RE: Should teachers be allowed to carry concealed weapons in their school?
I answered
No
Buckle up. I am a teacher in a high school 20 minutes from Columbine. Although I have never experienced an active shooter situation, I have experienced dozens of lockdown drills and real lockdowns in my 5 years of teaching. During a lockdown you sit with your kids in a corner of your classroom with the lights off and wait for an announcement that the lockdown is over. You don't know if it is a drill, a response to a vague threat or neighborhood activity until it is over. One time I sat in a copy room with a handful of kids on student council until 7 pm because, we later learned, a man had gotten into a shootout with the police across the street after a bank robbery. But you never know what is causing it in the moment. You just sit there in the dark with a bunch of teenagers who are looking to you to tell them they're safe and ultimately keep them that way.
Suffice this to say that I know what is at stake, and an active shooter in a school is something that is on your mind regularly as a teacher. And every time you sit with 30 teenagers who are giggling to hide fear, or asking you to please just tell them its a drill, in the corner of your dark room you can't help but picture someone with a gun busting through the door and mowing you down where you sit. You can't help but wonder if you would have the presence of mind to get in front of your kids, or throw a chair at the attacker, or even stand up before you were killed.
Thank you for expressing this. So appreciative!
#commentoftheday