July 31st, 2024
During a campaign speech on July 25, 2024, before the American Federation of Teachers, Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris ridiculed “extremists” who want to grant teachers the ability to arm themselves for the purpose of classroom defense.
During her speech, Harris told the AFT audience: “While you try to create safe and welcoming places where our children can learn, extremists attack our freedom to live safe from gun violence. They have the nerve to tell teachers to strap on a gun in the classroom.”
The idea of arming teachers is not a fringe concept. AWR Hawkins of Breitbart News noted that on December 13, 2018, almost 10 months after the Parkland high school massacre took place, the commission investigating the shooting made the recommendation that teachers should have the ability to arm themselves for self-defense in the classroom. According to a report by the Associated Press, the commission wanted school districts to adopt policies that let “teachers who volunteer and undergo extensive background checks and training…to carry concealed guns on campus to stop future shootings.”
In a similar vein, Breitbart News reported that on November 21, 2018,
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, the key individual spearheading the probe, said the investigation into the mass shooting compelled him to change his views on having armed staff at schools. Initially, he was an opponent of such a concept. He noted, “People need to keep an open mind to it as the reality is that if someone else in that school had a gun it could have saved kids’ lives.”
One interesting thing that Hawkins noted about the Parkland shooting is that the gunman paused five times to reload during his massacre, however no teachers or staff members were armed to halt the bloodshed.
Curiously, there were no armed teachers present at Sandy Hook Elementary School when a gunman shot up the school and killed 27 people — including himself — on December 14, 2012.
There’s nothing magical about schools that make them immune to attacks from deranged individuals. The fact of the matter is that as gun-free zones, schools are criminal safe spaces that allow would-be mass shooters to potentially achieve enormous kill counts. Hence, the alarming amount of mass shootings that have occurred in schools in the last three decades. Per pro-Second Amendment researcher John Lott’s findings, 94% of mass shootings have occurred in gun-free zones since 1950.
Kamala Harris can laugh like a hyena all she wants. But the idea of letting law-abiding teachers arm themselves to protect their classrooms is no laughing matter. It could make all the difference in preventing massacres from taking place at our educational institutions.
We have to realize that Harris and her ilk are not interested in promoting public safety. They’re more animated by a desire to exercise full-blown control of the population. One way to achieve that is by pursuing measures that lead to civilian disarmament.
At the end of the day, the real promoters of public safety and basic liberties are those who advocate for the right to self-defense and the full-fledged abolition of unconstitutional gun control measures at all levels of government.
