Teachers in Florida to be permitted to carry guns

Several comments I have to make here.

1) Florida is not the first state to do this. A few have permitted staff (and in at least Utah, students) to be armed for years. So far, there has not been an issue of a stressed teacher (or permitted armed student) losing it. See this ten minute video from NBC last year covering a training course for teachers, with interviews of those teachers. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/i-want-be-able-protect-them-after-parkland-some-teachers-n882261

2) The same staff are already armed, off school grounds. I don’t believe there is any particular magic which happens when a person with a carry permit walks from the park where he may be lawfully armed and across the street onto school property.

3) Nobody is (to my knowledge) advocating that teachers who are not so inclined should be armed against their will, or that other security measures should be reduced.

4) Saying that teachers cannot handle the stress of combat is a broad generalization. A significant number of public school teachers in the US are combat veterans, the DoD and Dept of Education has a program named “Troops to Teachers” which provides job opportunities in public education to servicemen leaving the military. My former platoon sergeant from Iraq is a public school teacher in the Los Angeles school district. I have absolutely no concerns about his actions and capabilities in a firefight. I have seen him in action.

5) The possibility of a case of mistaken identity is a real one. That is a choice which the armed teacher gets to make for himself. It makes little difference to him if he is killed by a cop who mistakes him or if he is killed because he is cowering helplessly in lockdown and the shooter just happened to get into his room.

6) The bottom line is that there is no reason to believe that things can get any worse. There is already an armed individual actively and intentionally attempting to kill everyone he can find, and past evidence indicates that they are likely to find dozens. If the armed teacher responding goes wrong, the worst that happens is an innocent person dies. If there is no armed teacher, what’s the worst that happens? If there is one, what’s the best that happens?

7) What has happened in situations in the past where an active shooter is met by armed retaliation before responding police show up? What has happened in cases that they have not? Go back as far as 1966. How many people did Whitman kill before staff and students started shooting back? How many did he kill between then, and when the police showed up?