Hugs, not guns

Published May 24, 2013 1:01 am


Re "Gun-toting Utah teachers to parents: Your kids safe with us" (Tribune, May 19):

Does there not seem to be perversity in a community where it's appropriate for school faculty to carry loaded firearms, visible or otherwise, but an educator risks being considered inappropriate if he or she greets a student with a warm, congratulatory embrace in recognition of well-done work, exemplary behavior or any celebratory accomplishment?

Thus, my grandchildren will go to taxpayer-funded learning institutions, encouraged to concentrate on survival skills necessary to protect themselves from potential errant or ricocheting bullets — launched for whatever reason (or no reason or accidentally) by one of those people they are supposed to rely upon for guidance — rather than focus on skills that enable them to maximize their inherent capacities to contribute to their families, their community and their own lives.

L. Russell McKenzie