Tennessee Passes Bill To Arm Teachers

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The Tennessee legislature passed a bill Tuesday that allow faculty and staff to carry concealed handguns in schools as a response to last year’s school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, including three nine-year-olds.

For years Republicans have responded to high-profile school shootings by yelling that armed teachers would protect students. But teachers aren’t paid enough to carry out their normal duties educating the youth, let alone paid enough to do proper and regular firearm training–and regularly updated mental health screenings–so they can play Kindergarten Cop. It’s almost as if conservatives watched too many Clint Eastwood movies when they were kids and that’s why they grew up to be passionate advocates of the notion that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good, bad and ugly guy with a gun.

The Washington Post reported that the measure was approved Tuesday by the state’s House, which voted 68-28 in favor of the bill as protesters shouted their objections and chanted, “Not one more kid,” “Blood is on your hands,” and “Vote them out” so loudly they nearly drowned out the discussion on the House floor. And much like the protesters, House Democrats were displeased that the Republican supermajority had imposed its will once more.

“This is our reaction to students and teachers being murdered in a school?” Rep. Bo Mitchell (D) asked rhetorically. “Our reaction is to throw more guns at it. What’s wrong with us?”

But that’s always the reaction, isn’t it?

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Conservatives have erroneously blamed mass shootings on everything from rap music and video games, to a “lack of God” and mental illness, to marijuana use. (Yes, that’s basically the gun advocate’s edition of Refer Madness.) In the case of the Nashville school shooting, a Fox News correspondent even tried to blame an unlocked “side door” for providing the shooter with easy access, that is, until surveillance footage showed the shooter entered the school by shooting out two sets of glass doors and ducking through broken glass.

But whenever one even suggests that guns might be the problem, the conservative response is always the same: STOP TRYING TO TAKE OUR GUNS YOU COMMIE-ASS-COMMIE! WE HAVE THE GOD-GIVEN CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO ARM OURSELVES! (Right-wingers can never seem to agree on whether it was God or the Second Amendment crafters who gave them the right to bear arms, but whatever.)

Staffers who volunteer to get to carry guns do so under the protection of anonymity.

To be fair, school staffers aren’t being forced to carry guns and double as armed security guards. It’s worth noting, though, that the staffers who volunteer to get to carry guns do so under the protection of anonymity, which certainly doesn’t do anything to make the policy safer or less nefarious.

From the Post:

Sen. Paul Bailey (R), who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said in response to Democratic lawmakers’ questions before the vote in that chamber that the confidentiality clause is “relative to the element of surprise.” Though many states allow teachers to carry guns in some capacity, just four have similar clauses, according to Giffords Law Center, which tracks firearm legislation.

All I’m saying is that in red states, parents have more say over what Black history their children are allowed to learn than they do over whether or not their child’s classroom is a potential Call of Duty stage.

“The legislation serves as another line of defense that would possibly ward off school intruders,” Bailey claimed.

Yeah, good luck with that.

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