Randi Weingarten, president of the leftwing American Federation of Teachers union, said at the March for Our Lives rally in Washington, DC, on Saturday that if teachers are trusted with guns they should be trusted to decide what students are taught.
Weingarten spoke at the event organized by a group of survivors of the 2018 mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where she took the opportunity to push back against parents and lawmakers who want to participate in decisions about what is being taught to children in the nation’s public schools.
“The same folks who say we should carry a gun in the classroom they are the ones who are saying they don’t trust us to pick out the appropriate books and curriculum for our nation’s kids,” Weingarten shrieked. “So I ask these politicians this: If we have the judgement to shoot a bad guy why don’t we have the judgement to plan our lessons?”
Like other speakers who took part in the event planned after another school shooting in Texas last month that killed 19 students and two teachers, Weingarten tasked Congress with solving the problem of detecting and disarming people who plan a mass shooting while opposing beefing up security in schools.
“Teachers want to be teaching, not holstering firearms,” Weingarten said in prepared remarks posted on the AFT website. “We need fewer guns in schools, not more of them. And as we head back to school this fall … arm us with resources, books and school counselors — not bulletproof vests.”
Like other speakers, while denouncing violence she called for people to “fight like hell” to get the federal government to enact laws to limit Americans’ Second Amendment rights.
Weingarten quoted Mary Harris “Mother” Jones, an activist and organizer for mine workers in the early 20th century.
“We pray for the dead, and we fight like hell for the living,” Weingarten said.
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