Hey 3.5 readers.
I know. I always say I don’t get political on this fine blog. And for the most part, I don’t. When I do, it’s in the name of humor, and I think if you look at my track record, you’ll find that I harangue both sides equally. If you can’t find humor everywhere, then there’s a glitch in your soul and you need to troubleshoot that immediately. Try clicking your inner “CTRL + ALT + DELETE” and then remove your faulty program from your task manager.
I’m happy to hear a debate about how there are too many guns, that guns should be restricted more, harder to get, etc. etc.
However, and get mad at me if you want, but I think schools need security guards. Schools vary in size, but every small town school should have at least one and bigger schools with bigger problems should have several.
I wish it weren’t the case. Take away the school shooting issue for a moment.
When I was a kid in the 1990s when Bill Clinton was chasing interns around his desk with his pants around his ankles instead of chasing down Osama Bin Laden, I recall many a time when I’d be walking down the hall only to see a fight break out. Teachers would run to break it up. They’d get involved, pull the kids off each other, etc.
Teachers really shouldn’t have to do that. If your goal in life is to master a subject and educate students on that subject, then teaching should be your job and you shouldn’t have to risk bodily injury to yourself by having to break up an altercation.
Talk to teachers from all over and I’ll bet there are many with stories about how they were injured while breaking up a fist fight. I would imagine some teachers even get sued.
Keep in mind too that teachers aren’t security professionals. Security guards who are properly trained learn various tactics to use to grab an out of control person safely without, say, accidentally injuring the person by applying too much pressure to a part of the body and damaging a vital organ or something.
I’m not saying that cops and/or guards are 100 percent safe and that they don’t make mistakes, but me personally, if I had a kid and that kid got into a fight, I think I would honestly rather have a security guard who has at least taken a class on how to break up a fight restrain my kid rather than Mr. Smith, the guy who really liked math and became a math teacher.
Not knocking teachers. Teachers teach. And teachers should be in charge of general discipline. Guards shouldn’t be passing out detentions for not doing homework or arresting kids for talking in class. However, when two students get in a fight, the teacher should have a little button he can beep to call in a trained person with an official looking uniform to break it up.
I’m sorry, but Mrs. Jones, art teacher, shouldn’t have to risk getting cold cocked in the face because you think guards in schools might make kids feel bad.
OK. Bring back the school shooting issue. Would tougher gun laws have stopped this shooting? I don’t know. Honestly, the only law that would maybe put a dent in school shootings would be a repeal of the second amendment and that isn’t happening.
This is how the post-school shooting debate usually goes:
DEMOCRATS: Republicans are monsters who care more about guns than kids!
REPUBLICANS: Everyone needs more guns so when shooters start shooting they can shoot the shooter.
DEMOCRATS: We need more gun control!
REPUBLICANS: Name the law you want to pass.
DEMOCRATS: Umm..ungh…
REPUBLICANS: Just vocalize a proposal. What do you want to happen that you think will make school shootings stop?
DEMOCRATS: Umm…ungh…you’re monsters! Monsters who care more about guns than kids!
REPUBLICANS: Y’all want to repeal the second amendment don’t you?
DEMOCRATS: :::look around to make sure no one’s watching, then they whisper::: Holy shit, no! Are you trying to get me thrown out of office?! Jesus, just let me bang my fist on the podium and call you a monster for the next five days and then I can go back to not proposing anything.
Anyway. Confiscate all guns…and maybe there would be less school shootings. I say less because surely one industrious kid would get his hands on an illegal gun.
But, and what people don’t want to talk about, is that the issue runs deeper than guns. High school is a hard time for the young. Kids fight. They argue. They feel wronged by other kids and they feel this wrong is the only thing that matters in the entire world. Some kids let these slights roll off their backs. Some turn to negative activities like drugs or alcohol.
And then, sadly, there’s that one kid who says, “I’m going to get even!”
Take away guns and that kid will probably build a bomb, or use a knife, or a car or something. You’ll probably say the kid who does that might at least kill less if he doesn’t have a gun to use as a primary weapon. You probably have a point there.
The second amendment is a bigger issue than I don’t have time to talk about in detail today. Rightly or wrongly, it isn’t going anywhere. Politicians can throw barbs at each other all day, but a gunless Utopia where everyone solves problems with hugs isn’t coming tomorrow.
Increased security at schools can start tomorrow.
Take away the school shooting issue again. Let’s return once more to the 1990s, when Hillary was really the de facto president and Bill was leaving stains on Monica Lewinsky’s dress.
I was a big kid. But I was a nerd. I was an easy target. Kids who felt they had something to prove would hassle me, hit me, punch me and then they’d brag that they’d got one over on a big kid. They wouldn’t go after, say, a big kid who would actually fight back.
I never fought back. I’d just accept all manner of abuse because I figured if I socked a kid who was harassing me, I’d end up in trouble myself. I figured that black mark on my school record would keep me from my big plans of becoming rich and famous.
Hell, had I known that the best I’d ever do is blog proprietor for a website for 3.5 readers, I might have socked a kid back.
Teachers I turned to for help were utterly useless. Sometimes they’d give me a speech like, “Well, that kid’s home life really sucks and your life is better so could you maybe try to understand that kid has problems.”
I’d usually just nod politely but in my mind I’d just say, “Oh OK. I deserve to be a human punching bag because my parents are gainfully employed and free of substance abuse addictions. Got it. I’ll go tell my Dad to pick up a bottle and then maybe you’ll help me.”
One time a teacher told me to just sock them back. I admire that teacher’s gusto, but again, I’d nod politely and then in my mind, think, “Um, sir, I’m here to be educated. I shouldn’t have to train myself in the ways of kung fu and fight my way out of here every day like it’s ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’ just so I can learn algebra.”
As an adult, do I realize that kids can be little assholes? Yes. Should troubled kids who slap other kids around be carted off to Rikers Island and have their lives ruined? Sigh. Maybe not if the kid can be sat down by the principal and reasoned with. Maybe yes if the kid is making an environment where all the other kids feel like they need to train in the ways of kung fu and fight their way out of school like ‘Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome’ just to learn algebra. Even then, probably not to Rikers Island but maybe to some school for difficult children where teachers have training in dealing with problem kids.
The point is, at some point in a young person’s life, they have to learn that there comes a time when rough housing and horseplay and fights aren’t fun anymore and if you lay your hands on someone else, there are consequences. That should start in high school.
When I was a kid, I thought those teachers who wouldn’t help me were lazy assholes. As an adult, I feel like those teachers were probably just people who signed up to teach a subject and didn’t get paid enough to, you know…be security guards.
That’s why schools need security guards. I know that as a 1990s kid, I would have enjoyed school more if there’d been a person in a uniform and a badge nearby to pull douchebag kids off me.
So, to wrap this up. Big picture, security guards might help stop school shootings if they are being utilized to set up check points, make sure every kid has an ID and everyone entering has a legit reason for being there, to search bags and run metal detectors.
Smaller picture, they should also be there to break up fights and to intimidate bullies into leaving nerds alone. Nerds should neither have to suck it up and accept being pummeled is just a part of growing up, nor should they have to train in the ways of kung fu for self defense purposes just to learn Algebra.
Thank you. Commence haranguing me in the comments.
Bookshelf Battle 