If teachers have ‘sinister agenda,’ why give them guns?

I’m alarmed to see that Iowa GOP lawmakers are advancing House Study Bill 675, which would permit school staff to carry firearms on school property. Anyone who’s followed Iowa Republican legislators’ efforts to decide what should and shouldn’t be happening in our public schools must be feeling the effects of whiplash about now.

Two years ago, former Senate President Jake Chapman, R-Adel, attacked teachers, holding a novel in front of TV cameras and saying there’s “pornography in our schools.” He described a “sinister agenda occurring right before our eyes,” going on to explain that “some teachers are disguising sexually obscene material as desired subject matter and profess it has artistic and literary value.” Now, Republican lawmakers are ready to put loaded guns in the hands of the teachers behind that so-called “sinister agenda.”

During a committee hearing to discuss the bill, Rep. Skyler Wheeler, R-Orange City, said, “The scariest place to be in America, I believe, is in a place with ‘gun-free zone’ [signs] posted all over the place.” By that logic, one of the safest places to be in America would have been the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory parade, since over 800 armed police officers were posted there.

David Duer

Iowa City