A few days ago, I posted about the idiocy of proposals made by several Republican legislators who advocate arming teachers. On Facebook, a friend who is a lawyer posted a number of points in addition to the ones I’d raised; he’s a good lawyer, and in “lawyerly” fashion, he raised the following nine questions that focused on the significant liability issues involved.
Here are his contributions to the multiple other concerns that any such effort would raise:
1) If a child gains access to the teacher’s gun and something bad happens, will the school system’s insurance cover the liability?
2) If a teacher believes use of force is needed and accidentally harms an innocent child, will the school system’s insurance cover the liability?
3) If a teacher wrongfully decided that use of force is needed, will the teacher face criminal liability?
4) Will the school system (that won’t pay for pencils) pay for the gun, ammunition, training, a trigger lock, a gun cabinet, or other necessities?
5) Will teachers be required to “register” that they have a gun?
6) What happens, in the heat of the moment, if there is a shootout between teachers, each thinking the other is the shooter?
7) How will police differentiate an armed teacher from a school shooter?
8)) Can a teacher defend himself/herself against a police officer who thinks the teacher is the shooter?
9) Will a teacher face liability for failing to use force?
Anyone who has ever practiced law–or, for that matter, sold insurance–will recognize the pertinence of these questions.
Of course, just reading my friend’s questions raises several others. Why aren’t reporters asking proponents of this stupidity to respond to these and other obvious issues? Why are lawmakers–who ask for our votes on the basis of their presumed ability to consider the consequences of legislation they pass and programs they fund–seemingly blind to the existence of these very foreseeable concerns?
That was a rhetorical question; we all know the answer. They aren’t serious–not about arming teachers, and not about doing their jobs.
If it has done nothing else, this entire discussion about gun violence has vividly illustrated the vacuousness of current American politics and the inability of our institutions–especially Congress–to address the most pressing issues facing the country. It’s true that it has put a spotlight on the clowns–the cohort of embarrassing know-nothings, bigots and nut-cases–but it has also pointed to the reason they are there: voters who, for reasons I cannot comprehend, cast ballots for them.
Marjorie Taylor Green just won her primary. She’s far from the only certifiably crazy member of Congress, just one of the loudest. Remember Paul Gosar? His siblings took out television ads warning voters that he was unfit to serve, but despite the fact that several of his brothers and sisters warned that he was mentally “off,” he won his election. I’ve never seen Jim Jordan when he wasn’t screaming something partisan and off the rails. Most people who read this blog can name a number of others, and none of them seem to make the slightest attempt at transmitting gravitas, or seriousness. They evidently think they were elected to put on a performance (preferably on Fox News) not to study and consider the pros and cons of legislation.
Today’s GOP isn’t in the business of governing; instead, its members are providing bread and circuses.
With respect to my lawyer-friend’s very foreseeable, very logical questions, I’m quite sure these bozos have never considered any of them–they are too busy fighting a culture war and setting Americans against each other. The suggestion to arm educators is just one way among many to avoid actually thinking about the problem of mass gun violence–a glib and facile response that excuses them from doing the difficult job of thinking about the problem and devising and evaluating reasonable solutions.
Bottom line, I am SO TIRED of people who spit on a Constitution they’ve clearly never read or studied, who refuse to give taxpayers a single day’s real work for the dollars we pay them, and who spend zero time or effort considering the national interest or the common good.(They think any effort to legislate for the common good is socialism–and they’re agin it.)
And I am really, really OVER the morons who vote for them and the millions of non-voters whose absence at the polls increases the likelihood that the morons’ candidates will win.
Okay–rant concluded……See you tomorrow.
Beautiful example of the distractions that right-wing politicians intentionally propagate to resist serving the people (while the left distracts itself with half-serious campaigning). When are the 80% normal majority going to stand up and take away their platforms? forwardparty.com
And yet another example of why the US is going to Hell in a hand basket carried by the new Fascist Party AKA GOP. I wish they would stop coming, but I know they will not.
I can’t get past the questions of common sense & logic to even attempt the legal liability questions! Such as:
If we can’t trust teachers who are “grooming” our kids, how can we trust them with a gun?
If we can’t allow teachers the power to, you know, TEACH, how can we allow them the power over life and death with a gun?
If teachers actually teach and believe CRT, how can we be sure they won’t just shoot a *certain color* of intruder…or student…or police officer?
If our female students AND teachers aren’t able to exercise bodily autonomy as relates to their own reproduction, why the hell are these (mostly) male politicians so hot to ARM THEM???
O wait…that last may be the best idea I’ve heard…let’s arm them all, then let them ‘peacefully protest’ at the capitols.
A well done rant…..and just a followup thought.
Will the teacher be allowed (or required) to take the gun away from school? Will school insurance follow? or will the teacher be required to carry their own insurance? What happens if that policy is allowed to lapse?
So many issues. WWSCOTUSD?
Excellent summary of questions to ask but I don’t speak to “conservatives” and they don’t speak to me. 30+ years old Fox spews, Steve Bannon and dead Rush Limbaugh has these people twisted into pretzels with their logic.
If they ask teachers to arm themselves with guns, there will be a mass exodus of professionals that say enough is enough.
Jane; thank you! Logic, common sense, legality, reality and liability has no place in much of our governmental body at all levels or our courts today. Trump’s TWO impeachments and hearings on SCOTUS appointments are high crime and misdemeanor level examples of the lack of even morality in this country. The struggles of the January 6th Investigation Committee are virtually dead in the water to bring charges against the higher level government officials known to be deeply embedded in the planning and carrying out of the Insurrection the world watched in real time. Capital Building security camera films of Rep. Loudermilk leading a tour of people, including one of those arrested for participating in the Insurrection, showing locations of secret stairways, escape routes and private areas on January 5th, a day when the building was closed to the public. He denies he did what our lying eyes watched him do. Rusty Bowers, who spoke loud and clear in yesterday’s January 6th hearing about the threats to himself and his family for refusing Trump’s demands he overturn the election results but has stated if Trump runs against Biden in 2024 he WILL vote for Trump again. Bowers stated that upholding his Oath of Office to uphold the Constitution was more important than following Trump’s seditious and treasonous orders…but he would vote for him again. Where is Bowers’ future liability upholding his Oath of Office and the Constitution?
“The Decline Of Seriousness” How can we take our lawmakers words seriously under current conditions; arming school teachers is too ridiculous to consider. The 2nd Amendment states “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Nowhere in that brief, now dangerous Amendment, does it demand that people be armed.
I am old
I have decided that I will fight the crazies back
But if nobody but me votes, what will be will be.
50 years + down the road, the blackness of dishonor will still be, never to be erased.
Thank you Jane
Thank you Sheila
Don’t stop the rants
Jane,
Well presented.
I was a classroom teacher in Colorado Springs on the day of the Columbine massacre. Following that event, the topic of arming teachers was discussed. Sanity prevailed then – even in the ruby-red city of Colorado Springs.
OF COURSE it’s an absurd notion to arm teachers. That’s why today’s Republicans bring it up. They DESPISE public education because it doesn’t improve the profits of their donors…or so they “think”. So, any cause that gets their pasty faces in front of a TV camera to rant themselves about our schools, our teachers and every other thing they can lay their fetid tongues on is their daily routine.
Most of us on this blog have ranted, at one time or another, about Republicans becoming the party of stupid, the party of hate, the party of unregulated evil. And every day, these assholes prove our points. As Christopher points out, the 80% of somnolent voters need to get off their asses and vote out EVERY Republican EVERYWHERE. Then, it’s on to impeaching and removing the corrupt insurrectionist Clarence Thomas and putting his seditious, traitorous wife in jail.
Pant. Pant. Rant over.
Excellent questions. If a school system were to arm teachers, where would they get their training? Any police officer (full disclosure, I am a retired one) will tell you that the firearms training we received is much more than the physical act of point/aim/fire, but includes decision-making, weapon retention, situational awareness, and much more. And we had to re-certify every year. On my department it was twice a year, and each time included a full day of training at the range. Will the armed teachers be required to do that? Who would cover their classes on the training days?
And, if they are going to do this, who will provide the training?
I did see an interesting article on a local news channel about the Jay County School system’s policies they are incorporating, including improvements to the building and secure lock boxes that would house the firearm until it was needed, and those measures seemed reasonable and well considered. It would be worthwhile to look at if you have time.
Now you know why Democratic leaders won’t take down the Republican Party – they need their stupidity to shine brighter than the Democrat politicians.
If we vote out all the idiots on the right, we still have the idiots on the left to toss out.
When Americans realize we have an oligarch and political problem, we’ll start to get somewhere. Until then, here’s to the caravan of crazies and all those who support them. 😉
Good morning, John!
Sheila,
that wasnt a rant,its how we all feel here about the convesation overall… thanks
one item,, id like to also put forth another issue.
when that teacher goes home after killing someone in front of their class,
how will they live with it?
and who pays that cost?
seems no one feels the after thought anymore either.
truckers have the same issue when they,kill someone…
Those legislators might not be serious, but the threat they pose certainly is. And for anyone who may have had their head in the sand on Tuesday, the threats posed by their supporters are beyond serious, they are both malicious and dangerous.
Thank you Sheila, JoAnn, and Vernon, as always.
And Todd, every once in a while you make sense, if and when you put your idealism aside and think like a political strategist facing the reality of the situation in this country with a broke two party system. The silence of the Dems is maddening. Get the Fascist GOP party out then the silent Dems. But what then????
Opps! Broken system. They certainly ain’t broke.
We are in the throes, as a country, of death by amusement.
We have truly left the Era of Enlightenment and entered, not the dark ages, but the Tik Tok Age.
God help us.
I have laid out some potential liabilities on the net and suggested in addition that shooters, knowing teachers are or could be armed, will be the first ones he (and it’s always a he) will shoot so that he can finish off the unarmed students. The argument that more guns is the answer is akin to an argument that when poisoned one should take more poison. Aristotle would be appalled.
If that was a rant it was a very intelligent, common-sense, and appreciated one.
One item no-one has addressed heretofore, is the influence of the NRA on the idiocy spewing from the right!
If you look back upon the history of responses to mass shootings, you will see that it is the NRA, which owns so many of the GOPers, that provides the self-serving, useless, idiotic, sound bites of responses that the GOPers use:
” It’s a mental illness issue,”
“A good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun,”
“Guns don’t kill people, people do!” and so on.
It is the NRA that has led the way to bastardizing the 2nd Amendment.
And then there is the long history of GOPers trying to water down the education process, Paul Ryan advocating the removal of the Dep’t Of Education, followed by Rand Paul, who picked up that theme, and who can recall the others of a similar stripe?
Of course the Orange Ogre loves the “uneducated!” If you don’t teach people how to think, they will not know how, or what, to question.
But, would we call a couple of lawyers, on their front lawn with guns, uneducated? Or, simply massivley bigoted…and thus unable to think?
I have said before, and will say again, that arming teachers is probably the absolutely stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. I note that several people think the Repubs can’t be serious about this idea. I haven’t found any statements from Repubs that they’re not serious, so I have to conclude that I need to take this idea at face value. In that case, my response has to be “Good God, what on earth are people thinking?” Help. Let me off.
Your list of concerns is spot on; which leads me to this scenario:
“Ok kids, keep him distracted while I run to the teacher’s lounge to get my gun.”
We (Democrats) need to stop being nice.
We need to shame Republicans and make being associated with them in any way a badge of dishonor, and point to ridicule.
They deserve it.
Over It: You nailed it. We Dems score high in ‘shooting ourselves in the foot.’ Beyond that, we’ve been too damn nice for too damn long. We know what doesn’t work. What say we get on with it and do what needs to be done? Try a page from ‘their’ playbook.
Gee whiz! I posted a harmless comment that apparently didn’t make the cut. It was in support of Over It and others who know what needs to happen going forward. Is the posting machine broken? Sniff! 😢
There! Like magic, my first comment jumped in there! Thanks to the magic of electronics and to the one pushing the buttons!