Hugs, not guns | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Re "Gun-toting Utah teachers to parents: Your kids safe with us" (Tribune, May 19):

Does there not seem to be perversity in a community where it's appropriate for school faculty to carry loaded firearms, visible or otherwise, but an educator risks being considered inappropriate if he or she greets a student with a warm, congratulatory embrace in recognition of well-done work, exemplary behavior or any celebratory accomplishment?

Thus, my grandchildren will go to taxpayer-funded learning institutions, encouraged to concentrate on survival skills necessary to protect themselves from potential errant or ricocheting bullets — launched for whatever reason (or no reason or accidentally) by one of those people they are supposed to rely upon for guidance — rather than focus on skills that enable them to maximize their inherent capacities to contribute to their families, their community and their own lives.

L. Russell McKenzie

Bountiful