Parkland Student Emma Gonzalez Explains Why Arming Teachers Is ‘Stupid’
Most of us were first introduced to Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez during a powerful speech she gave just days after the mass shooting at her high school in Parkland, Florida. Since then she has become one of the faces of the #NeverAgain movement, becoming a Twitter powerhouse with more than one million followers, and an inspiring activist for gun control.
In a new clip from this Sunday's episode of 60 Minutes, Gonzalez shares her views on arming teachers as a way to make schools safer—a concept that has been floated by President Trump and some members of the NRA. Unsurprisingly, she doesn't think it's a good idea, calling it "stupid." She goes on to explain, "Douglas ran out of paper for, like, two weeks in the school year, and now all a sudden they have $400 million to pay for teachers to get trained to arm themselves? Really? Really?" That sounds like a pretty sound argument to us.
She has has some valid concerns about how the firearms will be handled inside the classroom and the responsibilities that teachers (and students) will bear. "If you're a teacher and you have a gun, do you keep it in a lockbox or do you carry it on your person?" she asks. "If the teacher dies and the…and a student who's a good student is able to get the gun are they now held responsible to shoot the student who's come into the door? I'm not happy with that."
Gonzalez's mother, Beth, is also featured in the clip, asking questions that many in the older generations have had to face in light of the young people in America taking the lead on fighting gun violence. "Somebody said, you know, "Please tell Emma we're behind her," which I appreciate. But we should have been in front of her, I should've been in front of her. We're all adults, we should have dealt with this 20 years ago."
Watch the clip here and the full 60 Minutes interview Sunday night at 7:00 P.M. EST.
