I’ve read the news accounts of Stacy Campfield’s latest proposal regarding school discussions on homosexuality and transgender. Ol’ Stacy sounds once again like a guy trying to grab a headline. I also listened to Campfield spew his venomous ideas on WIVK’s “Sound Off.” Before long, the talk on the radio show turned toward weapons on school campuses, and again, this legislator stirred the waters with his bill that would allow school employees to carry weapons.
This gun-carrying bill is moronic. Sure, let’s arm teachers and principals with weapons. I know plenty of teachers who aren’t capable of carrying a weapon. I’m one of them. We are scared of guns. I don’t need a gun. Other teachers aren’t on an even enough keel to carry a weapon. Some would lose their tempers when they are confronted by hostile students. They’d start shooting out of fear. Before any of us could blink our eyes, wounded and dying children would lie in a heap on classroom floors. That would be okay to Campfield because the schools would be protected. Right! A roomful of teens who watch as a teacher guns down a whacked out kid aren’t going to produce any kind of physical injury, but what about psychological harm? Or does this legislator assume that kids would straighten up after a couple of classmates are stone-cold dead?
Another reason Campfield’s proposal is nothing more than the raving of a buffoon is that society isn’t about to allow teachers to escape legal battles after they pull the trigger on students. In the present climate, many parents are just waiting to sue a teacher over the smallest things. Teachers no longer can administer corporal punishment; lawyers are attacking when they bruise students’ egos. Millions of dollars have been awarded in “Iffy” cases of negligence against professionals in education. Without a doubt, teachers are going to be in legal swamp water up to their eyeballs if they shoot, injure, or kill a student.
Okay, let’s play out the armed teacher scenario. A couple of questions come to mind. First, will teachers be able to use Better Education Plan (BEP) money to purchase handguns? Will limits be imposed on the caliber of the gun? Next, can a teacher carry a shotgun or rifle instead of a handgun? If a teacher guns down more than one student, will he/she be penalized or required to have a mentor to better handle situations? You get the idea.
We need to take this idea of arming faculties a bit farther. Why don’t we do what folks do when they shoot a crow? Let’s hang bodies on the fences around the schools so that would-be attackers will know what happens to those who dare cross us. Maybe teachers could be assigned an extra duty during planning periods. Let’s station them on rooftops of buildings where they can patrol the campus. Any suspicious character who comes on the grounds can be dropped by these snipers.
Stacy Campfield’s proposals are always designed for nothing more than drawing attention to himself. Sure, he puts forth these proposals, but he surely knows they have no chance of passing. Campfield brings up these things because he knows they’ll make the newspapers, radio stations, and television newscasts. Then he is contacted to discuss his proposals in public forums or on the airways, thereby increasing his name recognition. What’s the man’s long-term plan? I wouldn’t think he could ever win an election for a more serious political office, but then again, I never thought he could win the position that he now holds. It goes to show that we voters get what we deserve when we either fail to vote or fail to inform ourselves about candidates for office. Knox County already has one commissioner who loves the sound of his own voice and who takes every chance to roil the waters. Another one isn’t needed.
The situations in schools are scary. However, arming teachers isn’t the answer. A better approach might have school boards with enough fortitude to expel problem students and to develop discipline plans with decisive and severe consequences for misbehavior. If these things take place, Stacy Campfield and his gun-toting ideas can both disappear in a world where logic rules. I know I’ll feel safer when one individual no longer can rattle his saber.
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