Trump's Gun Guidance a Case Study for South African Teachers
Trump's Gun Guidance a Case Study for South African Teachers
(Bloomberg) -- A South African teachers’ union is taking a page from U.S. President Donald Trump’s textbook for dealing with violence at schools -- arm the educators.
A teacher was gunned down at an elementary school in the coastal KwaZulu-Natal province on Tuesday, the latest in a spate of shootings and stabbings across the country. This prompted the Educators Union of South Africa’s General Secretary, Siphiwe Mpungose, to demand that teachers be trained to use guns and be allowed to carry them in the classroom.
Trump last year embraced a National Rifle Association position to arm teachers after the massacre of 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
“A teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened,” Trump said of the attack. Still, Trump hasn’t moved to implement a plan to get guns into the hands of U.S. educators.
In South Africa, this week’s violence is just one of several recent incidents. In a country that has long had a high crime rate, it may be that the spillover into schools isn’t surprising. Even so, the government said in a statement on Thursday that school violence is something parents, communities and the state will have to tackle together.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hilton Shone in Johannesburg at hshone@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net, Gordon Bell, Renee Bonorchis
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