So I have a semi-correspondence going on with Lubbock ISD about a potential job while I get my butt back in school again. As much as I do enjoy working at the detox center, a job where I do not have to call EMS on a daily basis, worry about someone dying, or have to work 10 hour shifts while only getting paid for 8 would be ideal while I attempt to reach my educational goals. For those of you who have not heard my request for prayer, this would be it.

Speaking of school districts, I’m sure a lot of you have already read about one particular Texas school district’s decision to let teachers pack heat. While I do indeed have a firearm (Beretta M9, if you’re all that curious), have the occasion to go to the firing range one or maybe two times a month, and do think putting a 9mm slug into a steel silhouette of a pig or turkey is good fun, I believe that this might be one of the most irrational things I’ve heard of in a while. I imagine those who know me personally may be kind of surprised to hear that I don’t support this. I value common sense more than anything. Plus I remember some of my teachers in high school; I would not feel particularly safe if I knew any one of them had a .357 Magnum hidden underneath their desk. Call my cynical. I do not care.

What more, the likelihood of a child in a school district that only has 100′ish students going berserko seems slim. This is more of a weird political statement thing that will only cause more issues in the future.

I try to make it a policy for me to not rant about current events, but this annoyed me to no end for some reason. You can call me wrong on this when another Columbine happens and there are only two dead kids as opposed to 13 victims. Or you can call me right on this when Trigger-Happy Joe over there puts one through some child’s head who thought it would be funny to bring a fake firearm or bomb or something equally retarded but possible to class to just stir up trouble.

I suppose the thing that is making me irate here is that I’m convinced that this will not make ANYTHING “better” in the conventional sense of the term. The proposed fix to school violence is the so-called “immobilizing” of those purported to do violence rather than focus on preventing that outbreak in the first place. I am truly sorry if in a school-district with only 110 students, 50 or so staff can’t pull their heads out of their asses to see something like this coming and take other preventative measures. I’m all about preventative measures - hell, even commit them to an RTC. After two+ years working with kids who were indeed likely to commit acts of violence in a school setting, I understand that a little intensive intervention has to undergo sometimes. Maybe I’m being idealistic under the assumption that staff working with students could actually predict that any one child would be capable of such a thing. Or perhaps I’m being unfair in the assumption that many many preventative measures have not already been taken. I just wonder if all the effort being put into the “training in crisis management and hostile situations” and the forethought to “use ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls” has been applied to other, less-lethal, measures first.

……ammunition designed to minimize the risk of ricochet in school halls.  Say that out loud.  I mean C’MON.

This so-called solution struck me as monumentally asstarded. I have more to say, but I need to go meet jane.