Arming U.S. teachers against shooters makes them further fear: NYT

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- In the last several years, more politicians have encouraged teachers to arm themselves with guns in classrooms, citing federal and local governments don't have the resources to have law enforcement in every school, reported The New York Times (NYT) on Monday.

It is a "continued enthrallment to a (Western star) John Wayne-style masculinity, the same attitude that undergirds the N.R.A.'s (National Rifle Association) favorite maxim, 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun'," said the Opinion article by Beth Ann Fennelly, who teaches at the University of Mississippi.

"Fear renders us vulnerable to this rhetoric," said the former poet laureate of Mississippi in this guest essay.

"If we educators find ourselves nose-to-nose with a mentally ill child wielding an AR-15, it might look as if we're the first line, but that's only because all the other lines have lain down," said the author, noting that "our schools have become places where children go to learn, and learn to fear. And it makes them sick."

Numerous polls indicate that the majority of educators still don't want to be armed. And there's no conclusive evidence that arming teachers increases school safety, though there's evidence that it increases incidents of teachers accidentally discharging their guns, she added.