When I am not being a princess (which, if I am honest, is the vast majority of the time) I work in a school. This week, President Trump has had the amazing idea of arming teachers with guns. Not all of us, obviously. Just those of us who can already shoot.
I do take a quick mental register of the staff and wonder which of us is the secret crack-shot. Nobody springs to mind as the obvious candidate but then I suppose that is Mr Trump’s… erm… trump card. The rogue gun-slinger will not enter the school if s/he does not know which member of staff has the semi-automatic secreted under her jacket. Well maybe. But it does rather depend on the mad gun-slinger being rational, and I have to say I have my doubts on that score. I wouldn’t take bets on someone who is prepared to enter a school and shoot a random sample of the youngsters it contains operating on the same decision-making criteria as the rest of us.
But anyway, let’s suppose it’s worth contemplating a plan from the Trump brain cell for a moment. Let’s imagine the scene:
Year 10 pupils are studying ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. They have just read the chapter in which Atticus shoots the rabid dog. Out of the blue, as if to add a soundtrack to the lesson, gunshots ring out down the corridor. There is a short moment of breathless silence before the children duck under their wooden tables, eagerly watching to see whether their own familiar teacher is The One With The Gun. She is. She stealthily removes her Smith & Western from her inside pocket and kisses the barrel. Kicking off her sensible, flat teaching shoes, she slips into a pair of black stilletoes and strides confidently towards the door, shaking free her lustrous hair and grinding her spectacles underfoot as she goes.
The pupils gaze in amazement at their formerly ordinary teacher, and every girl realises that she too can be cool, confident and powerful. The boys are also forming their own new realisations, but it is perhaps better not to follow those too closely. Their mothers might be reading this blog.
In the tense silence, the footsteps of the killer can be heard approaching. Miss swallows carefully; moistens her ruby red lips. The gun is poised in her hands as she waits for the moment to strike. There is a slight sob from a corner as one of the pupils gives way to the terror in the air. Miss looks scornfully in the direction of the sound and another pupils stifles it with a school tie across the mouth. The atmosphere is charged with adrenalin; the footsteps are closer than ever; the teacher takes a sharp breath; the door opens.
In less than a second, it is over. There is a tremendous explosion of gunfire and a sharp smell of fear. Several children scream and then there are groans. Miss lies on the floor in a pool of blood and the gunman stands strong and tall in the doorway. He did not care who he killed or where the bullets landed, whereas she spent her final seconds trying to reconcile herself to shooting Little Sammy, her pupil. He sprayed the room liberally and the teacher had no chance.
I think, Mr Trump, we would do better to teach children to admire Atticus, and to stop anyone – teachers and mad people from carrying guns.
The real world is not a fairy tale, nor a thriller movie, Mr Trump. It is a world of flesh and blood and tears and laughter. Treat it with the respect it deserves.