Just thinkin' about the latest rounds of pandemonium, publicity, public marches, proposals, and debates (?) regarding gun control relative to school safety. First, we would like to give appreciation to the Cape Gazette for its excellent, detailed March 30 coverage of the Delaware Legislature's efforts to address some of the public's concerns for safety, both private and civic.
In that Viewpoints article, Sen. Ernie Lopez gave summaries on recent major, bipartisan upgrades to Delaware laws. All of these were sensible and prudent upgrades. We recommend that you refresh your memory about those laws, in particular: House Bill 340, Delaware Omnibus Safety Act; HB 35 Universal Background Check Law; HB 174 (prevents "straw purchases" of firearms); HB 300 (makes "bump stocks" illegal); and Senate Substitute 1 for Senate Bill 83, to protect victims of domestic violence by preventing domestic abusers access to firearms.
Some of these go further than federal laws. So, Delaware is moving forward on several fronts to address these incredibly complex issues of personal and public safety.
Second, we want to emphasize that, to say these problems are incredibly complex makes a simplistic statement. And, this is what so much of the present landscape of social media, newspaper, TV, radio coverage is about - headlines, experts' opinions, news-readers' face-time, mostly simplistic "fixes."
We won't labor that point, but it brings us to our take on the present "headline" problem - school safety - and one of the proposed "fixes." Much airtime has been spent on the idea of arming schoolteachers. We have a friend who is a retired teacher. During a casual conversation, we blind-sided her with the question, "Would you want to have someone tell you that you had to carry a gun to class?"
"Absolutely not, never!" she replied. We feel that some teachers would voluntarily want to be armed, but we suspect that most would not want to be placed in a situation where they had to choose.
More importantly, we feel that this proposal is so burdened by The Law of Unforeseen Consequences that it should be stricken from debate.
Let's look at a few things to consider. There would have to be an incredible bureaucracy established, in addition to, and on top of, the present Department of Education - a nightmare to contemplate.
This entity would need to finance purchases of weapons, training programs for firearm safety, shooting skills, periodic re-certification of teachers in these areas ... we think you see where this simplistic "fix" is going. But, what did we just describe? It is a basic job description of a Delaware law enforcement officer. We cut to the chase, and this is our suggestion to legislators:
Why not (1) hire more state troopers, and (2) use these law enforcement personnel to perform sentinel duty at schools? This would help solve three problems, since we know that Sussex County, at least, needs more troopers, the bureaucracy basically exists, and this would be an important piece of the complex puzzle of school safety. Just thinkin'.
Ed and Mary Lane
Rehoboth Beach
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