If you pay attention to the teachers’ unions, you’ll notice how people active in them tend to be precisely the people you’d rather not have teach your kids.

That was obvious during the education reform debate last fall when the union teachers from several school districts essentially staged a one-day strike so as to protest at the state legislature. That really wasn’t very effective in moving public opinion.

It was more obvious when the Louisiana Association of Educators sent threatening letters to private schools last summer to the effect that if they agreed to take kids using the new state education vouchers they’d get sued. A union styling itself as representing educators which threatens to sue to prevent education doesn’t come off as particularly sincere.

And now, the boss of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers has furthered the perception of the unions as refuges for the lousy teachers by indicating he was one of them. In an interview with KEEL-AM radio in Shreveport on the question of whether school officials with concealed-carry permits should be allowed to have weapons as a defense against an Adam Lanza, Steve Monaghan said he wouldn’t have been trustworthy…

But he went even further than that. He says “I used to be an English teacher and you don’t want me having a gun. I mean I may get a little angry with the fact that things are going badly that day and I might decide to slam the gun down and say make my day.”

Hopefully, Monaghan was joking. Just in case, he ought to be frisked when he shows up at the State Capitol to lobby on behalf of folks like him this spring.

It should be a little offensive, though, to the professional educators out there who may have military or law enforcement experience or who simply have a background with firearms and can act responsibly around them that Monaghan, who purports to speak for them, would denigrate the profession by saying he’d be likely to draw down on kids in a classroom.

Shouldn’t the head of a teachers’ union be seeking to promote the credentials and capabilities of those he represents rather than drag them down? Isn’t this a sizable error on his part? And does it not further discredit the LFT and teachers’ unions in general – not just in front of the public but in front of teachers as well?