The comparison with Israel is unproductive, because it has operated in a completely different environment.

Israel is a country at war. It has been since its founding, and there is no Israeli citizen born in Israel living there today who has not been through war where they were within range of enemy ordnance of some kind. Israelis have always been willing to make any sacrifices and give the state and security forces any power deemed necessary to prevent acts of violence. And still busses blow up, civilians die, and there is no absolute security.

It’s not going to happen here. All this “hardening the targets” stuff is pure fantasy. Folks who talk about this have no idea what goes on in a modern 2000-plus-student high school. Constant coming and going from 6 a.m. early athletic practice to after-school activities, evening plays and games, and so on. Lots of different buildings with separate access. Unless you deploy a platoon of troops at every school, all school life would have to come to a standstill. Ain’t gonna happen.

And we haven’t even started talking about who would pay the taxes for all that. We have counties out here that basically voted their sheriffs departments out of existence because they don’t like property taxes.

School shootings are scary, and people freak out, but this is not a national security threat.

As for the question of armed teachers, I’ve always been conflicted. Having taught high school for many years myself, I know in a shooting situation I would have wanted to be armed to be able to protect my students. On the other hand, while I’ve known many dedicated colleagues who likely would rush out unarmed to help save kids, like some of the teachers who did so and died both at Sandy Hook and in Florida, there are relatively few I could picture with a gun.

Finally, I also think it’s an illusion that armed teachers would serve as a deterrent. Crazy shooters aren’t conventional criminals; in many cases they come with a one-way ticket. Shooters have attacked police officers and even police stations.

So in the end, the armed teacher should be a personal decision. And one that’s handled as “don’t ask, don’t tell”.