Guns in Schools: Okay or Not Okay?

ABC News: Mich. Lawmaker Wants to Arm Educators

As a companion piece to a news story discussed here a couple of days ago, a NEW news story (click the above link) suggests that this concept of allowing school faculty and staff to carry concealed weapons may NOT be simply the warped product of a single individual.
Michigan Representative (R) David Agema ...

... has filed a controversial bill that would allow gun-owning faculty and staff with proper training and permits to pack concealed pistols inside a school or on school property.

Agema, a Republican from outside Grand Rapids, introduced the bill this month with the support of 15 Republican sponsors.

"What motivated me to do this is a form of disaster preparedness," Agema told ABC News. "To me, it's about safety for kids first. I just think we have to have something like this if something starts happening with al Qaeda."

Under Michigan House Bill No. 5162, teachers, administrators and staff could carry a concealed pistol on school grounds if approved by a principal. The principal at an individual school could require interested educators to take additional training, perhaps with a police department.

The proposed legislation would also allow parents and legal guardians who already possess proper gun permits to carry concealed pistols on school property while picking up or dropping off a child.

The state 'educators' seem, in this article, to be repulsed by the very idea of teachers carrying guns on a school campus:

Doug Pratt, a spokesman for the Michigan Education Association, the state's biggest educator union, said his organization has always come out against concealed weapons. Still, he also described Agema's proposal as having "no logic."

"You talk to the average person on the street and this just doesn't fly," Pratt said. "Why would we take the chance of something tragic happening by simply introducing guns into the environment. Nothing about this makes sense."

Grand Rapids Superintendent Bernard Taylor, for example, told the local newspaper the proposed bill left him "speechless," before saying, "If that's what we've come to, I need to find a new line of work."

I've known some excellent teachers in my time, but far to often I've noticed that the politics of many of their colleagues interferes with their effectiveness as educators. On this subject, however, the ramifications of arming teachers and 'staff' seems to be a topic doomed to provoke controversy, and little else.

Agema states:

In Utah and Oregon, he added, educators are already allowed to carry concealed weapons because those states do not have "gun-free zones" around schools.

This may be misleading. I'm 'staff' on the campus of an Oregon school, and while the law doesn't invoke the 'thousand-yard gun free zone', the actual possession of a concealed, loaded firearm may be considered cause for termination at many schools. Certainly, educators are not commonly "allowed to carry concealed weapons" on these campuses, despite Agema's misleading statements.

On a campus which is the center of a small town, though, any law which prevents possession of a firearm within 1000 yards is doomed to make felons of honest citizens, if only because so many residences lie within this artificial boundary.

In fact, in some states, it may be illegal for a citizen to drive directly from their residence to a shooting range with a firearm in their car, due to the '1000 yard' law.

This, I presume, is the reason why (if Agema is correct) that law is not in force in a couple of states. It's not intended to allow concealed carry of loaded firearms on schoolyards; it's only to avoid 'unintended consequences' during innocent transport or possession OFF campus -- but in the 'near vicinity' of a school.

Personally, I hope that both the anonymous lady in Oregon and Agema manage to make a change in the laws which currently deny permission for trained, skilled and honest citizens to carry loaded, concealed firearms on school property.

The people who pack a gun to school without legal standing will do so, because their intent is not to carry for legitimate reasons.

The question remains whether the faculty and staff of a school should be vetted and given explicit permission by the school administrators would probably be as controversial as the original issue. I doubt that any law, which allow non-LEO people to possess a firearm at a school, will ever be passed without this stipulation. I suspect that it would usually be used as a method for faint-hearted Liberal administrations (and there is no other variety in schools) to avoid the question entirely.


Whether that stipulation should be included in any such law, is a legitimate subject for discussion.

However, although ABC News has made a valiant attempt to appear neutral on this subject, the visual addition to their article makes it clear what their opinion is.



Note:
As of this writing, there are 112 comments relating to this ABC News article. They are interesting to read, but some of the comments suggest that the commenters are often 'too eager' to pack a gun on the schoolyard. Some of the rest seem to fall into the category of 'knee-jerk reactionaries' as exemplified by this writer:

it is not right to let a teacher have a wepon in school it is putting alot of people ask risk if the student got a hold of the firearme while the teacher left the room and left the gun in the room no fireamres!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why you think the cops get paid for and plus why are we having this about teachers having fireamres our state has no problems about people breaking rule's or having a gun pointed to them so just let this go becuase if this happins the other students will bring gun's because they will thank its okay then they will start having gang's and the students would be at risk i attend hillsdale highschool im 18 and this is my last year im thinking about going to college [sic]

(This is one young person, with hopes for a college education, who should have started with determination to achieve a grade-school education.)

Or, on the other hand, this writer as an example of "People with an Ineptly Hidden Agenda":

The Univerisity of Michigan employes people carrying concealed weapons to threaten citizens who fall asleep in the library, students who report rapes, etc. It is a self-stylized Vigilante Justice.Take away these bad apples and the crime rate in Southeastern Michigan will go down. The worst offender in the State of Michigan is Richard Zavala; he rivals Sadam Hussein for terroristic threats. Even the Washtenaw County Sherrif's Srgt David Archer is afraid of him (ie., wold prefer to see no evil, hear no evil, arrest no evil). His accomplice is a person referred to as "Jerry's Cadet" according to award winning journalist L.K. Truscott IV http://tinyurl.com/22qnkl [NB: geek translated into a short URL to fit in this format]as well as Dave Masson, Donica Varner-Thomas, Dave Masson, Gloria Hage, Brian E. Gilchrist, Peter. D. Washabaugh, Nilton Renno, Tony England (a former U.S. Astronaut), Richard D. Gonzalez and Stella Pang. These people have compromised the education system along with Marvin Krislov, who is now the President of Oberlin. This story is not a personal attack: it is well documented. They are known to fabricate, alter, omit pertinent facts from anyone who attempts to file a police report. Were it not for these bad role models, Ann Arbor would not be a source of funds for drug money. Conversion of taxpayer funds for weapons is the problem; not the solution. If an ABCNEWS investagions were performed today, it should start at the Department of Public Safety page: http://www.umich.edu/~safety/. . [sic]

(See above comments.)

The problem with Gun Control is that it encourages inane, incompetent and irrational commentary. This includes, but is not limited to, the politicians.