Mr. Klippert's Proposed Bill

State Representative Brad Klippert, Republican for Eastern Washington’s 8th District, has jumped on the ARM THE TEACHERS bandwagon promoted by the NRA. He plans to introduce a bill to allow teachers to carry weapons at school. What a keen idea. Teachers could then be evaluated on things like marksmanship, instead of subjective criteria, like student growth. Fast draw competitions could be useful (and fun) in weeding out teachers who show an unwillingness to shoot at life-like student popup targets.

Of course teachers would have to undergo NRA-sponsored gun training. We hope such training will include how to wrest the teacher’s gun from a student, who might see his teacher hesitate to plug him and take the opportunity to grab the gun away.

Here again, teachers have to be well informed about stand your ground laws, and know that if they feel threatened by a student, they have every right to shoot the student exhibiting the negative or problematic behavior. Drop the student exhibiting negative behavior patterns in his tracks, and you prevent that behavior from developing into something serious.

There are other advantages to gun training for teachers, besides feeling more confident in the classroom. Teachers could, for example, utilize their gun training to moonlight as armed guards at movie theaters -- mass shooting aren’t limited to schools after all. In this way, teachers could supplement their school salary (god knows it needs supplementing), and they could see movies free. Granted, they might see the same movie 2 or 3 or 14 times, but repetition equals retention, right?

The one fingernail across the blackboard in this scenario is its failure to fully consider the Second Amendment. If teachers are to be armed, it seems only fair that students be armed, as well. As the NRA is fond of reminding us, the Second Amendment reads, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Nowhere does it say that this right is limited to teachers.

In order to correct this oversight in Mr. Klippert’s bill, I propose to amend it to allow students, as well as teachers, to bring firearms to school. Let’s make it fair, folks! My amendment is called, “No student left unarmed!”