Should teachers be armed?

I owned a .22 rifle when I was a teenager. It was a gift from my dad. Living in the city of Rochester, however, did not afford many opportunities for firing that weapon. I never hunted. We had to head out to the country to find empty quarries for target practice.  I lost track of that rifle when I headed out to college.

That rifle was the only gun I ever owned. I'm one of those people who believes the statistics that show a gun in the home is more likely to kill a resident of that home than an intruder. I was at our summer place a few miles away from Old Forge, NY last summer when a vacationing NY City policemen shot and killed his own son whom he mistook for an intruder trying to get into his motel room.

I don't want to own a gun, but I understand the feelings of those who do. The Supreme Court has recently ruled that irrespective of a "well-regulated militia," the second amendment allows for private ownership of guns. They also said that the second amendment allows for reasonable restrictions on that right. As with the right of free speech--you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater--second amendment rights are not absolute.

Almost all of us agree that your neighbor should not be able to own a nuclear ICBM or a drone armed with air-to-ground missiles but--absent mental illness or criminal behavior--should be allowed to own a handgun or hunting rifle. The argument is really where on that continuum we want to be.

To be sure, there are some among us who believe that they need the same level of armament as the government in order to resist the tyrannical intrusion of the government into their lives. Usually their definition of tyranny involves a government chosen in a free election with whose policies they do not agree. What they see as tyranny the rest of us call democracy.

The Newtown school shooting has brought about calls to arm teachers. I spent 33 years in school classrooms, so I thought about whether I would have wanted to be armed.

Certainly no one is suggesting that teachers walk around with pistols strapped to their hips. I can imagine a student altercation in which a muscular student easily gets the handgun from the teacher's holster. We'd have a situation in which the students couldn't get a gun into the school themselves, but several teachers could accomplish that for them.

So we would lock up the guns. What was your desk like at school? How long would it have taken for someone with a tool or two to get to a gun locked in that desk? Would a gun locked in the desk of the Sandy Hook principal have saved the day? Not likely. Her first instinct would have been to go see what all the commotion was about and then it would have been too late to find the key and unlock the gun in her desk.

What if the classroom teachers had been armed? Imagine you are in your classroom when you hear shots from another part of the building. Would you rush to unlock your gun safe and run to the rescue? Not likely.

Firefighters are taught not to run into burning buildings. Those who run in very often make bad mistakes. They are taught to walk in, giving themselves time to size up the situation. Having no body armor or police training I would think that a teacher might not rush to the sound of gunfire like the Lone Ranger coming to save the day.

Personally, I don't believe that I would head out into the hallways. My thoughts would be of my spouse and children. By running down the hallway with only a handgun I am putting my family in danger. They are my primary responsibility. I am not a trained and equipped police officer. I'm staying put in my classroom. I will do my best to protect my life and the lives of the students in my classroom, but I'm not going out looking for a gunfight in which I will most likely be outgunned.

So I'm staying put with my gun aimed squarely at the classroom door.

Which causes another problem. When they arrive, how do the police get people out of the building? Does someone get on the PA and announce that everything's OK. How do those of us hunkered down in our classrooms know that this isn't just a ruse being used to get more shooters into classrooms without opposition? How do we know that they weren't wearing police uniforms to begin with?

Suppose some teachers have engaged the intruders in a gunfight? When the police arrive, how do they tell the "bad" shooters from the "good" shooters? In several of the latest incidents, shooters have dressed in the same black military-style clothing and ski masks that are often worn by police SWAT teams. How will the teachers know that the SWAT team trying to rescue them are not additional killers?

Are we overreacting to Newtown? Shootings occur at movie theaters and malls. Should we arm the clerks, ushers, popcorn vendors and projectionists?

If we do arm all these people, are we causing more problems than we're solving?