Tag: tw: guns

clockways:

On Tuesday, in my classroom, there will be a student with a gun.

This isn’t knowledge about a threat or act of domestic terrorism- this is his legal right as the state has decided it. I shouldn’t even be aware of the gun, supposedly, that is the point of the concealed part of the law. Chatter happens though and I know that he will wear it to work and then to campus and then back to work and home. This gun I will know about.

There will be other guns on that campus I won’t know about- guns concealed in back holsters and side holsters and ankle holsters. They will be concealed in backpacks and purses and briefcases. They will be carried by students and staff and visitors. And legally they cannot even be asked if they have a license to do so. The state says so.

Last fall a coworker was threatened by a student. He said he’d kill her and her family. The fall before that a student threatened the school. These are things the college doesn’t want us to know. We’re not supposed to talk about it- if we’re allowed to know at all. They’re embarrassed by it. And they have guns on their campus. Because the state thinks it’s not a threat.

This semester, I will lock my door after the first ten minuets of class. Because I’ve counted the steps it would take me to get to the door and in an emergency I won’t get there in time to make a difference. I can’t be sure though, any more, if I’m locking the danger in or out. I don’t know because one gun I know about.

I’m thankful I don’t teach anything controversial like government or political science or even English. I worry for those who do. I worry that they will worry and start bringing a gun themselves. If the students have guns, we should too, they say. I can’t help but hear an eye for an eye.

I can’t help but look around me and see people the state calls adults but are in so many ways still not adults. People who are among out most stressed out section of the population and still learning who and what they are… And I know that some- even if it is just one- will have a gun. Because the state said they could.

On Tuesday, in my classroom, there will be a student with a gun, because the state said he could, and it terrifies me.