Welcome to the age of gunfighter teachers
Iowa law to allow school employees to carry weapons won't solve school shootings
Gov. Kim Reynolds, our Great Leader who Descended from Heaven, recently signed into law a bill that allows school district employees to carry weapons.
Yee-haw! Let the great Iowa school shoot-out begin.
Every Iowa school hallway could potentially be a reenactment of a classic Western with gun-toting teachers facing off against armed students before the lunch bell.
Teachers could hang their gun range targets in the classroom as a subtle reminder of what happens if things get out of hand.
I suggest arming the science teachers first.
They’re experts at handling dangerous chemicals, scalpels, and other hazardous materials.
Why not give them handguns, too?
Hand out guns to physical education teachers next. They shoot basketballs. That’s the same as shooting guns, right?
I wouldn’t arm the math teachers, though. Those people know about statistics.
They might find the idea of armed faculty and staff doesn’t add up.
For example, what's the percentage if you fire 304 shots and hit your target 107 times?
Answer: 35.19%.
That number was the shots fired-to-hit ratio for the New York City Police Department in 2016.
The NYPD is the largest local law enforcement agency in the country. These highly trained officers hit suspects slightly better than a third of the time.
The NYPD overhauled its firearms training. Their ratio was 44% the following year.
NYPD officers’ hit rates in gunfights — when the suspect was shooting at police — from 1998 through 2006 was 18%.
Teachers are highly qualified people but in silly things like math, science, history, art, and music. They are not trained paramilitary combatants.
Not to worry.
The new Iowa law requires quarterly firearms training for armed school employees or private security officers hired by districts, including “annual live scenario training.”
The NYPD has scenario training and regular qualifications, too.
But we are a nation drunk on the gunfighter myth. We think killing is as easy as it is in video games and action movies.
Combat war veterans or police officers who have taken a life in the line of duty will tell you that’s not true.
I used to work the night cop beat for the Gannett outlet store in Des Moines. I knew some cops who killed suspects.
Some got past the guilt with the help of therapy, their faith, and peer support.
In a few cases, the officers left the profession. They had taken life and it haunted them.
Nobody becomes a cop because they want to kill somebody.
There are many reasons why people become teachers, but I have yet to meet a teacher who wants to be involved in a gunfight.
We could talk about gun control, but what’s the point?
America gave up on the idea of gun control in 2012. That was the year that a school shooting left 26 people dead, including 20 children aged 6 and 7.
The tragedy inspired a nation to rise and demand gun control … for about a week.
Then former National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre crawled out of the slime cave of offal where he lives and spoke the words gun manufacturers had anxiously anticipated: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
And with one Forest Gump-like cliché, Congress remembered who signed their paychecks and capitulated.
Now, as a nation and as Iowans, we believe no gun problem can’t be solved with more guns.
A February Des Moines Register-Mediacom poll found that 60% of respondents favored arming school district employees.
And now we’ve put such wrong-headed thinking into law.
Fortunately, the code allows schools to opt out of the gunfighter mentality.
Reynold’s signature was barely dry before the Des Moines school board, the state’s largest district, opted out of having faculty and staff packing heat.
I’ll be curious to see how many of Iowa’s 328 school districts allow employees to add guns to the teacher’s school supply list.
Before they all do, I hope they first do the math.
Daniel P. Finney, a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative, wrote for newspapers for 27 years before being laid off in 2020. He teaches middle school English now.
Your writing makes one think in a different manner. That is what teachers do. Gun rights win over responsibilites in our country. As a side I would suggest that all health care providers be required to ask patients about locking guns away from children, those with cognitive and anger issues. We are asked about smoking, seat belts, drugs and throw rugs.
Your sarcasm and statistics complemented each other. Your experience with the DM police brought up a point that I hadn’t heard before, and it’s an important one. Thank goodness DM opted out of arming teachers. Why would we trust teachers with guns? We don’t even trust them to choose books! [That was not an original thought; I read it somewhere.]
Side note: Love your description of the Register as a “Gannett outlet store”! 🤪
Thank you for your gift with words.