Teachers with Guns

I was doing a mental inventory of my colleagues over thirty years of teaching, considering which of them might be willing to pack heat in the classroom and which could be trusted to do so.  The categories don't intersect.  Granted, I didn't work in Idaho or Kentucky, but even in such gun-friendly places, I doubt the circles of the Venn diagram would overlap.

There will be volunteers, of course: some teachers will volunteer for anything that pays an additional stipend.  There will be training, probably by local sheriff's deputies — but even if the teacher volunteers refrain from grading papers during the PowerPoint presentations, the whole idea of turning educators into a sweater-vested SWAT team is absurd.

Given the suicidal nature of school shooters, arming teachers will have no deterrent effect: some shooters might welcome the "extra challenge."  We need to ask more questions about whom the "guardians" might end up shooting in a "combat" situation.  Do Our President and his NRA anticipate running gun battles?  Real life is neither an action movie nor a video game, and it is terrifying to think about what might happen in those states already enacting legislation to arm school personnel.

I have no problem with those who own guns for hunting or target shooting, but I'm sure they could manage quite nicely using bolt-action rifles and shotguns.  By contrast, people who own hand guns and semi-automatic rifles for "self-defense" all too often share a characteristic that should preclude gun ownership: unhealthy levels of fear.  It doesn't matter whether they fear home invasion, street crime, or a government imposition of shariah law: their fear inevitably makes them less rational.  We don't need people who are both armed and irrational in our schools.
 

Shorts

Gun politics
The manufacturers of the "Bumpstock" profited mightily from the free advertising provided by Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter; but now that sales have dropped off again, Our President is willing to consider a ban.  Whoopie.  Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says those who support gun control are "socialists" — but, apparently, not Maoists, who believe that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."  I don't believe those wonderfully articulate young socialists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School will change any Republican votes on gun control, but I feel certain they are helping themselves by channeling their grief and trauma into activism.

Tsuris for Bibi
It looks like years of corruption accusations finally have caught up with Bibi Netanyahu as his co-conspirators prepare to turn state's evidence against him.  Nevertheless, an impending indictment won't interrupt his plans to attend the AIPAC conference in Washington starting March 4, and to meet with Tr*mp for the fifth time.  AIPAC, which always has represented not Israel but Likud, will greet Bibi with cheers.  Tr*mp and Netanyahu can commiserate, and nobody should be surprised if Tr*mp recycles the comment he made about Rob Porter: "He says he's innocent."

Short Subjects for Early April

The National School Shield
The NRA's idea for putting armed guards into every school is, of course, absurd.  The organization, sponsored by gun manufacturers, had to come up with something — and, needless to say, their solution had to involve more guns.  The NRA has offered to "train volunteers," but the cost of just insuring against the risks of some yahoo with a semi-automatic wandering around a school building probably would have to be offset by firing two teachers.

Marriage Equality
While we wait for the Supremes to act, here's a thought: I've always been in favor of Civil Unions.  If you want your marriage recognized by the state, go to a judge or a JP or some other state official.  If you want to get married by a religious personage, well, go do it — but don't expect the state to recognize that personage's authority.  On the other hand, if you think religious leaders should have the right to approve marriages, just let them decide who can get married — gay, straight, or interspecies.  As an ordained minister, I would hesitate to marry a man to a sheep, but if it looked like they really were in love...

North Korea
Well, it looks like Kim Jong Un is striving to outdo both his daddy and his granddaddy in the craziness category, but I suspect his real problem is nobody takes the North Koreans all that seriously these days.  The boy king with the bad haircut can beat his chest like Kim Kong, and nobody pays much attention.  "Okay," say the Americans, the South Koreans, the Japanese and, increasingly, the Chinese, "let him rant.  If the need arises, we can blow his ass right off the peninsula, and we're pretty sure he knows that."  On the other hand, I think we have kind of a moral obligation to keep some of those undernourished kids alive.

Atlanta Cheaters
Okay, the bail seemed kind of high to me for a batch of school administrators — I mean, where in hell are they supposed to go?  Will they join the Colombian rebels, or the Taliban?  Can they drain the "vast" profits from their administrator bonuses to flee?  I don't think so.  It is no secret that I'm not at all a fan of school administrators, but I suspect the main failure of the cheating assholes was less cheating skill and a little more hubris than other cheating assholes who are doing it in the white neighborhoods.

The Only Thing...

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun," we are told, "is a good guy with a gun."

Okay.  I've watched all the cowboy movies, so I know the story line, but I'm unsure.  Does a "good guy" with a Glock necessarily stop a "bad guy" with a Bushmaster?  Does a bored-out-of-his-mind, fifty pounds overweight retired cop stop a twenty-something psycho who knows the old fat man is kind of snoozing around the main entrance to the school building?  Give me a break!

It sure as hell won't work in any secondary school, where the numerous "safety" doors are popped open by the resident youth for the sake of a smoke or a toke, and then propped open to accommodate the next "bell."  Granted, the doors won't all be open at the elementary school, but, on a warm day, most of the windows will.  Air conditioning is too goddamned expensive for your ordinary school budget.

Give the principal her own semi-automatic, to stop the carnage "earlier?"  All the principals I ever worked for would have been pretty useless.  Mine all were kind of "manly" men (and one manly woman), but they still would have shit their pants before getting into a fucking firefight.  Okay, one or two would have tried the firefight even with the shit in their pants, but they still would have been useless.

I don't pretend to know the answer to gun violence in the USofA.  There are a shitload of guns out there already, and I suppose the Connecticut slaughter is inspiring more sales of AR15s, just in case  President Blackie Socialist tries to take away our Constitutional Right to buy them.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a fucking lunatic with an explosive vest.  Try to ignore the collateral damage.

If American gun manufacturers also produced cordite, you could be pretty sure the NRA would lobby for the Constitutional right to wear a suicide vest to your local mall, church, or youth group meeting. I mean, that's the meaning of the Second Amendment.  Isn't it?