One of the many proposals to come out of the aftermath of the Parkland massacre was to arm teachers. Schools are highly vulnerable, after all. While school resource officers are a good thing, they don’t help if you have one that stands outside during the attack and refuses to do anything. Meanwhile, everyone inside is vulnerable with absolutely nothing to protect themselves from an attacker other than staplers and detention slips.

Despite the horrors of Parkland, though, it seems a fair number of Floridians want to keep teachers disarmed.

A series of polls from the St. Leo University Polling Institute shows that Floridians are deeply divided on some of the major issues that the state will face in the upcoming year. That sharp divide is reflected on how those polled feel about arming school teachers.

The poll shows half of those who responded oppose allowing teaches to carry weapons in classrooms. About 42 percent are in favor of the Florida law that allows classroom teachers to carry guns — if the teachers volunteer to do so.

Polling Institute Director Frank Orlando says respondents living in South Florida are much more against it, but support rises substantially in the Panhandle and rural areas.

“So I don’t think it’s too surprising to see this polarization on this question,” he said, “because people have strong opinions on it. It’s clear that there’s a geographic and political split on this question.”

South Florida tends to be a Democratic stronghold, so the geographic split shouldn’t be too surprising. Nor should anyone be shocked that more rural parts of the state are supportive of armed teachers.

However, what gets me is that these same Democrats often lionize teachers, hold them up to be freaking superheroes worthy of praise in one breath, yet in another will say they shouldn’t be trusted with firearms because of whatever reasons they can manufacture. Honestly, if I were a teacher, I’d take this shit very, very personally.

Luckily, I’m not.

It’s important to note that thousands of Florida teachers are currently carrying firearms all over the state every day without incident. They have concealed carry permits and carry firearms all the time. They don’t blow away people for talking back to them in the supermarket. They don’t kill rude cashiers or patrons. In fact, they don’t misuse their firearms at all.

That fact alone renders every argument against teachers carrying null and void.

So why continue to push the idea that armed teachers are a bad idea? For many, the issue is simply the fact that they’re hoplophobes who are terrified of anyone carrying a weapon for any reason at all. They don’t want to think about guns. In fact, they can’t fathom a firearm actually being used in self-defense outside of the big screen, despite it being far more common than such a weapon being used to murder someone.

It’s their own fears on display with poll results like this. They’re simply terrified. Couple that with the fearmongering by the mainstream media and are these results any surprise?