Elementary kids find loaded gun teacher left in school bathroom

[PA Democrat]

This is from 2016, but illustrates why arming teachers may not be such a good idea.

A teacher at a Pennsylvania Christian school accidently left her loaded pistol in a bathroom, where elementary school children found it, Pennsylvania State Police said Tuesday.

Beth Jean Dixon, 63, put her holstered pistol on a toilet tank when she used the unisex, one-toilet bathroom Aug. 25 at Cumberland Christian School, in Chambersburg, police said. They said she forgot about it and left.

Four children, ages 6 to 8, used the bathroom while the gun was on the toilet. One child told his parent, who told a teacher.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cops-teacher-left-gun-in-bathroom-elementary-kids-found-it/

[Wounded Bear]

1. Yeah, what could possibly go wrong?

[Initech]

2. We need MOAR GUNS!!!!1!!

[Martin Eden]

3. "loaded gun teacher"

I don't think it's a good idea to arm teachers even if they remain sober.

[Iggo]

7. "even if they remain sober"

That should be added to every argument against.

[Martin Eden]

8. Even sober, teachers can experience a lot of stress.

What happens when that stress is instantly transformed into fear and action due to the ever-present threat of having to make a snap decision to pull and fire that gun ... but it turns out to be a false alarm because that troubled student who ran into the room brandished a cell phone and not the handgun the teacher perceived in a moment of panic?

Veteran trained police officers make those kinds of mistakes. Expecting a classroom teacher to be an armed guard ready to use deadly force at a moment's notice is insane.

Is that the society we have become or aspire to be?

[Iggo]

10. The ridiculous lengths people are going to protect the war guns is...well, ridiculous.

[Mariana]

4. Please tell me she was prosecuted and imprisoned. nt.

[pnwmom]

5. My husband found a loaded gun left in a restroom in a park full of families.

It turned out that it had been left there by a security guard.

[Iggo]

6. Arming teachers does not make them trained soldiers. It makes them teachers with guns. (n/t)

[LanternWaste]

9. This is an accurate illustration of why I think arming teaching staff is the most idiotic idea avail

This is an accurate illustration of why I think arming teaching staff is the most idiotic idea available.

We spend $100 billion a year combating terrorism, but for every one American killed by an act of terror in the United States or abroad in 2014, more than 1,049 died because of guns. I think that alone is a clear signal that we're held hostage by the gun industry through our own idiocy and inaction.