Former NYPD boss dismantles Trump's teacher-arming plan as 'the height of lunacy'
President Trump has proposed that the solution to preventing school shootings is arming teachers. Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton ... disagrees.
"Proposals to arm American teachers are the height of lunacy," Bratton wrote Thursday in a Twitter thread. He sarcastically added that schools should perhaps "arm school bus drivers and school crossing guards" and said that such proposals are merely "political Band-Aids." The president and the NRA announced their support for armed teachers in the wake of a mass shooting last week at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead.
"The answer to gun violence isn't more guns," Bratton declared. Citing New York City's decline in gun violence over the last 25 years, the former police commissioner said "fewer guns has resulted in dramatically less gun-related violence of all types." Bratton also seemed to imply his support for an assault weapons ban, as he noted that a previous ban on assault weapons "lowered crime involving that weapon."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Although Bratton was a controversial police commissioner because of his support of a "broken windows" policy that cracked down on minor crimes, he has long been a proponent of gun control and has previously claimed the National Rifle Association has a "stranglehold" on Congress.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.
-
5 hilariously incriminating cartoons about the Epstein filesCartoons Artists take on an Epstein Thanksgiving, solving the puzzle, and more
-
Political cartoons for November 15Cartoons Saturday's political cartoons include cowardly congressmen, a Macy's parade monster, and more
-
Massacre in the favela: Rio’s police take on the gangsIn the Spotlight The ‘defence operation’ killed 132 suspected gang members, but could spark ‘more hatred and revenge’
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigrationSpeed Read ‘We feel compelled’ to ‘raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,’ the bishops said
-
House releases Epstein emails referencing TrumpSpeed Read The emails suggest Trump knew more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage women than he has claimed
-
Newsom slams Trump’s climate denial at COP30speed read Trump, who has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ declined to send any officials to this week’s summit
-
UK, Colombia halt intel to US over boat attacksSpeed Read Both countries have suspended intelligence sharing with the US over the bombing of civilian boats suspected of drug smuggling
-
Trump pardons 2020 fake electors, other GOP alliesSpeed Read The president pardoned Rudy Giuliani and more who tried to overturn his 2020 election loss
-
Supreme Court to decide on mail-in ballot limitsSpeed Read The court will determine whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day
