If teachers have guns, make other employees have them, too

Iowa’s House Republicans lack of good sense, understanding and concern for Iowa’s children has reached the level of shameful. Not only are they willing to require teachers to teach within their selfish, strict limits of conviction but they also want to train teachers to shoot to kill. Weapons training they would hand over to the corrupt, guns-over-all NRA, training that will not prepare public service providers with the will to kill and live with its aftermath.

With this logic, the legislators themselves should give up their own million dollar professional security system and carry their own guns to the Capitol to protect each other from invasion and doctors should have to carry a gun in their scrubs pockets to protect staff and patients. Store clerks should have to carry weapons to protect their customers, bus drivers should have to bring their guns to the road to defend their riders, and so on and so on.

Schools deserve the protection of professionals who are trained and prepared mentally to do the job that unfortunately these times call for. Is this the result of deadly weapons that are more plentiful than regard for human life? When lawmakers make reckless decisions, it is time for a change in how we govern this state. Unfortunately, it might be too late.

Jeanine Redlinger

Lone Tree