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Solomon Jones: Trump needs to go back to school when it comes to his gun ideas

The last thing public schools need are armed teachers

WHEN A GUNMAN at Umpqua Community College in Oregon killed nine and injured nine others before killing himself during a confrontation with police, President Obama said our response was becoming routine.

The call for thoughts and prayers was routine. The statements by our political leaders were routine. The call for gun control was routine. And, of course, the backlash from gun supporters was routine.

This time, the sneering faces leading the hit parade included the ringmaster himself, Donald Trump. He was more than happy to spout the party line concerning mass shootings in schools, because, in Trump's mind, the way to keep us safe from guns is to make sure everybody has one.

"Let me tell you," Trump told supporters at a campaign rally, "if you had a couple teachers with guns in that room, you would have been a hell of a lot better off."

In other words, what teachers need most is not pencils or paper or smartboards or laptops. Nope, what teachers need most are guns.

At least that's true when you view mass shootings through the lens of cynical ideology. However, when you look at education through the eyes of a public-school parent, as I do, the last thing you want a teacher to have is a gun. Not in a college classroom or a high school classroom, and especially not in an elementary school classroom.

In the aftermath of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., National Rifle Association vice president Wayne LaPierre called for armed security at schools across the country.

Many Americans were shocked when he said it, but in Philadelphia, it's an idea that's been in place for quite some time. There were two Philadelphia police officers at Northeast High School when I attended in the 1980s, and there is a uniformed school police officer in my daughter's public school today.

Putting trained police officers in schools is one thing. Arming teachers is something else altogether.

This is especially true when one looks at the realities of teaching. How can teachers secure others when their profession is already insecure?

School closings have hit urban districts in record numbers. Students are failing standardized tests for which they were never prepared. Perpetual underfunding has resulted in academic failures. Questionable spending has created multimillion-dollar deficits. And, while teachers aren't responsible for most of these occurrences, too often they take the blame.

Is it wise to introduce guns into an environment that's already filled with so many stresses? Is it fair to expect teachers to act in ways the rest of us wouldn't? Is it right to expect them to show restraint when they are faced with a hostile work environment?

I don't think so, but apparently Trump does.

Of course, it's easy to say that teachers should be armed when your children never had to attend a public school. It's easy to talk about giving teachers guns when you've never been in today's classrooms.

I, for one, would not want a teacher in front of my children with a gun nearby. Not with the behavior problems that some children display, not with the constant stresses of today's educational environment and not with legislators and administrators who seem more focused on privatizing public schools than educating children.

Trump and his ilk can talk about arming teachers all they want. But if Trump were to actually go into the public schools that our children attend, and deal with the pressures that our teachers endure, I doubt that he would want to give them guns.

In fact, if one of those teachers were to actually use a weapon in the classroom, Trump would not want to take credit, but he'd be among the first to cast blame.