It's only a proposal, and we hope it never gets any further.
The federal Department of Education said last week it is weighing allowing states to use federal funds to purchase guns for schools.
We all want our children to be safe while in classes, and many suggestions have been made as to how that might occur in the wake of recent school shootings. They include more secure systems of ingress and egress, school resource officers in every building, and even - rarely, we hope - thoroughly trained and armed administrators and teachers.
At issue is whether Student Support and Academic Enrichment Grants through the bipartisan Every Student Succeeds Act could be used for the purchase of firearms.
Even if it is judged ultimately permissible, we hope the Department of Education won't go there.
Making guns available at places where they might conceivably fall into the wrong hands reminds us a little of Operation Fast and Furious, the first major scandal of the Obama administration.
You'll recall that was a 2009 sting operation in which properly licensed firearms dealers intentionally sold guns to straw buyers in Arizona, the idea being the guns would be moved along and eventually found in the hands of higher lever traffickers, especially those from Mexican cartels.
Some of those guns ultimately were found at crime scenes on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, including at the scene of the slaying of United States Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in 2010.
We can only imagine the chaos that might occur if the wrong individuals break into a school's stash of guns. As in Operation Fast and Furious, the federal government would have its hands all over any subsequent injuries and deaths.
No, first, we'd prefer to see grants for student support and academic enrichment be used in the classroom and in giving students the materials and assistance they need, But, second, if such grants can legitimately can be used for safety purposes, we hope they might go to safer entrance/exit systems or school resource officers.
Yes, school resource officers usually carry guns, but we prefer the purchase and assignment of their guns be a function of the law enforcement agency that hires and trains them rather than the school in which they patrol.
We don't even want to think about a local school board determining which guns would be preferable for their resource officers, how or where they should be stored, or the regulations for their proper use. Let's let educations funds be used for education.