EDITORIALS

Yes, Mr. Superintendent

Why not armed guards on campus?

— THERE’S this cop. He’s not exactly happy. He’s not exactly sad. He’s not angry or not-angry. He is silent, straight-faced and . . . serious.

We don’t know his name, but if he ever threw a question in our direction we’d answer with Yes, Sir. Unless maybe the question was whether we wanted any trouble.

This cop might be a fun person in private. In civvies, he might even smile. But every time we’ve seen him, he doesn’t. Or say very much. He watches. Either in the hallways or the cafeteria. He’s got on a yellow shirt with the city police emblem, and he wears a gun on his side. He’s probably got the mace and taser somewhere on his person. But there’s no need to, um, have him confirm that.

And he’s at a school. A public school. He patrols on foot. Sometimes in the school, sometimes just outside. He may be on the school payroll, or maybe the town pays him. Maybe the school district and the town split the salary. We’ve never felt comfortable enough to ask him about it.

But he sure makes us feel better. Students and teachers at that school probably feel better, too. Because he’s there. The same thing goes for the other guards we’ve seen at campuses here and there.

The latest person to come around to the idea of having armed guards on public school campuses is the superintendent of Little Rock’s schools, Morris Holmes. At the school board’s regular meeting last week, he said the board needed to think about getting more armed guards for schools.

Why would such an idea be controversial? Is it because the NRA supports it? Yes, the head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, is hard to like. Yes, he has awful timing and comes across as not only uncaring but unfeeling in those television interviews. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything all the time. Like getting more armed guards on campus. And not just because of Newtown, Connecticut. Some of us still remember Jonesboro, Arkansas.

One member of Little Rock’s school board was quoted as saying the school district needed to use its resources carefully. Can’t argue with that. But what is more important on a school campus than keeping kids safe?

Putting a little sign out front saying that schools are gun-free zones won’t stop your average maniac. But there’s little doubt that the police officer we described at the beginning of this editorial would serve as a deterrent to crazies. Even if the head of the NRA does agree.

OVERHEARD somewhere in the past few days: All teachers should be armed.

That sounds a little too Cormac Mc-Carthy for us. Not all teachers would want to be armed. Even after the latest school shooting. What about the teacher who’s afraid of guns? Would you really want her—or him—packing? And what of the five-foot-nothing English teacher at the neighborhood middle school? How much would it take for some nut to overpower her and take her gun? He’d then be armed himself.

No, arming all teachers makes about as little sense as having no armed guards at schools. Come, let us reason together. Let’s be practical. Which means being wary of adopting policies that sound more like slogans than solutions. (Arm all the teachers! Don’t arm anybody on campus!)

You might have noted the story in the paper Friday. A number of parents in Newtown, Conn., have asked that police remain on campus at all of Newtown’s schools—indefinitely. After what folks in that district have been through, who can blame them? (The elementary school that was the site of the massacre, Sandy Hook, still hasn’t reopened.)

It shouldn’t take another school shooting to wake us up. Let’s protect our kids. With serious, watchful, professionally trained, armed guards.

Editorial, Pages 14 on 01/16/2013

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