So, this past week, the President of the United States suggested that teachers receive “a bit of a bonus” to carry a gun in school and that 40% of all teachers would receive this benefit, as reported in The New York Times. This would be a flat bonus of $1000, which, of course, is about $660 after taxes. I have one thing to say to the president:

Fuck you.

You want me to carry a gun to defend my students from a shooter? Then you need to do a little more than that. I want combat pay like the soldiers in the US Military. For every month I carry that gun, you make my salary tax free. If I get shot and killed, my family gets death pay, which needs to be a substantial amount to cover its expenses over the number of years I would have lived if I hadn’t died for people to keep their AR-15s. Right now, my wife wouldn’t even get my full pension. She’d get one and a half times my salary for ONE YEAR. That’s it.

Also, I want a Kevlar vest and a riot helmet. Our SWAT teams and soldiers don’t enter battle without some form of armor, I deserve it too.

Finally, I want a written assurance that if I shoot anyone who is not the perpetrator by accident, I am free from prosecution, because I know that a highly trained police officer in New York City is accurate about 14% of the time when under the stress of a live shooting. So, 86% of the time, AT BEST, I will probably shoot one of my colleagues or students.

Glad you passed all those tax cuts you can’t pay for now, Mr. President? This country is militarizing the police for some reason despite a drastic drop in crime over the past decade. Now we’re going to militarize teachers? When do we get the armbands? You know, the red ones with the black logo on them?

By the way, your numbers don’t fool me either. 40% of teachers? So only the white men get one? According to a study done by the Department of Education in 2016, 85% of all public school teachers are white. Less than half of all teachers are male. Ta-da! Don’t give any guns to women or minorities!

Here’s an easier and cheaper solution: ban guns. It costs next to nothing. Don’t allow anyone to own a semi-automatic weapon, including assault rifles, machine pistols, or handguns that allow that option. Ban public access to military grade ammunition. Ban extended clips. And then, the worst shooter that might walk into a school would have a hunting rifle with only four shots before he has to reload, or a revolver with six. I think that person could be stopped pretty quickly, if he ever appears. No matter what Wayne LaPierre of the NRA says, especially when he drags out that old one liner of his — “the person who can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” — if the bad guy doesn’t have a gun in the first place, there is no one to be stopped.