September 18, 2007
Should teachers be allowed to pack a gun?
Should teachers be allowed to pack a gun? - Yahoo! News"Jane Doe," who agreed to be interviewed by phone on condition of anonymity, says she does not want to be viewed as an "Annie Oakley." Trying to extricate herself from an abusive relationship led her to buy her first gun just a few years ago, she says. Prior to that she had not been an activist in defense of the US Constitution's Second Amendment provision regarding "the right to keep and bear arms."
But as a veteran teacher, she has come to believe strongly that having responsible armed adults on campus could have prevented tragedies such as those at Columbine High School in Colorado, Thurston High School in Oregon, and Virginia Tech University last April.
"I have no doubt at all that any time a criminal has gone into a school intending to commit violence they did so knowing nobody was going to be able to stop them," she says. "We've seen what happens when teachers do nothing or can do nothing, and that's not acceptable to me."
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 37 states have laws specifically banning guns at schools. In general, administrators, teachers' organizations, and law-enforcement agencies favor such laws. In the confusion of a school shooting, police officials have said, adding guns to the situation just makes the predicament more dangerous.
The state panel investigating the April 16 shootings by a mentally disturbed student who killed 33 people at Virginia Tech University (the nation's deadliest school shooting) agrees.
"If numerous people had been rushing around with handguns … the possibility of accidental or mistaken shootings would have increased significantly," the panel wrote.
But that has not stopped a push by the NRA and other gun advocates to allow guns on school property as a safety measure.
what could possibly go wrong?
Posted by TY at September 18, 2007 4:58 PM
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