or to scare off polar bears, or put moose hit by vehicles out of their misery on the highway. Some used pistols on themselves when situations became unbearable. Times have changed, human nature has changed and so too, must we, especially depending on where and with whom we live. Men and boys, some girls, but mostly men today crave whatever power over others they have been told and shown guns will give them. Their baptism follows an established choreography: get angry, get a gun and bullets, convince yourself you're right, that it's deserved, threaten others, experience an initial sense of superiority by having "told them,"affirm yourself that your "mission" is sound, and then cause as much collateral damage as possible in euphoric righteousness or angry vindication. The more blood you see, the more powerful you are. We haven't been allowed to study gun violence in this country for decades now, so when politicians or pastors try to tell you that it's due to video games or moms who work outside of the home or people whose first language isn't English, they're blowing smoke.
6. Educators teach curricular content as well as social-emotional skills. We advocate against bullying, drug use, abuse, and violence. Will I now be teaching gun handling and safety to my students, grades K-5? After all, they'll need to know not to touch me, and to especially avoid my holster. As for the "behavior" kids with impulsivity issues, they'll likely need social stories, interventions, repeated practice, and documentation proving that they can respond appropriately in five out of seven situations when my colleagues and I tell them to stay away from us rather than demonstrating their usual and expected moth-to-flame tendencies. Students en masse will need to be trained to drop on command, correct? And the growth measures that we'll need to use to track the development of these skills? Let me guess, I'm going to surf Teachers Pay Teachers for tracking sheets, right? Or will the NRA develop them and sell them at an exorbitant price to every school district in the country?
7. I have never been a threat to my students. How are their young minds and understanding of the world going to perceive me with a weapon strapped to my body? A gun isn't perfume, or a rhinestone "Read" brooch, or a school spirit t-shirt. To the students who have not yet developed a relationship with me and who are expected to do so when I only see them for forty-five minutes per week... does anyone truly believe that a weapon will register to them as just another stapler or classroom microphone or iPad or wooden hall pass? Or are they supposed to simply know and believe that I have a gun and I will use it? Schools are not, should not be prisons.
8. I have yet to find a thread, blog post, or video testimonial from any teacher volunteering to be armed at school explaining any pro except roughly "I'm a good guy/gal with a gun and I care about my students." Some wonder why their confident assertion isn't as well-received by fellow educators as they'd hoped. I'll tell you why I'm not cheering you. So far, you are either unable or unwilling to articulate any (and there are many) situations where a concealed gun in a classroom would most definitely not improve any of the real, predictable, and known outcomes that happen daily in schools. Some of you even attempt to counter with "Students wouldn't even know I had a gun, that's what conceal-carry is all about." Oh... sweethearts. That you'd dismiss both the active and passive abilities of knowing that children have (how children smell fear on adults; how kids are perfect barometers to changes in weather and the "feel" of a space, etc.) makes me suspect that there's a good chance you might not even be aware of how the rumor mill works, from elementary, through middle, and all the way through high school. All it takes is an offhanded comment from precocious little Brad or hyper Leah about how they heard Mrs. So-and-So has a gun or how the fanny pack Coach Blah-Blah-Blah wears is really to hide his gun and it's all over school (and therefore an issue) by lunchtime. That you're either unaware or unwilling to acknowledge that your perception is skewed by a hero-complex hyper focus makes me worry that fantasies, not reality, are what fuel your good intentions. That you are utterly committed to convincing yourselves that you're only ever going to do good with your weapon without demonstrating awareness that there are plenty of truly likely and horrific consequences that can occur instead is what makes me wary of you.
9) My list of questions grows daily:
If teachers and staff are armed, how will schools handle parents with conceal-carry permits during conferences, volunteer opportunities, yearbook sales, school picnics, assemblies and programs? School staff can be armed but parents can't is a topic that some self-righteous yahoo will bring to the Board.
Plenty of teachers this year expressed mental health issues. Guns will help their situation how?
When students demonstrate pack behavior and take a gun from a teacher, what then?
Will conceal-carry staff members also be on the first-response/MANDT trained team? If so, what step in the de-escalation protocols involves removing their gun and placing it somewhere safe?
What other adaptations will conceal-carry staff need to make in their day-to-day lives? Shopping before or after work, gun storage in their vehicles... Forgetting their gun like they forget their badges or lunchboxes at home?
What happens when a male teacher is suspected of being a shooter by the first responders? How about an armed teacher of color?
Is it possible to present effective safety training for students when it's logical to assume that any one of them can use their knowledge as a school shooter?
Will substitute teachers be allowed to carry?
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That this continues to be casually romanticized, fantasized about and promoted in bars, homes, churches, talk shows, teachers' lounges, board offices and social media is offensive. Americans can talk ourselves into believing anything really, but why has this become the only entertainable, "realistic," "working" solution? This defiant adherence to the self-fulfilling prophecies of "We'll never solve the gun problem" and "People will just find another way to kill one another," clearly illustrates our current laziness and addiction to guns. After all, I remember when every corner in every restaurant, elevator, shop, vehicle, etc. was full of smokers and non-smokers just had to live with the smell and cancer caused by second-hand fumes. Not anymore. Lawn darts used to be a thing, until we made sure they weren't. Children in this country being shot and killed at school also isn't a superficial Republican or Democrat or Independent or Christian or Jewish or Atheist or white or brown issue. The welfare of our children should be above politics, not drowning in its sewers. So why work so damn hard to guarantee that students and their teachers will continue to be maimed, traumatized for life, or killed by those encouraged and allowed to become murderers? Addiction, I tell you. One that must be beaten.
I don't relate well to those so deeply committed to products and spin over people, and I'm not terribly fond of the purposefully ignorant, either. School shootings do not exemplify our greatness, and neither does our blind faith in the NRA or the politicians who can be easily bribed, bought and threatened after being voted into office initially to do right by us, our families and our communities. That so many want to wait and see "how all of this plays out," effectively ignoring exactly how it's been playing out for years is maddening and clearly indicative of their true loyalties. School shootings are used to advocate for more gun sales. Soon the spin may include someone talking about how this will grow the fields of mental health and trauma surgery, and isn't that great for our economy? I'm guessing that the market for child-sized coffins has become a growth industry, too. Suicide watches, increased depression and the use of drugs and alcohol that accompany them... well who wouldn't want those to multiply across this nation?
Me, for one. The gun-shy librarian.
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