Isn't It Time to Let Teachers Defend Themselves?

Amid the stories of the Sandy Hook Elementary School principal bravely rushing the shooter on Friday, and of other teachers who covered students with their bodies in an effort to protect them, isn’t it time we rethink our no-guns-on-campus policies and finally allow teachers to defend themselves?

As it stands, the principal, who was unarmed, rushed an armed criminal amid a hail of bullets. Those aren’t very good odds. 

Would not the law be more fair if that principal, or any other adult school employee across this nation, had the recognized right to keep and bear arms on a campus just as they do in so many other crowded, public areas? 

Before anti-gunners get all lathered up, I’m not suggesting we force teachers to arm themselves or allow reckless individuals who happen to be teachers to be armed on campus. Rather, I’m saying that individuals who have a concealed carry permit, in states where such is required, or meet the other legal requirements to carry a gun, in states where concealed carry permits are not required, ought to be able to use a gun to defend their lives on a campus just as they are able to use a gun to defend their lives in the grocery store, in their homes, in a restaurant, at a gas station, etc. 

If we could make this change by abolishing or amending the horrible “Gun-Free Zone Act,” teachers could actually go from offering a failing prevent defense, where they sacrifice their lives to save children, to offering a formidable and successful defense, where a law-abiding citizen with a handgun makes the perpetrator pay with his life on someone else’s terms for a change. 

Perhaps the best way to look at this is by remembering that the 2nd Amendment does not grant a right: Rather, it protects a right granted by God through nature (according to our Founders). Any time the government curtails the exercise of this right, as they do through the Gun-Free Zone Act act, they are necessarily taking upon themselves the burden of protecting all those whom they disarm.

On Friday we were reminded again that criminals aren’t adhering to the no-guns-on-campus policy. So the government either needs to think of a way to keep everybody safe from criminals on campus (which is impossible), or it needs to reverse course and allow law-abiding teachers to exercise their 2nd Amendment-protected rights on campus as well. 

If we’ll do this, it won’t take long for criminals to figure out that schools — and the people in them — won’t an easy target any longer.