Is it enough just to arm teachers?

Finally, someone has a reasonable solution to address the shootings in our schools. As stated in the Oct. 9 "Your Views" section of the Daily Herald - " ... it's time for every teacher in the country to be armed." But would that be enough?

If the armed teacher is at the back of the classroom when the assailant enters, she/he may not be able to draw their weapon fast enough. (I'm assuming their gun would be holstered and that they received "quick draw" training along with weapons training - but would they be quick enough?).

Plus if it was common knowledge that all teachers were armed, the assailant might target the teacher immediately upon entering the classroom.

May I make a few modest proposals to make our classrooms safer?

• Arm others in the classroom. Arm a minimum of four students per classroom. Then, randomly seat them throughout the room. This way, the assailant wouldn't know who had the guns and couldn't focus on the teacher. (Middle schoolchildren can be trained to safely handle a gun. I know because I saw it on T.V.).

• Prevent the assailant from entering the classroom. Arm all office personnel, as well as maintenance staff, lunchroom staff etc. Possibly one of these could intercept the assailant before he even gets in the classroom.

• Stop the assailant from entering the building. Consider arming all homes next to or across from all schools with .50-caliber machine guns. What a deterrent that would be if a potential assailant saw machine gun muzzles protruding from every home near the school he planned to attack.

So, if arming just the teachers would be an effective deterrent, imagine how safe our schools would be if the number of individuals carrying guns was doubled, tripled, or quadrupled.

Sometimes the answers are so obvious and so simple that I almost feel foolish pointing them out.

Dennis F. Depcik

Buffalo Grove