Should Maine Teachers Strike to End Gun Violence?

With the rising rates of gun violence in the United States, some have argued that increased gun control would stop this trend. Reducing gun violence is an admirable goal, but rising rates of gun violence are not directly associated with increased access to guns. Certain studies show an increase in mass shootings in recent years, yet there has been a simultaneous long-term decline in gun ownership.

Recently, there has been a push for teachers and the general public to stop the rise in mass shootings by pushing for new gun control policy. One recent opinion piece in the Portland Press Herald has even argued that Maine teachers should make their voices heard by striking until stricter gun control policies are adopted. The deeply unserious op-ed does not make clear whether gun control policy like assault weapons bans must come at the state or federal level to end the proposed teacher strike. Teacher strikes for gun control would not work for various reasons, as it would be illegal and ineffective in Maine.

First, Maine teachers are public employees under 26 M.R.S. §962.6 and 26 M.R.S. §964.2, and these statutes prohibit them from engaging in worker strikes. In fact, in 2019, unions and interest groups attempted to pass LD 900 to allow Maine public employees to strike, and Maine Policy Institute strongly opposed it. We opposed it because public employees perform too crucial societal functions to have them not working for extended periods of time. 

In many ways, society would grind to an abrupt halt if teachers stopped working and working parents had nowhere to bring their kids, or plow truck drivers failed to clear off our roads during a winter snowstorm, all because of a strike. Additionally, Maine Policy opposed LD 900 because strikes are a tool of pressure workers use against employers. When the employees are public, they try to use their position to unduly pressure the public, who pays their salaries. 

However, the genuine concern is not the legality of a hypothetical strike. The biggest issue, instead, is how inefficient it would be at stopping mass shootings. The PPH’s pro-strike op-ed said, “Second Amendment voters must stop pretending that the problem lies with inadequate treatment of poor mental health, for which they have no actual practical solutions. Do these voters imagine we can be convinced that we are the only country with mental health issues?” 

In fact, yes, we do have a mental health crisis compared to other nations. 

Over decades, the United State’s suicide rate has been rising compared to other first-world countries, while gun ownership rates have declined. The BBC, compiling data from the Gun Violence Archive, found that the recent rise in mass shootings occurred in the immediate follow-up to quarantine orders from the pandemic rather than before it. Since the mass quarantine undoubtedly had adverse effects on many Americans’ mental health, this again suggests that it is wrong to dismiss mental health issues as a cause of this rise in violence. 

What teachers should be doing is not blaming guns for rising violence or claiming constitutional rights support “white supremacy.” Instead, they should be focusing on helping students return to the structured education that existed before the pandemic. It is well known that Mainers want teachers to focus more on traditional subjects and education methods rather than politics. But what some writers are arguing is that our teachers double down on politics in the classroom, to the point that politics destroy the classroom. 

The lack of structure, lack of social connection, and lack of adequate education during the pandemic had terrible consequences for Maine students’ academic performance. A return of traditional classroom structure would improve academic performance and maybe even improve the mental health of students. 

What Maine teachers should be doing is trying to provide that structure again, rather than injecting more fear mongering and politics into schools or driving students out of the classroom by striking. The only thing that will come from that is even greater levels of learning loss. Maine students need structure, socialization, and schools that are willing to prioritize education over political activism.