No, not really… just students. Seriously. A bill submitted to the Texas legislature (H.B 868) is just that. I quote the introductory text.
relating to a defense to prosecution for and civil liability of an educator who uses force or deadly force to protect the educator’s person, students of the school, or property of the school, and suspension of a student who assaults an employee of a school.
Reread that for a second and let it sink in. Then think about how utterly insane that sounds.
If a teacher pulls out a gun (yes, Texas teachers can carry firearms in schools) and kills a student…
Every phrase in this I have to stop and think, “What the fuck have we come to?”
If the teacher is protecting himself, other students, or PROPERTY…
“Hey kid, stop vandalizing the school. Bang Bang…” Seriously!?!?!??
The text just goes on with this insanity.
if, under the circumstances as the educator reasonably believes them to be,
So an educator doesn’t even have to actually know what’s going on, just has to think that something dangerous is happening.
It is a defense to prosecution for an offense committed by an educator only in the course of defending the educators person or students of the school that employs the educator…
In other words, a teacher sees a fight and kills one of the students. He can be prosecuted, but this legislation provides a “get out of jail free” card.
Let’s be perfectly honest here. This is basically a license for a teacher to kill kids in their classroom or school and do so without consequence.
This bill wouldn’t be needed if a teacher was shooting an armed assailant like at Columbine or Sandy Hook. Notice that the person attacking the teacher doesn’t have to be armed. That’s no where in the bill.
So if a kid walks up to a teacher and punches him or her, then the teacher can legally shoot and kill that kid.
This is insane.
Look, I’ve been a teacher in some rough schools. I had a couple of fights break out in the classroom (always from other kids coming into my classroom, thank goodness).
A school (and school system) that doesn’t control these kinds of elements in that school is already in serious trouble. Now, they want to add a way to kill those kids. What is this, “Scare them so they don’t get out of line?”
Let me tell you, the kids who don’t care, won’t care if you have a gun or not. I have had kids come out of prison, straight into my classroom. I know of at least two kids who were involved in a murder in my old school. Some of the kids (and I learned this by talking to them) are in gangs and fully do not expect to live to be 25. That’s their life. Their dad and uncles are in gangs (and/or jail or dead) and they are too.
That’s not to say that they can’t be helped. They can be, but giving teachers guns is not the answer.
We know what happens to minorities when faced with authorities with firearms. That school I taught at was 55% African American, 34% Hispanic and 3% white. The teachers, on the other hand, were 76% white, 20% African American and 4% Hispanic. The administration of the school was 100% African American (and 66% female when I left). With 2 major Hispanic gangs, 4 Asian gangs, and the Bloods and the Crips represented on campus… you could say that the racial tension was… high.
The solution to these kinds of problems is not giving teachers guns and killing the kids who threaten them.
The solution involves respect, giving hope for a life outside of the gangs, and teaching kids some critical thinking. Heck, just making drugs legal would have prevented a lot of problems. A high school sophomore could make $20k a week selling drugs on the street… does anyone think he gives a shit about his education?
A lot of these kids are frightened enough. And they have never been taught how to deal with fear… except to fight and kill the thing that causes them fear. We have to break the cycle. For every kid we get out of that kind of life, we save the kid, his or her children and their children, etc.
The irony of this situation is a massively Pro-Life group runs Texas and they want to give guns to teachers and give them freedom to kill those people that hurt them.
I honestly don’t think that this bill has a chance of passing even committee, but the fact that Dan Flynn (R- District 2) would even suggest such an insane piece of legislation says something about my state. Something that is very, very unpleasant.
If you live in Texas, call your house rep and let them know that this bill needs to die a quiet death in committee and never, ever see the light of day. Guns have no place on campus anyway. No sense in giving a few bad apples a license to use them.
