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BTin wrote:My wife, who supports me carrying, also had this reaction. I later asked what her reasons were. She responded that teachers in general are irresponsible and she thinks they would use a gun to intimidate students or in other improper ways.
I had two reactions. First, why are these people teachers if this is true? (rhetorical question - please don't answer) Second, if a person has a CHL, that should invalidate the above due to background checks and training on what not to do. She didn't have much to say in response.

I agree with the above, guns in schools is just too emotional for most people to have a logical response. I also agree that CHLs in schools will not stop mass shootings unless the CHL holder is attacked directly.

I always found this argument offensive. I've started asking people, why on earth would you entrust your child to a person that you think would intimidate or injure them if given the chance?


I had an issue during the last month of my last year in the classroom that really made me aware of how vulnerable we were (are). I was six months pregnant and finishing out the day with a group of 8th graders. One 8th grade male was sixteen-years-old and extremely large (I would estimate 6'3" and over 200 lbs.). Anger management was not his forte. I had another 8th grader, roughly half my size, whose mouth would often write checks his little body couldn't cash. Although the smaller one wasn't being offensive that day, the big boy apparently was reliving some past offense in his mind and began threatening the little one.
I kept telling the bigger one to back down, but finally ran in the hall and yelled for the officer (his office was about 15 feet from my door). He was on lunch duty, and fortunately the counselor was in her office. She ran to get him, and he ran in the room and quickly took care of the situation.

The officer arrived very quickly, but the bigger student could have done a lot of damage in the space of time he had if he had chosen to do so. At 6-months-pregnant, I was not about to physically intervene. Even if I weren't pregnant, this particular student was large enough to have seriously injured me or anyone else that got in his way.
He was taken out of my classroom and never allowed back in, but the experience, and my inability to act had it escalated, continues to bother me.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:

lonewolf wrote:In taking a little more time and reviewing this in my little ol' noggin, another thing comes to mind. As a CHL holder, I don't consider myself a body guard, a security guard, or a law enforcement officer. Keeping that thought, if there were an incident and a child was injured/killed, I can easily see some litiginous happy attorney filing suit because the CHL did not protect the child. My reckoning is that while a CHL holder can be justified in using such force in defense of others, he/she is under no obligation to do so. This whole thing could get real sticky, real fast. Make no mistake, I am in favor of allowing licensed CHL holders to carry in public institutions where they are employed, but there has to be an understanding that they are not security guards, nor on any "response team" (my quotes), or anything of that nature.

If I were the teacher and an incident was taking place at my school, I would do whatever possible to protect my students and myself. Lock the door. Barricade the door. Take cover. Establish communications with the outside world. Be a good witness. I would not go out roaming the halls looking for trouble.

There is no general duty for any citizen to protect any other person. There are exceptions like LEOs, your kids, spouse, etc., but an armed teacher will not have such a duty under current law. No "litigious attorney" is going to file suit where no cause of action exists. However, if the teacher said they would protect his/her students and didn't, then a cause of action would exist.

That said, if my kids were still school age, I would expect their teachers to jump on a grenade to save them. If they didn't, getting sued would be the least of their worries. I would do that for any of the kids in my student Bible study class. Some things you do simply because it's right, not because the law requires it.

Chas.

Charles, I've heard different arguments on whether a teacher is expected to intervene or not. I have only worked in one school, but we were always told not to intervene (but were never written up/punished for doing so).
A few people in the union often said that a teacher acts in loco parentis (sp?), while others say that in loco parentis simply means that a teacher has a right to make a criminal complaint on behalf of his/her student. (And example of the latter would be if a student were threatened/assaulted at school, the teacher would have the right to press charges directly as opposed to waiting on parents/guardians to do so.)
What's your take?