Leave Armed School Protection To Authorities, Marine/Teacher Says

Amid the debate over what can be done to protect students in schools from mass shootings in the wake of the killings of 17 people at Marjory Stoneham Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a number of people have suggested arming teachers.

Dan Staples, a mathematics teacher from Manchester Township who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, offered the following thoughts on why he believes it is an unrealistic and potentially dangerous solution:

"If you have never worked in a school or qualified with a firearm please stop advocating that teachers should be armed," he wrote Sunday in a post on Facebook that he shared with Patch.

"First, most of my colleagues have zero interest in carrying.

"Second, there is a much greater chance of having a negligent discharge or a misplaced weapon or a bad guy getting hold of that weapon than there is of that teacher using it to neutralize a threat.

"Third, when law enforcement makes entry how would they know that said teacher is not one of the bad guys?

"Fourth, even sworn law enforcement officers know that it is always a bad idea to be carrying in a crowd. When there was a fight at a bar and we responded, we were ordered to wait outside and handle it there. Running into a crowd poses weapons retention issues. Corrections officers don't carry inside a jail for the same reason.

"Fifth, school budgets are scarce as it is. Expecting them to pay for weapons, ammunition, range time and a stipend is simply not going to happen. Most schools don't even arm their school safety personnel.

"Finally, the idea that more guns will make people more safe flies in the face of what the rest of the world is showing us. Schools should have multiple levels of security and be difficult to access. If an intruder tries to get in these measures will buy time as the authorities respond.

"We also need to do a better job of enforcing the see something say something mindset. Looking at other incidences of school shootings there are always indicators which weren't appropriately reported or (in the case of Parkland) not appropriately handled once reported.

"I served four years in the Marine Corps and qualified expert with both rifle and pistol. If I wanted to still be a gunslinger I'd be a gunslinger, but I'm a teacher. I'll stick to my compass, protractor, calculator and No. 2 pencil, aka weapons of math instruction.

"Educators have enough to worry about and already wear many different hats to the children entrusted to our care. Let's leave armed protection to the appropriate authorities."

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