LETTER
LETTER
LETTER
[Gazette Editor's note: We were copied on the following letter. While the newspaper that printed the referenced letters was not mentioned, please feel free to venture a guess.]
Recently, your newspaper printed a couple of letters in favor of guns on college campuses. I don't know what the qualifications or experience the writers have, but I definitely disagree with their ideas.
I would like to present a possible scenario:
Mrs. Teacher has just started instructing her college level math class. As students are taking notes, a loud bang is heard. Several of her students, charged with testosterone, reach into their pockets for their loaded handguns. All of a sudden, you have six young adult men and a couple of women looking around and shooting each other. Mrs. Teacher is a very smart lady and is hiding under her desk.
As the shooting stops and the carnage is evaluated, Joe Student exclaims, "Boy am I glad I brought my gun today. This could've been much worse and I could've been killed.
Imagine the surviving students' amazement as "always late" Johnny walks through the door and says, "Did you hear my car backfire?"
As a retired educator, I would not want to teach in a classroom where weapons are allowed. I wouldn't want to carry a gun to class due to the danger it would present to my students. I'm sure there are many others who agree with me. I wonder if Arizona is going to be able to attract the best teachers and students if guns in the classroom are the norm.
SB1478 is not in the best interests of Arizona's educators or students. Just ask any campus policeman or teacher.
Brenda Mooney
As the shooting stops and the carnage is evaluated, Joe Student exclaims, "Boy am I glad I brought my gun today. This could've been much worse and I could've been killed.
Imagine the surviving students' amazement as "always late" Johnny walks through the door and says, "Did you hear my car backfire?"
As a retired educator, I would not want to teach in a classroom where weapons are allowed. I wouldn't want to carry a gun to class due to the danger it would present to my students. I'm sure there are many others who agree with me. I wonder if Arizona is going to be able to attract the best teachers and students if guns in the classroom are the norm.
SB1478 is not in the best interests of Arizona's educators or students. Just ask any campus policeman or teacher.
Brenda Mooney
520 W. Main St.
Payson, AZ 85541
3 comments:
While not expressing an opinion on the guns in the classroom topic, I have to say that the "possible" scenario described in this letter is HIGHLY unlikely, to the point of being nearly ludicrous. A car backfiring in a parking lot may sound like a gunshot, sure, but why would that cause students in a classroom to start shooting at EACH OTHER? You really think they can't tell the difference between a shot "outside" and a shot fired from less than 20 feet away?
Come on, if you're opposed to guns in the classroom, fine, be opposed to it. But let's argue the matter with FACTS, not completely unrealistic made-up scenarios that would NEVER HAPPEN.
People who carry guns aren't quite THAT trigger-happy. My vision of that same scenario has four of the braver students, guns drawn, looking out the window to see what happened while half of the others are calling 911 on their cell phones to report "shots fired", and the rest are saying to the others, "Are you sure that isn't just a car backfiring?"
Also not an opinion on SB-1478. But this article was not even close to a nice try.
SB-1478 allows guns on campus but prohibits guns in classrooms. They must be checked into approved lockers and locked before entering.
Will someone not do this? Of course. But nothing today prevents this either.
Instead of scare, try using reasonable ideas. There are lots out there you could use on this topic.
I asked Colin Goddard, the Brady Campaign poster boy who was shot four times by Seung-Hui Cho at Virginia Tech, if he'd been armed did he think he could have stopped Cho and saved the lives of other students and faculty. He stammered a couple of times, said he didn't know, expressed anger that anyone would ask such a question, and finally said he didn't want to "get into speculation." Yet, having been shot four times because he was defenseless, he wants everyone else to be as defenseless as he was. I call that both shirking one's duty to one's fellow citizens and a form of insanity.
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