Miguel Cardona, our oh so wonderful Education Secretary stated on Thursday that the suggestion to arm teachers — and presumably train them with proper gun safety protocols — would be listed among the “stupidest proposals” in how to handle the school shooting situation that seems to be ever increasing in the United States.
Cardona, in all of his glorious brilliance, then makes the argument that the reason arming teachers is so stupid is because you can’t just hand off a gun to a substitute should the regular classroom teacher take time off.
Out of all the potential rebuttals that could be made against this policy — which in reality is a pretty good idea — our Education Secretary goes with this one? When it comes to who is overseeing education, we have chosen poorly, to quote the Templar Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
According to a report from the Daily Wire, Cardona made an appearance on “The View, where he took several questions concerning the topic of school safety, a conversation inspired by the recent shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“Secretary, you know, rather than regulate guns or of course, ban AR-15s, some Republicans have proposed arming teachers to stop these shootings,” regular cohost Sunny Hostin said, kicking things off. “My mother is a teacher. In Ohio, the governor is preparing to sign a bill that would lower the training requirements for a teacher to carry a gun in the classroom from 700 hours to 24 hours. In your view, do you support teachers carrying guns in the classroom?”
Education Sec. Miguel Cardona says it's "stupid" to arm teachers because if a trained teacher takes maternity leave, you can't just give the substitute a gun. pic.twitter.com/xJKo5hfgdU
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) June 9, 2022
“Those are some of the stupidest proposals I’ve heard in all my time as an educator. So that’s my answer to that,” the education secretary replied.
“Listen. We need to make sure we’re doing sensible legislation, making sure our schoolhouses are safe as much as possible,” he said. “But to say that we’re going to arm teachers to protect students, what happens when a teacher goes out on maternity leave? Are we going to give the substitute of the day a gun?”
Here are a few more details from the Daily Wire report:
Cardona went on to argue that anyone who was in favor of arming teachers was “clueless when it comes to what’s happening in our schools” and was showing “further disrespect” to teachers — especially after so many had worked so hard to make sure that kids were learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also claimed that any lawmakers who were promoting arming teachers were doing so to raise their own “national profile” rather than out of any concern for children’s safety.
“It just shows further disrespect to a profession that has bent over backwards these last two years to protect students and give them an opportunity for an education,” he went on to say. “I’m tired of hearing about the silly proposal that are doing more to lift up people’s national profile than protect children.”
Lawmakers in Ohio and Louisiana have proposed measures that would make it easier for teachers to train and carry firearms on campus in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting.
There is a rather simple solution to Cardona’s argument. How about in order to be a teacher, you must have and maintain a weapon and the proper safety training to operate it in order to be a teacher?
Kind of a no-brainer.
And that’s just one idea. There are probably better ones out there. The point is this man, like the rest of Biden’s administration, has no idea what he is talking about.
