Phillip LeFevre’s Oct. 3 perspective on giving teachers guns as a solution to school shootings is simply not a solution.
Purposely placing guns in the hands of teachers only increases the risk of gun deaths in schools by creating more opportunities for gun violence to occur.
While Mr. LeFevre states that teachers would have to undergo extensive training and appropriate background checks, he neglects the largest school population who could never undergo background checks: the students.
In any school, there is always a population of students struggling with mental illness, impulsivity control, and sociopathic tendency -- students who wouldn't hesitate to attack a teacher to obtain a gun.
Mr. LeFevre said that names of gun-carrying teachers should not be divulged. Such secret-keeping is impossible in a school. It wouldn't take long for anyone who wanted a gun to determine what teachers are carrying or where the gun is stored, thus creating new opportunities for violence to occur at the hands of unstable students.
What are solutions to reducing gun violence in schools? Until gun laws are amended, ALICE training for teachers and students, and at least one school resource officer in every public school would be a place to start.
Classrooms are communities, and many of the things in them are shared with students. We share our pens, paper, lessons, and ideas. Please don't give us guns to share, too.
I’m Rochelle Monteith-Bollman, and that’s my perspective.