NYT Opinion Podcast "First Person:" Should Teachers Be Armed in School? Some Already Are

 Earlier this week, a teenage shooter got past a locked door, a metal detector and evaded a police officer in a St. Louis school and shot and killed a student and a teacher.

 The solution by gun advocates is to arm teachers. It's a difficult time for teachers. They are harassed for teaching CRT, although it is not taught in any elementary and secondary school curriculum. They face staffing shortages due to poor pay, and they regularly attacked since they are on the front lines of the culture wars.

The New York Times Opinion podcast First Person is back for a new season and has developed a two-part story on the educators who are considering whether to bring guns into their classrooms. 

America’s teachers have to make choices unimaginable anywhere else in the industrialized world. In today’s episode, host Lulu Garcia-Navarro speaks to a Utah County sheriff who, after learning that teachers were bringing unsecured guns into classrooms, started a concealed-carry training program for educators. 

Next week, a special-education teacher has to decide what puts the children in her care more at risk — carrying a gun or facing a merciless killer without a defense.

The full transcript of the interview can be found here, with highlights below:

Lulu Garcia-Navarro

I’m wondering how you teach someone when to shoot or not to shoot.

Mike Smith

You know, that’s a tough thing. Over the years, I’ve taught a lot of different classes. And you always get asked a similar question — when can I use deadly force?

You have to be able to articulate that you are in fear of imminent threat of death to yourself or others. But not every situation is always cut and dry. So you have to — if you’re going to take the responsibility of carrying a gun, you really have to take the time to think about these things and be a critical thinker and use it properly, or you’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble. [...]

Lulu Garcia-Navarro

I want to step back for a moment. As an officer, what do you gain by having someone who is not law enforcement armed at the scene?

Mike Smith

Well, it depends on who that someone is. And that’s kind of a tough question because if it’s the wrong someone, we gain a lot of problems and a lot of issues we’re going to have to deal with. But I don’t control what teachers decide to do. And if they do or don’t carry a gun in school, I get to deal with the cards that were handed.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro

I guess what I’m asking is, do you think that having someone being armed at an incident makes law enforcement’s job harder?

Mike Smith

It could. But citizens have responded to these very type of incidents, these active killing incidents, and they have made a difference.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro

So, clearly, this is a very complicated issue with a lot of challenges. And as you discovered, when you found the unsecured guns in teachers’ desks, you know, not every gun owner is a responsible gun owner. And as you mentioned, you put on this academy to teach people to be more mindful and more responsible. I guess, listening to this, I am wondering if you think maybe there just needs to be a regulation of who can have a gun in the first place, which would solve the problem that’s causing some teachers to feel like they need to carry in school.

Mike Smith

Well, I don’t think you’re reeling back where this nation is in availability of weapons. It’s easy to say we’re going to regulate something. Well, the guns have always been here. These problems have not always been here. What has happened to bring a society to a point where kids are killing kids? And it’s not the gun. It’s the easy coward solution to say it’s an object. It’s not an object. It’s a people problem.