Caught In The Crossfire?
The sheriff in Santa Fe Texas cannot be sure that none of the victims in the school shooting there last week were hit hit by "friendly fire" from police weapons during the 4 minute gun battle between the shooter and armed school guards.
He says he doesn't think that happened but cannot be sure until he sees the autopsy results.
This scenario, of course, would demonstrate what some have feared since the suggestion was first made that teachers be armed. A "firefight" within a classroom or in the school halls could take out innocent bystanders, aka kids and other teachers. It is not hard to imagine even a trained teacher with a gun panicking or hesitating , or shooting wildly, and inadvertently putting kids and others in extreme danger.
The only thing that can end school shootings is an end to the fascination with and obsession with guns that we have allowed to flourish among the population. Ending this dangerous fetish for guns and for using guns to solve personal problems will take many years to achieve, so we need to start immediately.
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Some Santa Fe shooting victims may have been caught in crossfire
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If students were shot and/or killed by "friendly fire" in Santa Fe, how does that effect your opinion on arming teachers?
BTW, if the sheriff is speculating about it, I think we can assume there was some sort of indication that it may have happened.
What if you had armed teachers and one teacher sees another teacher shooting at a gunman and he shoots that teacher because he thought he was the gunman? At least officers have uniforms to distinguish them.
Or worse, SWAT team arrives and finds a bunch of people throughout the school shooting guns. How do they determine teachers from shooters? Keeping in mind that not all shooters look like, or even are, high school students.
One big circular firing squad.
To answer your question, no that doesn't change my opinion on arming teachers. I don't like having to arm teachers but I still think it's a better option for a last ditch defense than just being completely defensively if a gunman breaks into your classroom. No solution is going to be perfect but this is only a last possible chance in a terrible situation.
I wish we weren't in the situation that we even have to entertain this idea, but we are. But let me toss it back to you for a straight up answer. In a situation where a gunman breaks into a classroom, having by-passed or defeated all other layers of defense around the school, would you rather have a teacher with a gun who might be able to defend him/her self and children, or would you rather have everybody in the classroom be completely defenseless?