Why Trump's Proposal To Arm Teachers Is Foolish

So President Trump insists that teachers be armed. Trump said yesterday at CPAC, “If this guy thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone to that school. He wouldn’t have gone there.”

Of course, the perpetrator would have gone to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was a student there. The people there were the target of his anger. He would have gone there whether the teachers were armed or not.

But let's say the teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were armed. If the Broward County Sheriff's Department arrived on the scene and saw a teacher with a gun how would they know that teacher wasn't the perpetrator? Who can say the authorities wouldn't have shot  and killed the armed teacher instead of the perpetrator?

Sadly, in this instance, law enforcement didn't show up. I don't oppose armed guards in schools. Unfortunately, this is the world in which we live. But those measures are only as good as the people who are charged with that responsibility. Well, the individual who had that responsibility fell down the job and has now quit in disgrace. To make matters worse, four Broward sheriff's deputies also failed to carry out their duties.

If the students couldn't rely on trained law enforcement to protect them how can teachers be expected to do their job for them? Of course, Aaron Beis and Scott Beigel lost their lives protecting students. Theirs was an act of heroism. But expecting heroism from our teachers is a burden no one, especially President Trump, should impose upon them.