Guns, teachers, and self-defense

From that stalwart of the anti-gun mainstream media (but I repeat myself), the Boston Globe [hat tip to Tom B.], comes this letter to the editor from a self-described "progressive":

I AM a math teacher at Brockton High School, the site of a school shooting earlier this month.

Current school security procedures lock down school populations in the event of armed assault. Some advocate abandoning this practice as it holds everyone in place, allowing a shooter easily to find victims.

An alternative to lockdown is immediate exodus via announcement. Although this removes potential hostages and makes it nearly impossible for the shooter to acquire preselected targets, it unfairly rewards resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others.

Schools should level playing fields, not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish.

Some propose overturning laws that made schools gun-free zones even for teachers who may be licensed to securely carry concealed firearms elsewhere. They argue that barring licensed-carry only ensures a defenseless, target-rich environment.

But as a progressive, I would sooner lay my child to rest than succumb to the belief that the use of a gun for self-defense is somehow not in itself a gun crime.

DOUG VAN GORDER
Quincy

[emphasis added]

Read it here, then read the comments to the letter here. I can't figure out whether this is satire, as one friend (and a few commenters) has suggested, or whether Mr. Van Gorder is serious. Most of the commenters, however, appear to take the letter's author at face value, and quite a few agree with him. (This is the Boston Globe, so I suspect many of the commenters are based in the People's Commonwealth of Massachusetts.)

As one commenter points out, if we were to apply Mr. Van Gorder's logic (I use that term loosely) to school fires, then we should keep everyone in the building, rather than "unfairly reward[ing] resourceful children who move to safety off-site more shrewdly and efficiently than others." After all, "schools should level playing fields" for the flammable, "not intrinsically reward those more resourceful. A level barrel is fair to all fish." And students should burn equally, in the author's progressive Utopia. Equal immolation for all.

Of course, we'll probably also have to create "nomex-free" zones in our schools to ensure that no student gets an unfair fire-resistant garment advantage (the evil "Haberdasher's Loophole"). Another "progressive" idea whose time has come, no?