Hey local petitioners, put your money where your signatures are

Mike Crichton, Evanston Resident
Posted 5/22/18

Letter to the editor from Mike Crichton

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Hey local petitioners, put your money where your signatures are

Posted

Dear Editor:

Regarding “Resident petitions school board over gun policy” in the May 15 edition of the Herald, Gina Morrow’s signed petition requesting reconsideration of a board policy allowing teachers to carry guns, procedures for exempting children from having contact with armed staff, removal of confidentiality of armed staff and the establishment of gun-free schools within a school district allowing guns is perplexing to say the least.

I don’t know Morrow or the other 146 signatories to the petition. Their hearts may be in the right place, but their heads are elsewhere. Everyone says they care for the safety of the children. Even Morrow says she knows “everyone has the common goal of keeping children safe.”

I say this just isn’t so. If it were true, our children would have been under lock and key years ago, just as our money, jewelry, homes and collectibles have been. Our school district can’t even get the school locked-vestibule program up and running.

I personally have seen dozens of adults enter UME in a day, many of whom do not check in, but go directly to the classrooms. I doubt that anyone in charge has any idea who and where visitors are within the building at any given time. I don’t consider the current state of the schools to be safe.

Our politicians and Hollywood and sports celebrities have armed guards, as do the RNC and DNC and most of the televised media. We’re under armed scrutiny at sporting events, jewelry marts, banks, while on cruise ships and the airlines, yet we don’t even put seat belts on school buses even though they have been federally mandated for drivers and passengers since 1968!

If we truly valued the lives of our children, they would be safe under lock and key and armed protection just as are all our other valuables. Yet whenever such a proposal comes up, some people can’t throw a monkey wrench into the works fast enough. 

They are obstructionists because they only reject proposals. They say things such as just wait, let’s talk; they offer unworkable exemptions, but they do not offer realistic alternatives. They allow emotions and personal opinions — not cold, hard facts — to guide them on this matter.

Utah teachers have been allowed to carry guns in the classrooms for years. Where are the stats that would justify disallowing such a procedure? The state of Wyoming and the school district have approved such a procedure. Apparently, Morrow doesn’t trust anyone that the state has granted a permit to carry guns so if the signers of the petition truly care about the safety of our children, let them put their money where their signatures are and let’s increase and pay local taxes to fully fund trained and certified law enforcement professionals for each school.

Otherwise, the naysayers are obstructionists and the value of all our children isn’t as great as everyone always proclaims.

 

Mike Crichton

Evanston