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.
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