A high-ranking member of the Texas branch of the National Rifle Association said in a recent forum post that teachers should be allowed to use force against students in public schools, up to and including deadly force to save people like himself from having to "put a bullet" in them when they become criminals.
To make matters worse, Charles "Chas" Cotton was making the remarks in such a way as to appear to subtly threaten a black female state legislator's family.
Democratic State Rep. Alma Allen has recently proposed legislation to stop corporal punishment in all public primary and secondary schools in Texas. Currently, a patchwork of laws is in effect across the state. Many school districts allow parents to sign a waiver each year authorizing school personnel to hit their children.
The Texas NRA's Cotton said that Rep. Allen is getting above herself.
"I'm sick of this woman and her 'don't touch my kid regardless what he/she did or will do again' attitude," Cotton fumed in a post on the Texas Concealed Handgun License forum. "Perhaps a good paddling in school may keep me from having to put a bullet in him later."
Cotton wrote that while normally school discipline bills wouldn't be "tracked" by the NRA, "since it doesn't deal directly with guns or self-defense," this proposal, he said, merits blocking by the powerful lobbying group.
Allen is attempting to stop corporal punishment against primary and secondary school students even as the state legislature is mulling a "stand your ground"-style law for teachers that would allow school personnel to use deadly force against students who they perceive as a threat to other students or to school property.
Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig at the New Republic wrote that these types of laws are "the logical conclusion of a diverse set of American pathologies, including the tendency to classify the protection of property as tantamount to the protection of life, and the use of zero tolerance policies in schools to make them precursors to prison, especially for black students."
