By Casey Liss

I have some questions.

  • Where does the money come from to buy firearms for these teachers?
  • Where does the money come from to buy ammunition for these teachers?
  • Where does the money come from to train these teachers?
  • How much training is required?
  • Who is doing the training?
  • How are the trainers compensated for their time doing the training?
  • Given most taxpayers won’t give money to cover basic school supplies[1], what makes you think they’ll be willing to give money for firearms?
  • How much ammunition does a teacher get rationed?
  • Can they bring in their own firearms? Their own ammunition?
  • How do we regulate their own firearms, ensuring safety, adequacy, etc?
  • Where do the guns get stored? How do we prevent children from getting them?
  • If they’re in a safe, doesn’t that defeat the point? Couldn’t that be a life-or-death delay to access them?
  • If they’re holstered, what if a teacher’s clothing doesn’t permit wearing a concealed holster?
  • If they’re holstered, what if a teacher doesn’t want to open carry?
  • If they’re holstered and open carried, how does a teacher ensure that an angry student doesn’t take their firearm?
  • Actually, that’s true no matter where the gun is.
  • If the gun is in a safe, who has the key?
  • If it’s a combination, what happens if the teacher forgets the combination?
  • If there is a master key, like there is for classrooms, who holds the master key?
  • What if the master key is compromised?
  • What if one or more teachers doesn’t have a particular affinity for the idea of shooting a student?
  • Are teachers allowed to shoot first? Or only after they hear gunfire?
  • As the husband of a teacher, I can assure you that teaching is one of the most stressful, thankless, and unfairly compensated jobs in the world. How do we prevent a teacher from losing their cool one day and using their firearm, unprovoked?
  • What if a teacher is the one doing the shooting, since, you know, they have a gun at their side at all times? How can other teachers know if the first teacher is firing in self-defense or in an act of aggression?
  • Regardless, how do teachers know who the good guy is, and who the bad guy is? How do we ensure there’s no friendly fire?
  • What if the bad guy is surrounded by hostages? Are they expected to engage anyway?
  • What happens if a student is in a hallway between two teachers’ rooms? Who shoots? How do they avoid friendly crossfire?
  • If Chris Kyle, a highly trained marksman, and good guy with a gun, was gunned down in a shooting range, surrounded by other good guys with guns… what makes you think an (at best) amateur marksman will fare better?
  • What if it’s… stay with me here… maybe not a good idea to put more guns into society?
  • What if having hundreds of guns in a single building is… bear with me now… not a great fucking idea? What if that building was filled with our children? Doesn’t that make it… an even worse fucking idea?
  • What if we’re… I dunno… not terribly comfortable with training our teachers how to quickly and effectively kill our children? (This one was stolen from Twitter)

Additional questions from and inspired by Andrew Leahey, via Twitter:

  • What if the perpetrator is only threatening to use a gun? What’s the rules of engagement?
  • What about a fight between students? Can the teacher escalate? What if one of the students has a knife?
  • Do janitors, administrators, guidance counselors, all get firearms?

From and inspired by Michael Smith:

  • Who pays for lawyers after an incident occurs? What if the gun is a personal one and not a school-issued one? Is the teacher responsible for their own defense, or does their city/county/state have to pay to defend them?

Once you guys have answers to all of these, let me know.

Thanks in advance.


  1. I grew up in an extremely affluent county in Connecticut. When I was in high school, we used donated paper from the Danbury Hospital Radiology Department from about March until the end of the year. Because we couldn’t afford paper anymore. Because the repeated votes to increase our taxes were voted down. Every time. By rich people.