From Columbine to Tennessee

Is arming school workers the best we can do?

From Columbine to Tennessee

The Columbine High School massacre took place twenty-five years ago.

America had experienced mass shootings before, but what happened in Columbine should have been a catalyst for change.

Thirteen people – twelve students and one teacher, were killed, and the two twelfth-grade shooters committed suicide.

This should have been enough to lead to meaningful gun-control measures.

The death of children should have assuaged anyone’s doubts or hesitation.

Anyone with legislative and judicial authority should have done is ask and answer one question:

What reason besides the desire to commit mass murder could private citizens have for buying assault weapons?

The answer is obvious to many, but not obvious to corrupt, morally bankrupt lawmakers.

Those corrupted by the NRA’s graft, and rendered morally bankrupt by the horrendous mythological view that espouses a “rugged individualism” underpinned by unfettered firearms ownership.

Because of this corruption and moral bankruptcy, Columbine wasn’t the end, but the beginning.

Later, there was Sandy Hook, Parkland, and Uvalde.

Not to mention mass murders taking place in churches, grocery stores, nightclubs, and at concerts.

Twenty-five years after Columbine, what we have we done to protect Americans from gun violence?

Tennessee is on the brink of arming school workers.

The state just passed a law giving teachers and school staff the option to carry a concealed handgun provided they

• Get an enhanced carry permit

• Get written authorization from the superintendent, principal and the chief of the appropriate law enforcement agency

• Complete 40 hours of basic training in school policing and 40 hours of Peace Officer’s Standards and Training commission-approved training that is specific to school policing each year at the educator’s expense

• Complete a background check

• Undergo a psychological exam conducted by a Tennessee-licensed health care provider

If this wasn’t bad enough, the law allows the gun carrier to operate without the notification of parents or most school officials.

In America, this constitutes protection against mass murder.

Arming teachers and school staff.

Psychological exams won’t prevent a teacher from feeling threatened by a student or fellow faculty and using an authorized weapon to kill them.

Background checks won’t uncover malcontents given an unofficial hunting license.

And we know beyond a doubt that eighty hours of basic training in school policing and peace officer training won’t prevent mass shootings.

Remember Parkland and Uvalde, where armed law enforcement refused to engage active shooters.

If highly trained law enforcement officers can’t/won’t prevent some mass shootings, what do lawmakers thinks will be accomplished by arming science teachers and maintenance workers?

What will happen is that more innocent kids and adults will be killed.

We can arm teachers and school staff.

We can increase school security making them look more like prisons than schools.

We can recruit retired military personnel to patrol schools.

We can do anything except the right and logical thing.

Make it illegal for private citizens from owning assault-style weapons.

I don’t need to own an AR-15, and neither does my neighbor.

Maniacs with Rambo complexes, hatred for minorities, death wishes, or desires for murderous immortality should be exempt from owning assault weapons.

We don’t need armed school workers.

We need lawmakers with honesty and decency who aren’t beholding to the NRA or saddled with a John Wayne complex.