The Harrold School District in Texas will allow teachers and staff to carry guns starting on August 25th when the new school year begins.

To deter and protect against school shootings, trustees have altered district policy to allow employees to carry concealed weapons if they have a state permit and permission from the administration.

Why?  If there are only 110 children in the entire district, why do you need to carry a weapon to school?  Surely, there are enough teachers and staff that they know the children well enough and a school shooting should not be a worry?  Or are these some sort of mutant children who just want to cause destruction and mayhem?

Superintendent David Thweatt said a main concern was that the small community is a 30-minute drive from the sheriff’s office, leaving students and teachers without protection.

Protection from what?  How bad is your tiny town that this is even a remote possibility?

The district’s lone campus sits 500 feet from heavily trafficked U.S. 287, which could make it a target, Thweatt said.

So here we go.  We must protect the children.  Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  Some random person might come in here and start shooting, even though there’s little to no chance of that, well, until now that you’ve told people!  Even then, there’s still no chance.

Other security measures are in place, including one-way access to enter the school, state-of-the-art surveillance cameras and electric locks on doors. But after the Virginia Tech massacre and the Amish school shooting in Pennsylvania, Thweatt felt he had to take further action, he said.

So, there is no threat near you.  There is very little chance that threat is going to increase, yet you’ve decided to make school a prison for the children.  How very progressive of you.  While you’re at it, make sure you indoctrinate them into believing the state is always right too.

“When the federal government started making schools gun-free zones, that’s when all of these shootings started,” Thweatt said. “Why would you put it out there that a group of people can’t defend themselves? That’s like saying ‘sic ’em’ to a dog.”

Really?  I didn’t know that school shootings were so rampant in America.  Oh, that’s right.  They aren’t.  There are a handful of these unfortunate incidents, but there isn’t such a pandemic of school shootings that it’s necessary to arm yourselves in this way.

What is the school district going to do when they break up a fist fight and lose their gun?  Now, instead of just having a few bloody noses, you’ve got a loose weapon to finish the fight.

“The naysayers think [a shooting] won’t happen here,” he said. “If something were to happen here, I’d much rather be calling a parent to tell them that their child is OK because we were able to protect them.”

And, by arming up to 50 staff members, you’ve just increased the chances of someone’s child getting shot.  The teacher also now has a target on their head.  Anyone with a weapon is going to be taken out first by any attackers that might possibly appear.

You’ve also put the responsibility on the teachers and staff should any incident occur.  Sure, the teacher may put down a bad guy, but now, you’ve got to look for a new teacher because, at best, that teacher is going to go to jail for manslaughter.  Oh, and when they get out of prison, they can’t go back to teaching because they’ve been convicted of a felony.  This is a seriously bad idea that’s hard to believe ever got approval.

Guns will not solve the problem of making thugs behave in class either.  Yes, many thugs fear guns, don’t want to get shot, and don’t want to die.  However, they also know that the teachers would not be able to use the guns when they swear at teachers, when they punch people in the mouth, or when they are being generally disruptive.  Do you want your teachers pulling out their gun and saying, “Sit down and pay attention or I’ll shoot you?”  No.  That’s not going to happen.

Guns are not going to take care of the thug problem, it’s only going to worsen it.  The thugs will taunt the teachers into using the guns.  Eventually, someone is going to cave in and use it unnecessarily.  Remember, this is being implemented in a school of 110 students in the entire district.  What’s going on in this school that makes guns an ideal choice?  That is what people should be investigating.

Educational staff are not security specialists.  To use them in such a manner is a terrible idea, one that is going to eventually backfire.  If the school and the area it’s in is so bad that this is necessary, hire properly trained people instead of making your teachers do the work for free.

Creating the scenario where some nutjob just happens to be driving down the highway near your tiny school and decides that now is the perfect time to jump out of his vehicle and run into your school, shooting up the place is something from Hollywood.  It’s as likely as a terrorist blowing up your local Wal-Mart.

Putting innocent children into harm’s way is not only stupid, it’s irresponsible.  It’s too bad that the people in this tiny town probably think arming themselves for such a slim chance happening is a good idea.  Arming yourself against the boogeyman is never a good idea.  It only creates more fear over something that is highly imaginable.