Parkland Student Emma Gonzalez Dismantles Trump’s Proposition To Arm Teachers In A Scathing Op-Ed

mars 24, 2018

“We, the youth of the United States, have built a new movement to denounce gun violence and call for safety in all of our communities. This is only the beginning.” @Emma4Change pens a searing op-ed on this generation’s plans to make change: https://t.co/MV34GJgrdI #NeverAgain pic.twitter.com/FWTpOD1WKL

— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) March 23, 2018

As thousands from across the country prepare to descend on Washington, D.C. this weekend for the March for Our Lives protest on March 24 spearheaded by Parkland survivors, Teen Vogue is showcasing some of the incredible young activists lending their voices to the #NeverAgain movement in its latest issue. Of the loudest of those voices, 18-year-old Stoneman Douglas High School senior Emma Gonzalez found herself at the center of the movement after the fiery, emotional speech she gave at a gun control rally just days after the mass shooting tragedy at her school.

Gonzalez was also given an opportunity to pen an op-ed for the magazine, to make the argument for why her generation needs gun control. As she points out, and as the point has likewise been made by many others, “It seems as if the kids are the only ones who still have the energy to make this change.”

One of the topics Gonzalez addresses in her piece is the unpopular suggestion from President Trump that the way of stopping mass shootings in schools is to arm teachers with concealed carry weapons. In all likelihood, this was probably just a diversion tactic on Trump’s part to try to steer the conversation away from real solutions — as the potential complications with such an idea seem too many to count.

But hey Gonzalez decided to give it a shot anyway, with the following list of very reasonable questions about how this whole arming teachers thing would work.

Would they have to buy their own guns, or would there be armories in schools? Would students be able to break into armories?

While teaching, would a teacher keep their weapon on their person or in a lock box?

If it was in a lock box on the other side of the room when a threatening person walked in, would the teacher be able to get to their gun in time?

If the threat and the teacher were in close proximity, would the threat not be able to disarm the teacher and turn the pistol on them and in turn the students?

Why would a student shooter even need to worry about metal detectors or getting patted down if they already know they can overpower the teacher and take that gun for their own use?

If the teacher wasn’t in close proximity, what would stop the teacher’s bullets from hitting other students who might be in the way, being obscured by gunsmoke?

And since there was a resource or police officer on campus to help protect students and teachers, why didn’t that stop 17 people from getting killed and 15 from getting injured on February 14?

To her last point, for what it’s worth, Trump said that he himself would have personally run into that school to stop the shooter, but unfortunately, cloning Donald Trumps to stand guard at every school throughout the country is as unfeasible as it is unpractical.

(Via Teen Vogue)