As the nation once again looks at the bodies of dead students at yet another school we hear some of the usual shouting about guns.
Predictably, many gun advocates are arguing that we should post armed guards or arm the teachers to solve the problem.
One “solution” meme that I have seen suggests that we hire veterans to be armed guards. It even went as far as to state three per campus would probably do the job. Sounds good on paper, gives vets a job they would most likely excel at and protects the children.
Let’s take a moment to look at the smallest school district in the Tucson valley, Tanque Verde School District. TVSD has only four schools, two elementary, one middle, and one high school. A bit of quick math tells us TVSD will get twelve armed veterans. How much will they get paid? The average teacher salary in Arizona is $46,000 a year. Using that as a starting point, that adds $138,000 to the budget. And don’t forget benefits.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tucson Unified School district has 89 schools. Hmmm… Eighty-nine times three, times 46,000 --- $12,282,000 in armed vets to protect the schools. Plus benefits. In just ONE district.
That’s, um, kinda expensive.
OK! Let’s arm the teachers.
Going back to TVSD, they have a faculty of forty-seven at the high school. A quick Google search states that a “decent 9mm” can be had for between $250-$400. For this we’ll say $300 per teacher. So TVSD is looking at $14,100 in guns. Guns are useless without ammunition so considering a box of 50 rounds is around $15 we are looking at another $700 to the cost. Hey, Tanque Verde High School can arm its teachers for just under $15,000, that’s a gonga. $60,000 for the district. Not too bad. (We’ll look at blowing up the training budget on a later date.)
Just one small little problem…
Doing another quick search on Google, we see that there was about 3.2 million full time teachers in the United States in the fall of 2017.
To the calculator!
$960,000,000.
Just for guns.
Add in another $48,000,000 for ammo.
Let that sink in a moment.
$1,008,000,000
To arm America’s teachers.
In a nation that already has teachers buying basic classroom materials because the schools have no money.
Now, some of you I’m sure are saying hang on, some of those teachers probable already have guns. I agree. Let’s say two hundred thousand teachers already have guns, leaving us with just an even three million to arm. You know what? I’ll bet those freedom loving gun manufactures would give us a group rate on guns and ammo, right? How does $150 a gun and $10 for a box of 50 rounds sound?
It sounds like $480,000,000.
That’s a lot of zeros. It also does not count the part time teachers, of which there are many. And the training, which we are still ignoring for now.
Spend all this money and we still have a huge hole to plug. Armed guards and armed teachers do nothing to stop the accidental discharge of a gun that some 3rd grader has in his or her backpack.
Which is why more guns us only treating the symptoms, not the disease.
Predictably, many gun advocates are arguing that we should post armed guards or arm the teachers to solve the problem.
One “solution” meme that I have seen suggests that we hire veterans to be armed guards. It even went as far as to state three per campus would probably do the job. Sounds good on paper, gives vets a job they would most likely excel at and protects the children.
Let’s take a moment to look at the smallest school district in the Tucson valley, Tanque Verde School District. TVSD has only four schools, two elementary, one middle, and one high school. A bit of quick math tells us TVSD will get twelve armed veterans. How much will they get paid? The average teacher salary in Arizona is $46,000 a year. Using that as a starting point, that adds $138,000 to the budget. And don’t forget benefits.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Tucson Unified School district has 89 schools. Hmmm… Eighty-nine times three, times 46,000 --- $12,282,000 in armed vets to protect the schools. Plus benefits. In just ONE district.
That’s, um, kinda expensive.
OK! Let’s arm the teachers.
Going back to TVSD, they have a faculty of forty-seven at the high school. A quick Google search states that a “decent 9mm” can be had for between $250-$400. For this we’ll say $300 per teacher. So TVSD is looking at $14,100 in guns. Guns are useless without ammunition so considering a box of 50 rounds is around $15 we are looking at another $700 to the cost. Hey, Tanque Verde High School can arm its teachers for just under $15,000, that’s a gonga. $60,000 for the district. Not too bad. (We’ll look at blowing up the training budget on a later date.)
Just one small little problem…
Doing another quick search on Google, we see that there was about 3.2 million full time teachers in the United States in the fall of 2017.
To the calculator!
$960,000,000.
Just for guns.
Add in another $48,000,000 for ammo.
Let that sink in a moment.
$1,008,000,000
To arm America’s teachers.
In a nation that already has teachers buying basic classroom materials because the schools have no money.
Now, some of you I’m sure are saying hang on, some of those teachers probable already have guns. I agree. Let’s say two hundred thousand teachers already have guns, leaving us with just an even three million to arm. You know what? I’ll bet those freedom loving gun manufactures would give us a group rate on guns and ammo, right? How does $150 a gun and $10 for a box of 50 rounds sound?
It sounds like $480,000,000.
That’s a lot of zeros. It also does not count the part time teachers, of which there are many. And the training, which we are still ignoring for now.
Spend all this money and we still have a huge hole to plug. Armed guards and armed teachers do nothing to stop the accidental discharge of a gun that some 3rd grader has in his or her backpack.
Which is why more guns us only treating the symptoms, not the disease.
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