The Case for Arming Teachers

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” 

That is what Atticus Finch says to his children in To Kill a Mockingbird. His words have always pretty much summed up my beliefs about guns: one can live a life of courage without ever touching a gun. His brand of courage - fighting with words and ideals - could do all that was necessary in the face of malevolence. I was certain of it. 

Still, when an angry mob comes to lynch Tom Robinson, Harper Lee places another character up in a nearby window. He leans out watching the scene unfold, his double-barreled shotgun trained on the angry mob - just in case Atticus’ brand of courage is not enough of a deterrent. Little kids and their lawyer father appealing to human decency might stop some crimes, she seems to hint, but there are others that need something more lethal. Despite Atticus’ crusade for justice, it is a gun that slaughters Tom Robinson. Courage can only take you so far when you come up against armed antagonists, even in literature. 

I have always wanted to fight with my mind the way Atticus does, the way he teaches his children to. I try to do that in my classroom, fighting any potential bigotry or injustice in the minds of my students with close reading and reflective writing. I have always been certain that ideas and ideals would triumph. 

But now I worry that someday I may lose that fight to a student bent on destruction. Someday, a student lost in his own tempest of anger and aggression may arrive armed and looking to mow us all down. As long as our country keeps offering them ready access to guns, I don’t want to be armed with my ideals. I want to be armed with a gun.  

That statement puts me a very, very long way from the beliefs and ideals I once had, but this is the country in which I teach. This is America. 

I have never fired a gun, or held one in my hands. In college I interned briefly at a school in the Bronx where I became certain that walking through metal detectors past armed police officers was bad for education. I was a first year teacher when Columbine happened, and I was certain it was an anomaly. I was an English teacher, and I believed firmly that guns did not belong in schools.  

After a few more shootings, I endorsed the idea of armed police officers in schools. Now the bullets just keep coming. Now school shootings are a trend. Now I realize what happened that day nearly twenty years ago during my first year as a teacher was not an anomaly. Now, I am ready for a gun of my own.  

We must make schools the “hard targets” of which people speak. I am certain my life and the lives of my students would be safer if I were trained and armed. So, I would go through police training if that were offered to me. Given the opportunity, I would carry a gun to school each day. I don’t think I can successfully do my job anymore without a gun, because above all, my job is to help my students grow. I can’t do that if I must sit unarmed while my students are slaughtered.

That belief saddens me. That belief keeps me up at night. Still, I am certain of it.

The other day, my high school practiced our security drill for an active shooter. 

After an administrator announced that we were doing a lockdown drill, my thirty-two seniors stood up quietly and headed to the corners of the room. I walked over to the door, reached out into the hall to double check that it was locked, pulled it closed, and shut off the lights. I walked to the opposite end of the room and pulled down the shades, three of them. I then scanned my students huddled “out of sight” of the classroom door’s thin window, and sat on the floor next to my desk. I ducked my head down to avoid being easily seen. 

That is it. That is the plan. In the minutes that passed in silence while administrators and police walked the halls jiggling door handles, I thought about the reality of the situation. 

The first bullet would shatter the window in the door, allowing the shooter to reach inside and turn the handle. From there it would be a massacre. Sitting ducks. Fish in a barrel. The way the door swings open would mean the students in the corner opposite me would be first. Then the shooter would turn to the corner by the board where most of my students would be huddled tightly together, making even an inefficient shooter a killing machine. Then it would be me and the couple of kids with me behind my desk. It would take seconds. None of us would go home.

I think that outcome would be different if the first step in the lockdown were to unholster my gun, and position myself with a clear shot at the door - my students behind me. If I had been trained to a level of proficiency, I would wait there until the shooter came into view. Then I would fire as I had been trained to do. In that act, I would fulfill my promise as a school teacher to always do what was best for my students, to help them continue to grow. Most, if not all, of us would go home. 

I think I was able to refuse ideas of arming teachers and increasing police presence in schools because although I taught students every day, none of them were my own kids. 

Now, there are lots of mornings I send my two boys off to school with thoughts of Sandy Hook. The ghosts of those children haunt my boys’ bus stop. I wonder how many deaths would have been saved if teachers in that building were armed and trained to meet force with force. How quickly could they have neutralized the shooter? 

I keep questioning if this is really what I feel. Do I really believe I would be a better teacher if I had a gun? Is that the answer? 

I test that thought by asking if I would want my sons’ teachers to be carrying guns in school. My unequivocal answer is yes. Each time a school shooting takes the headlines my mind goes right to my sons. Their school’s plan for safety is the same as mine: more carefully monitoring the entrances, huddling kids into darkened corners. Soft targets. Easy pickings. 

I have always aspired to be a courageous, but gentle person. I have not always succeeded in either count, but I have tried. But even peaceful men have a point when they become willing to take up arms. Atticus never did against Bob Ewell, and that man nearly killed his children. In the end it was only meeting force with force that saved them. 

So, I volunteer. When our legislators realize that a war is being waged against innocent school children and someone needs to be able to shoot back, I will be first in line. I will study my weapon just as I have studied by books, and then I will enter my classroom prepared. 

Atticus Finch is one of my favorite characters to teach. His ideals serve as a great example for my students of how to stand up for your convictions, how to hold onto your beliefs even when they are not popular, how to try every alternative before violence. 

But we don’t live in his America. We live in a heavily weaponized America. We live in an America where social and mainstream media have offered unseen kids a path to being seen by everyone. We live in an America where students walk into schools and gun down their classmates. 

Until that changes, my students deserve protection.