Armed children in schools? They better be well-trained, else they’ll do more harm than good.

Consider this. When I was stationed in Iceland in 1975-76, 300 of us sailors were organized into a battalion to help defend the naval station. The assumption was that the Soviets would try to take it, vs. just bombing it into bits, so they could operate bombers and fighters from it. We were trained by Marines, and armed with M-14s. (The M-16 at that time was more apt to jam from the ice, snow and grit in the rock fields surrounding the airfield.)

All of us also wanted to be issued a 45 caliber sidearm, because it’d be cool to have a holstered pistol on our hip. The Marines wouldn’t do it. They said they could train us to operate the M-14 well enough to have half a chance of killing the enemy at long range. But using a pistol properly and effectively against a close-in enemy required more demanding training. Say we weren’t trained well enough, and a Soviet soldier burst into a room where there were five of us. The first sailor to draw their pistol would kill three of his friends, then the soldier would kill them.

That could happen if kids are allowed to carry guns in school, they aren’t combat-trained (vs. mere target practice), and aren’t regularly given refresher training. The same goes for armed teachers.