I've just read a tweet from a teacher that really struck a chord. It went like this:
'As a teacher, I knocked myself out headhunting (a) ceiling pretending to be a particle, star-jumping off a desk. I've set my arm on fire when lit ethanol trickled down (my) sleeve, from my hand. I've burnt my ear listening to hear if gas was coming out of a Bunsen. Please don't give me a gun'.(@ClarkePhil 22/02/2018)
Mr Clarke makes a valid point in an amusing way. I can't think of any member of staff who would seriously want to be equipped with a firearm in school. Unlike many of my colleagues, I have experience with a variety of weapons from pistols to artillery pieces. I find them shocking and frightening. They are loud and destructive. So the thought of bringing these into creative, caring environments is genuinely shocking.
The tragic events that took place in Florida last month now seem to be part of an established pattern that is recurring every quarter or so. It is obvious to most outside of the US, and a fair few inside that America has a gun problem which is growing. Some would argue it is out of control. So the President's suggestion that the solution to school shootings is to arm staff is alarming. I think it's idiotic to suggest that more guns could solve this sort of problem. After the Las Vegas shooting, pro-gun lobbyists argued that more guns would have led to the assailant being subdued faster. I doubt this very much. In Florida, after all, there was an armed Deputy Sheriff outside who didn't draw his weapon or enter the building who has subsequently been vilified for his failure to act. Personally, while I empathise with the grief-stricken parents who wanted someone to intervene to save the children, the name calling seems to me deeply unfair – especially on the part of the President himself.
I frequently grind my teeth when I hear people saying that the US should 'just ban guns'. It is not that easy.
Philip Wright
The Second Amendment is a complicated issue. I frequently grind my teeth when I hear people saying that the US should 'just ban guns'. It is not that easy. The right to bear arms is integral to the US constitution. For some Americans the moment when they buy their first firearm is a rite of passage marked by celebration. Yet it's undeniable that in gun violence the US is facing an epidemic more severe than most diseases. The number one killer of African American males under 25 is homicide (3). This is a nightmare from which the US seems unable to wake.
There is some hope in the ban on so called 'bump stocks' - which turn rifles into automatic weapons. This is a good move. But to my knowledge, bump stocks were not used in the Florida shooting. The step to having the right to bear arms moved back to the age of 21 is also a welcome development but I am just not sure that it will prevent any more shootings. In the last ten years, of the massacres committed none of them would have been prevented or the casualties limited by these measures.
Trump at times seems to be taking one step forward and five back the following day. Even so I do think that he is beginning to emerge as the candidate in 2020 who will need beating. The gun control he is talking about will please a few Democratic voters, though not enough to help him very much. The undecided, on the other hand, may well now consider him a viable candidate. More years are something they are prepared to tolerate compared to whoever will run against a sitting president. The Democrats seem to courting their celebrity candidates, Oprah, Streep or even a Clooney Damon dream ticket. They will find it tough against the first 'celebrity' President. I believe at the moment that only the Republicans could lose this for themselves.
How does this all connect to teachers with guns? I'm almost certain Trump raised the idea to incense the liberal media and encourage them to fill the airwaves with 'Trump-mania', the standard White Houses media strategy over the last nearly 18 months. Within hours of Trump's comment tweets were filling the airwaves about how extreme the President was. How could he possibly do this? Yet in reality, nothing much has come of the idea anyway. The President announced that security would be stepped up at schools, but there seems to be little appetite for the arming of US teachers. What seems most disappointing to me is that once again gun violence becomes a political tool, a vote generator. Democrats want a total ban; Republicans can't tolerate any movement on the issue. As a result, we are where we are, trapped.
Just how much more blood will it take, you wonder? Perhaps there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Each time these tragedies occur the public outcry that follows burns brightly before fading away. The Florida shootings seem to be different because they have mobilised America's youth into concerted and co-ordinated action in the form of the Never Again movement. Luke Darby in GQ Magazine reported on the shift in the mood of students and the new sense of focus (1), his opening line tapping into the movement's core aims, 'The generation that grew up with school shootings has had enough'.
Could America's youth turn out to be an unexpected and potentially unstoppable force for reform and change?
Author...
Is it really possible that the terrible events that took place at Parkland could set a movement in motion that changes America's position on guns forever? Could America's youth turn out to be an unexpected and potentially unstoppable force for reform and change? In Washington two weeks ago, a crowd of around 200,000 people gathered at the March for our Lives demonstration. Several of the teenage activists who have emerged from the Parkland tragedy made powerful speeches, among them Emma Gonzalez who led the crowd in 6 minutes and 20 seconds of silence to symbolise the length of time it took the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, to commit 17 murders.
Yolanda Renee King, nine year old granddaughter of Martin Luther King was also one of the speakers: 'I have a dream that enough is enough,' she told the crowd, in words that drew on her grandfather's epoque-making words from 50 years ago. 'And that this should be a gun-free world, period' (2). Perhaps it's a long shot but wouldn't it be a sweet irony if Trump's presidency marked the moment that marked the beginning of the end for the Second Amendment?
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