A Teacher With a Gun Is Like a Cook With Rat Poison by Katherine Valentine
Do you like pink and blue AR-15s?
A teacher teaches; a gun kills. Teaching is not killing; killing is not teaching. In fact, one could say that killing is the very opposite of teaching.
We would not be talking about arming teachers if it were not for so many school shootings — 27 so far this year. There would not be so many school shootings each year if it were not for gun manufacturers and distributors and the National Rifle Association. Gun manufacturers and distributors and the NRA would not be big business if there were not big profits to be made by selling guns.
It’s all about selling guns, ammunition, body armor, holsters, concealed carriers, bore sights, cleaner kits, spare magazines and speed loaders, storage cases and gun safes, and ear protection. And more guns.
And lots more profit.
Guns are not like bread. You eat up a loaf of bread in a week or so and then must either forgo sandwiches and toast or buy more bread. Manufacturers of bread are assured of continued profits. Meanwhile, there’s a Winchester 94 .30–30 1899 Lever Action Rifle from 1894 on sale right now that’ll still kill you. (I’m not going to link to the advertisement for safety reasons.) Gun manufacturers don’t mind if you collect an old weapon here and there, but to ensure their profits continue, they have to get you to buy the latest, in-style killing machine. The AR-15 will do it — you know, like the one that kid used on May 24 to kill 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Better yet, two.
Salvador Ramos, the shooter at Robb Elementary, has become an “influencer” in the killing industry! Like any influencer, he encourages people to buy products and thereby create profit for manufacturers and distributors. Like any recent AR-15 influencer, he creates profit for Colt, the manufacturer of this most popular (and profitable) rifle, and for 52,779 gun stores in this country. Ramos and the other AR-15 influencers do this by making us afraid for our safety and the safety of our children. We are now so terrified for our safety that we buy 20 million guns a year and now live in a gun culture.
So now at school, we want to arm teachers.
Think about this for a moment. Which of the teachers you had would you have wanted up in front of your glass in body armor with weapon in holster and gun finger at the ready?
Would it be Miss Summers? Remember her coming into second-grade class that day with a basket of daisies from her garden? She gave a lovely flower to every boy and girl in class. No, Miss Summers loved everybody, probably even if they had an AR-15. She could never shoot anybody.
How about Mr. Frasier? Mr. Frasier once picked up a boy and turned him completely upside down to demonstrate what “invert” means. But when he wasn’t inverting fifth-grade boys and fractions, we could see that Mr. Frasier had this tremor in his hands. He might have shot the wrong person.
Then there was Mrs. Barkley, who really did bark in high-school English class when anybody began a paragraph in an essay with “But.” But Mrs. Barkley once called Abie a “Jewboy,” and she always gave him a bad grade. No, arming Miss Barkley would surely be like giving the cook rat poison.
Think back. Do you remember any teacher you had who would have been capable of protecting students with a gun? I can’t. Besides, the idea of arming teachers so the gun industry can continue to rake in big profits really is the stupidest idea ever.
Or maybe you agree with Ted Cruz — you know, that senator who’s been bought by the gun lobby — that the best protection from gun violence is more guns. Well then, after the next school shooting, you’ll probably be talking about arming not only the teachers but all the students, too. I’ll bet Colt will be happy to produce a backpack-sized lighter-weight version of the popular killing machine, in pink for girls and blue for boys. Maybe they’ll call it the MAR-15 (M for mini).
