NRA Says Arm Them, California Says Arrest Them

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

A middle school teacher in San Diego was arrested last week for bringing a gun and a lock-blade knife to school, the Los Angeles Times recently reported. The teacher, Ned Carter Walker, was arrested in the parking lot as he arrived at Farb Middle School and booked into San Diego County jail on two felony counts of possessing lethal weapons at school.

So much for the NRA’s proposal to arm teachers to defend against the imminent threat of homicidal maniacs who are hell bent on slaughtering Innocents as they cower helplessly in their classrooms. While a seemingly rational proposal (how are lunatics going to kill very many kids when every teacher can just pull out their Uzi and blow them away?), the NRA apparently neglected to do their research and overlooked the fact that this is illegal and would likely result in large numbers of teachers being jailed, forcing districts to replace them quickly with whomever was available—quite likely incompetents and pederasts. Yet for those in the know, the NRA could hardly be called a naïve organization. Their plan was quite likely the result of a conspiracy between with the prison guards unions to simultaneously increase gun sales and overload the prisoners, thus justifying the guards’ demands for greater prison funding and salary increases. Or maybe it was a conspiracy between the NRA and the billionaire philanthropists who want to weaken teachers unions and undermine the integrity of public schools by picking off so many teachers through arrests for weapons violations that the unions and schools would both crumble through attrition.

Seriously, though, bringing a gun to school seems a little foolish, on par with bringing drugs or pornography to school—not something you want to get caught with. Unfortunately, the Times did not report on the context, so we do not know if the teacher had been threatened or had any compelling need for protection. As many teachers know, not all administrators are competent at dealing with discipline issues and it is conceivable that this teacher had a legitimate reason to fear for his life. Perhaps a student had attacked him or threatened to do so. Maybe he even reported it to his administration, which ignored him. I heard of a situation where a dean called for the police because he felt threatened by an angry student and the principal, who was not involved in the interaction and had no way of knowing whether the threat was serious or not, cancelled the call, thus jeopardizing the dean’s safety. Just as likely, though, walker was just a run-of-the-mill gun nut who, like most Americans, is terrified of teenagers and believes them all to be drug abusing, law-breaking, untrustworthy, violent miscreants.

 Arrested and fired for lock-blade knife?

On a different note, a six-inch blade can be an imposing weapon, but there are also lock-blade knives that are two inches, or shorter, designed and routinely used as tools, reasonable and seemingly appropriate tools even in the classroom (e.g., opening packages, cutting string). It is bad enough that zero-tolerance policies are resulting in otherwise good kids getting expelled for possessing toy guns and Swiss army knives (the principal mentioned above expelled a straight-A student who had never been in any previous trouble for possessing a toy gun on campus). The question is, would this teacher be in the same kind of trouble if it was only a two-inch lock-blade and not a gun?

Teachers are Terrorists and Corporate Shills

Politicians are notorious for saying stupid, embarrassing and downright insulting and hurtful things in the quest to promote their political agendas. Michael Bloomberg’s recent comparison of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) to the National Rifle Association (NRA) ranks right up there with some of the stupidest—but here are a few other ditties (just in case you missed them):

Teachers Unions are Terrorist Organizations

In 2004, Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), a "terrorist organization" during a White House meeting with state governors.

Schools and Universities Should Be Blown Up

Since the teachers are a bunch of terrorists, it is justifiable to blow up the places where they hang. In line with this sort of thinking, right-wing education privatization cheerleader and Fordham Foundation President Chester E. Finn Jr. said that the best way to reform public education is to “Blow it up and start over,” while his counterpart, Reid Lyon, former Chief of Child Development and Behavior Branch at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, suggested we blow up the teachers’ colleges.

Deadly Disasters are Great for Capitalism (Er, Children)

Current Education Secretary Arne Duncan said that Katrina was the best thing that could have happened to the New Orleans schools. What he meant was that disasters are fantastic ways to rally popular support for otherwise unpopular ideas, in this case, a massive scheme to convert the entire district to charter schools and destroy the unions.71% of New Orleans children are now attending charter schools, the highest rate in the nation. All employees, including teachers and custodians, were fired and forced to reapply, and all union contracts were canceled. Many of the unionized teachers were replaced by Teach For America interns.

Michael Bloomberg: Teachers Unions are Like the NRA

“It’s typical of Congress, it’s typical of unions, it’s typical of companies, I guess, where a small group is really carrying the ball and the others aren’t necessarily in agreement. . . The N.R.A. is another place where the membership, if you do the polling, doesn’t agree with the leadership.” (NY Times)

The comparison is grotesque and offensive because it likens teachers—who see themselves as defenders of childhood innocence and purity (e.g., Sandy Hook) to gun nuts and corporate shills—who are seen by many as the defenders of psychotic, murderous rampages (e.g., Sandy Hook). Yet if we ignore the offensiveness of Bloomberg’s statement, perhaps substitute AMA or Bar Association for NRA, one can see that there is some truth to Bloomberg’s comments. Most unions are like these organizations in that they invest heavily in lobbying, buying politicians and attempting to buy legislation. It is true that rank and file union members are often alienated from and disagree with their leadership. And it is true that the leadership of unions often put their own needs, interests and agenda above those of their members.