RICHARD REUTHER, Richland

When I and several other senior staff members were being bullied by our supervisor with the objective of driving us from the building, a colleague approached me and bluntly said, "I see how you are being treated." (Notice that she wasn't commenting on my behavior but rather my treatment by others.) "I've worked for the Post Office and I know how these things go. Do you own a gun? I want to know that you're not going to go out to your car, get your gun, come back into the building and shoot up the place." I don't own a gun and never have. She said she was relieved to know it.

I mention this incident to counter the idea being floated that a "safe" school is an armed school. While I understand the emotional basis of this argument, reason must prevail. A school with guns in it is a school where danger of gun violence is created from within rather than from without.

The presence of guns in any environment establishes the possibility of violence where little or none existed previously. Putting guns in schools creates and adds to the possibility of violence; it doesn't guarantee its elimination.