Not a bad article, but it’s interesting to see how the anti-gun side spins it:
“Stop. Drop your weapon. Don’t shoot.”
Kasey Hansen yelled as she pointed her loaded handgun at a target’s chest at a shooting range outside Salt Lake City.
“I want to protect my students,” said Hansen, a special needs teacher in Utah. “I’m going to stand in front of a bullet for any student that is in my protection, and so I want another option to defend us.”
Hansen carries her pink handgun, Lucy, with her every day to each of the 14 schools in which she teaches. The 26-year-old teacher works with elementary, middle and high school students with hearing impairments in the Granite School District.
She is one of an unknown number of armed teachers across the country. In 28 states, adults who legally own guns will be allowed to carry them in public schools this fall, from kindergarten classrooms to high school hallways. Seven of those states specifically cite teachers and other school staff as being allowed to carry guns in their schools.
A good start!
A News21 examination of open-records laws in those states found that teachers or staff who choose to carry a firearm into their classrooms are not required to tell principals, other teachers or parents. Only five of those states have completely open access to concealed-carry permit information through public records requests. Some state’s laws seal off those records, and others are silent on the issue.
In states where it is legal, parents may have no idea their child’s teacher carries a gun into the classroom every day.
OK a little more fear-mongering, but still this is how AMERICA as a whole works. People don’t know if they’re beside me at a movie theater, restaurant, store, or public place…and yes, I’m carrying a gun, and yes, I know how to use it, and if I do need to, I sure will!
This is not a problem anyplace else. How exactly are schools different?
In Utah, guns are commonplace in public. More than a half-million people hold a permit to carry a concealed firearm. Residents with a permit can legally carry almost anywhere in public, from elementary schools to restaurants and bars to municipal parks. Families pack rifles alongside sleeping bags in their camping gear, shooting ranges are popular date spots and Duck Hunt is more than just a video game.
The Utah law that allows anyone with a concealed-carry permit, including teachers, to carry on school property has been in place for more than a decade. A provision that would have restricted possession on school property was taken out of the bill when it passed.
And Utah is REALLY safe! According to that chart, Maine is #1. It’s not all about guns, there are lots of other factors. Utah and Maine have fairly homogenous populations, and not a lot of gangs, as well as lots of rural space where violent crime is very rare. Still any claims that liberal gun laws make you LESS safe, or more people packing guns means more “gun death” is patently false.
Hansen got her concealed-carry permit a week or two after Sandy Hook and participated in a free training course offered to teachers. She then bought her pink-plated Cobra 380 handgun and started carrying it in her classrooms about seven months ago.
A Cobra? GROSS!
“I never really thought about it before Sandy Hook,” said Hansen, who was teaching when she heard about the attack. “It just killed me. It’s something personal when you mess with students or children, teachers take it very personally, and it’s as if you were messing with one of our own.”
It’s a valid concern. Sandy Hook was targeted BECAUSE it was a school. These shootings are VERY rare, but when they happen, and there are no defenders and even one attacker things are REALLY bad! A common analogy is how rare house fires are these days, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a fire extinguisher on every floor of my house. Just because it’s rare doesn’t mean you should ignore it.
Further many of these laws disarm people ALL DAY! You may not have provisions to secure your gun before you enter the gun-free zone, or you might not be comfortable locking your gun in your car. Cars get stolen all the time, so no matter how your gun is secured, it’s still stolen!
“It just kind of hit home that I’m a teacher, and I’m responsible for the students for x amount of hours a day, so I have to protect them,” Hansen said. “I wouldn’t ever leave my kids. I would 100% protect them.”
Handling a gun and having the composure to fire it in the event of a shooter entering a school isn’t part of the curriculum taught to education majors, nor are those responsibilities outlined in a teacher’s handbook.
“I think every teacher should carry,” Hansen said. “We are the first line of defense. Someone is going to call the cops, and they are going to be informed, but how long is it going to take for them to get to the school? And in that time, how many students are going to be affected by the gunman roaming the halls?”
I 100% agree! My feelings are the same when I’m at work. Even if my coworkers never think of their personal safety, and even if I don’t particularly like them, I don’t feel comfortable leaving them to be slaughtered while I save myself. Of course working in a gun-free zone, that’s JUST what I’d do, because getting myself killed isn’t any better.
Now here’s the money quote:
In the 10 years since teachers have been allowed to carry guns in Utah, no fatal K-12 school shootings have occurred. Some say schools aren’t falling victim to attacks because of their unique, additional security measures. Others say guns in classrooms present more risk than potential for reward.
So nothing bad has happened, but we need to talk risk! Cue Magical thinking!
“I don’t deny the fact that a gun could be used to protect students,” Steven Gunn said, “but a gun in school is far more likely to lead to the harm of an innocent individual than to the protection of innocent people.”
Gunn, a member of the board of directors of the Gun Violence Prevention Center of Utah, is a Holladay city councilman whose office in City Hall used to be in an old school building. Working there and going home every night to a wife who teaches at a junior high school give Gunn a sense of angst.
“A teacher could begin returning fire to a person who is attacking the school and in the process kill children,” Gunn said. “It’s just a very unhealthy, unsafe situation, and teachers, unless they receive special training, simply wouldn’t know how to handle a crisis situation.”
If it’s “far more likely to lead to harm” where’s the harm? He’s technically correct, as school shootings are REALLY rare, but so are bad situations. We’re dealing with VERY small numbers.
Also yes, returning fire in a school could result in people getting hurt or killed by friendly fire, same can be said with police responses, but that is NOT mentioned here. What’s his solution? When the bullets fly, lie back and think of England?
“It creates the impression on the part of the student that he is in an unsafe environment and that it is necessary for people to protect him with firearms in his school,” Gunn said. “They should have the feeling that where they are studying and where they are with other children is a safe environment. And by carrying a gun, a teacher gives the wrong impression that it is not.”
Ahhh, magical thinking! Pretend the world is a safe place, and magically it BECOMES safe! How’d that work for the teachers and students at Sandy Hook?
Then there’s this guy!
A cowboy head-to-toe in black Ariat boots, a black Stetson hat and a gold-plated 1999 Days of 47 Rodeo belt-buckle, Hallisey was a stark contrast to the building’s white marble steps and pillars made of Utah granite. For Hallisey, it was important to address the school gun rights issue at the most official place where rights are supposed to be honored and discussed.
“Everybody is focused on individual rights. ‘It’s my right to carry a firearm.’ But what about everybody else’s right to be in a safe gun-free environment, especially in schools?” Hallisey asked. “How does that work where they say now your rights don’t matter anymore?”
“Your rights don’t matter anymore”?? Sorry, you have no right to demand other people comply with your arbitrary fears! Also there is NO SUCH THING as a “safe gun-free environment”, just the opposite. As we see from mass shooters, and career criminals alike, they TARGET gun-free zones. You are in MORE danger in a gun free zone than places that are not.
As a teacher and kid’s health advocate, Hallisey says there is too much risk in arming a teacher or staff member.
“The likelihood of having to pull that weapon in an attack is pretty slim,” Hallisey said. “The opportunity for them to have an accident carrying the weapon is a lot more pronounced and a lot more likely. I don’t want that teacher to have an accident with their firearm while my student is in their class.”
Except there has NEVER been an incident! This is simply agenda-driven world-view. To him guns and self defense are icky, so he’ll twist his logic until his messed-up world view looks normal!
“I don’t see arming their teacher with making them feel more safe. It gives them this fear that every day I go to school, there could be an attack,” Hallisey said. “We kind of want to put that out of their mind and just have the preparation instead of the reaction.”
Again, how’d that work out at Sandy Hook? Your point is invalid! Also what’s with anti-gun people who are constantly talking about dangerous scenarios that NEVER happen, but claim people are paranoid for reacting to situations that DO happen? Also, sorry, while I’m never in a state of constant fear, but what I don’t like is when things look a little sideways and my only options are calling a cop that might be 10 mins away!
Groups of teachers from around the country have weighed in. The National Education Association teacher union is composed of 3 million educators and considers itself the voice of professionals across the country. An NEA poll of 800 members in January 2013 found that educators opposed arming school employees. Only 22% of NEA members polled favored firearms training for teachers and other school employees and letting them carry firearms in schools; 61% strongly opposed the proposal.
Good for them! If 100% of them were “strongly opposed” it simply means 100% of them are ignorant or stupid!
Laws are passing in an attempt to reduce the recurrence and magnitude of deadly shootings in K-12 schools. Three-and-a-half years into this decade, more people have died in K-12 school shootings than the total in any other decade over the past 50 years. Since 2010, 60 children and faculty members were shot and killed in elementary, middle and high schools. There have been more school shootings — 24 since 2010 — than there were in the previous decade.
No citation, but I suspect those numbers are bunk. Still doesn’t this mean the current anti-gun regulations aren’t working?
People really need to put their thinking caps on for this idea. Sad to see the people most reluctant to think are our educators!
