‘How To Get Away With Murder’ Season 6 Episode 7 looks at teachers’ 'rights' to carry arms to school
America has been witnessing the horror of shootouts at schools, with young adults and children bearing arms, and killing others, intentionally or unintentionally, for quite a while now. Despite initiatives from the government and social awareness groups, there has hardly been any control over the rampant shootouts. Rather, they continue to increase.
While society keeps struggling with the issue, television shows like 'How to get away with murder' (HTGAWM) tries to address such incidents, through fictional takes, also driving in some message. Take episode 7 of the current season for instance. Although it was quite surprising for the show to suddenly go back to their traditional ‘case of the week’ element, the case made a good point. And, perhaps, that’s why when the case took up most of the episode’s air time and de-prioritized the other pertinent issues going on in Annalise and K4’s lives, we were not distraught.
The case opened with Annalise and Gabriel defending middle-school teacher David Golan who is accused of shooting his student Ryan. In his defense, he says it was an act of self-defense since the student was a big bully in school and would harass his classmates and target his teachers. Golan himself had faced the brunt of Ryan’s misbehavior. So, when the moment came, he couldn’t help but defend himself by taking the help of a gun. Although the act was not intentional, it still raises the question if teachers should be allowed to carry weapons to school.
After seeing random shootouts in schools and universities across the country, it might seem rational for the school faculty to be protective, but carrying arms might be too far-fetched. Although we see Annalise serving as Golan’s lawyer, she personally does not support what he did and seeks mitigation with the victim’s family so he could apologize and lay down his reasons for taking the law in his own hands. Much to our surprise, and we are sure this would also be applicable to so many real-life cases, we see Golan also as a victim. He is a victim of social stigma, harassment from bully students, and patronization from colleagues. This created so much hatred in him that he saw the only way out in avenging it all from the only person he confronted. The point is, teachers remain the ultimate guides and mentors for young learners and possession of weapons drives the wrong connotations in such guidance.
‘How To Get Away With Murder’ airs on ABC, every Thursday at 9 pm/ 8c.