Letters: Teachers enter classroom to educate children, not serve as armed guards

Having a child tell you that their class "is going to be the first shot up, it’s closest to the front of the school,” is not normal. Those are words my 7-year-old said to me in 2018, and it’s one of the reasons I became an active gun safety advocate.

Every child deserves a safe and supportive learning environment. No parent should live in fear that their child might not return home from school.

School safety remains a top concern in our country, where guns are the leading cause of death for children. Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri — chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission — addressed a Duval County School Board workshop on Feb. 20. His comments focused primarily on arming teachers and school personnel.

For years, gun lobbyists and manufacturers have pushed policies to arm teachers, and the discussion is always cloaked with words like “safety.” Yet there is no substantive evidence that supports the notion that strapping guns on teachers makes schools safer.

According to the Giffords Law Center, there have been nearly 100 publicly reported incidents of mishandled guns at schools in the last five years. These include teachers, principals and resource officers leaving guns unattended; a teacher unintentionally firing a gun in class (striking a 17-year-old student); and even an elementary student reaching into a deputy’s holster and pulling the trigger of a semi-automatic pistol.

In 2018, the Duval County Public Schools Board opted not to arm teachers and staff, recognizing the inherent risks. Sworn police officers undergo extensive firearms training to respond to crisis scenarios. Teachers enter their profession to educate children, not serve as armed guards. The idea that teachers will turn into sharpshooters in high-stress situations is asinine.

The reality is that they are more likely to shoot an innocent bystander or be shot by responding law enforcement.

Florida is suffering a massive teacher shortage, and pushing dangerous policies like arming teachers will only exacerbate the crisis. Elected leaders should focus on investing in teachers and mental health providers within schools, rather than endorsing solutions that do not work. Teachers should be armed with books, not bullets.

Katie Hathaway, Neptune Beach

‘Grand Old Party’ not so grand anymore

I think Florida must be the national poster child for government overreach. With most extreme right-wing legislators prodded by a vindictive governor, they have pivoted the Grand Old Party toward totalitarianism. No longer is it a party that prides itself on libertarian principles. More and more, legislators seek to control our cities, schools, libraries, homes, wardrobes and bedrooms, banning ideas or behaviors that conflict with their personal views.

As a body, this Legislature has the arrogance to think they know better than local communities. These attitudes have already led to Florida being branded as the No. 1 banner of books. Now they are proposing even more intrusions into the autonomy of our citizenry.

Legislators have no business resolving their personal discomforts by restricting other citizens. Although embarrassing racist candor from members of the public did stall the recent monument legislation, other intrusions are flooding the Legislature.

The statesmen who founded a Republican Party based on libertarian principles wouldn’t recognize the current GOP. Our Legislature is falling in line with political and judicial leaders around the country by promoting government overreach that is antithetical to the U.S. Constitution. We need look no further than the recent embryo ruling in Alabama to see how real this threat can become.

Steve Entman, Jacksonville

End result of statue removal

A Feb. 10 letter writer asked how many descendants of slaves feel better now that the Southern women’s memorial statues have been removed from Springfield Park. I would say that is an excellent question.

We will never know of course, just as no one knows how many descendants of Southern women feel about having had a 100-year-old memorial to their great-grandmothers desecrated.

Since there was never an opportunity to vote on the issue, not everyone had a chance to weigh in on the subject. Whatever that decision might have been, it was decided by one person who utilized a pair of private nonprofits and “anonymous” funding sources.

One of the nonprofit groups is responsible for the placement of a lynching marker at Evergreen Cemetery.

As far as the statue removals’ effect on the homeless situation is concerned, having a large, empty platform with a roof in Springfield Park will be a short-term benefit for some of them. It certainly beats sleeping on downtown streets in the rain.

So, a few people who may or may not have any slaves in their ancestry are happy, an unknown number are angry and the homeless have a new place to gather. This is the only real result of the mayor’s decision.

Daniel Mead, Jacksonville

Anti-voter laws in Florida won’t prevail

New legislation enacted into law in recent years in Florida has deliberately tried to discourage certain voters from participating in the democratic process. One new law is targeting third-party voter registration groups like mine, which play key roles in encouraging participation among voters in communities that have been historically disenfranchised.

As the co-founder and executive director of the Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters activist group in Jacksonville, the state’s repressive election laws have forced us, as well as our partners at Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, to stop doing voter registration altogether. Unfortunately, there are now so many ways in which the state could fine our organization by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It is neither affordable nor logistically feasible for grassroots organizations like ours to run a background check on every single volunteer.

But we will not be scared by these bullying tactics. Floridians deserve to live in a state that values fundamental processes like voter registration, rather than a state that is actively trying to weaken our right to vote. As activists and voting rights advocates, we will continue to fight — and I know we will win.

Rosemary McCoy, co-founder and executive director, Harriet Tubman Freedom Fighters, Jacksonville

Fingers crossed on stadium negotiations

A Feb. 25 guest column discussed the disproportionate share of costs for the proposed new "stadium of the future" that would fall on Jacksonville taxpayers under the current plan. In particular, the writer points out that many of these taxpayers do not or cannot afford to attend Jaguar games and therefore receive no benefit.

While I understand and agree emotionally 100% with these points, missing from the narrative is the sad reality that in today's world, professional teams do exert huge leverage over cities in stadium negotiations. This leverage is applied through the simple threat of relocation if they don't get what they want.

This matters because a new stadium and entertainment district may or may not bring huge benefits to the neighborhood, the city and taxpayers. The loss of the Jags and the overwhelmingly positive influence they have on our community every day — economic and otherwise — is a much larger risk.

So in my opinion it's time to "bite the bullet" on this one and hope the mayor's negotiating team gets us the best deal possible.

Russ Watson, Jacksonville

Israel was not the aggressor

The Feb. 22 front-page headline "Gazans eating animal feed in order to live" and the subhead "Mass starvation looms as Israel continues offensive" lends itself to an emotional anti-Israeli sentiment. It ignores the fact that Israel was not the aggressor in this war.

Hamas started this war when it brutally attacked, butchered, raped and murdered Israeli citizens in their homes and while they were enjoying a peaceful music concert. Israel has made numerous attempts at peace, yet each attempt has been met with more terror attacks. In 2005, in an effort toward peace with Gaza, Israel withdrew all its military troops and all Israeli citizens from Gaza.

This peace effort was met with a rocket bombardment into Israel. Is Israel the only nation in the world that is not allowed to respond to constant attacks on its citizens and on its very right to exist? This horrible humanitarian crisis has been created by Hamas through its refusal to recognize a peaceful coexistence with the state of Israel.

Judy Mizrahi, Jacksonville

No beauty in new apartment buildings

It seems that everywhere one goes in Jacksonville there are plain, boxy apartment buildings under construction. At first sight, these buildings appear to be made of cheap materials and with little thought given to aesthetics in their design.

The goal of these apartment projects appears to be solely to squeeze the largest number of people into the smallest, plainest spaces to make the most money for the investors. Where is the beauty in design and materials that would provide sustenance or pride of place to the people who will live there?

The new apartments are being built quickly and cheaply for today, with little thought or care for tomorrow. The investors in these projects will eventually move on to other cities. Jacksonville residents, however, will be burdened with these soulless insults to the architectural landscape for a very long time.

Nancy Urban, Jacksonville

Capitalism at its finest

I have been appalled over the past year as Jacksonville businesses seem to have neglected their online ordering systems. It seems like every time I place an online order for delivery or pickup, the local store has no idea how to handle it. They never see the order or they send a delivery driver to the wrong side of town.

Sometimes when I arrive for pickup, they seem to have no idea their business even has an online ordering option.

Oftentimes when I ask about my order, they respond with "Oh, did you place an order online?" As though it were my fault for using tools their corporate overlords have made available. I was even insulted recently by one pizza store manager who implied that I didn't know how to use their website.

Capitalism sure is going great.

Brian Lane, Jacksonville

It can’t happen here, right?

Leading Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who was a possible challenger to Vladimir Putin in the country's upcoming election, died in prison under mysterious circumstances. Navalny is certainly not the first Putin challenger to meet such an unfortunate fate and no doubt will not be the last.

One might expect protests from the citizens of Russia, but Putin's black-helmeted thugs would probably show up, clubs in hand, to quickly end any such gathering. Isn't it great to live in America where we as citizens have the right to show up at the polls and vote for the candidate(s) of our choice?

Certainly, no political faction within our country would ever conspire to keep a candidate off the ballot, through any means possible, including frivolous legal maneuvers … would they?

Bill Boutwell, Jacksonville

Only one way to real gun safety

For people who buy guns for target shooting or hunting, the promotions for the use of trigger locks and gun safes are appropriate and often needed. But for those who hear gunfire most evenings and wake to evidence of neighborhood break-ins most mornings, such a message falls on deaf ears. They buy a weapon to keep loaded and within reach, readily available for self-defense.

They might wear a gun belt permanently or put the gun where children may not reach it, but given their situation, anything more secure may not be possible. Only eliminating the reason for this protection is going to achieve anything resembling gun safety.

Sharon Scholl, Atlantic Beach

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Arming teachers not the answer for school safety in Jacksonville