The “gun debate” has two sides. On one side, gun control advocates believe that eliminating firearms from society (legal or illegal) makes it safer (“guns don’t kill people; people with guns kill people”). On the other end of the spectrum, firearms supporters believe that guns make individuals and society safer (“if guns are criminalized, only criminals will have guns”). So-called “spree shooting” at schools bring the issue into sharp focus. Unsurprisingly, the “near miss” at Deer Creek high school has reignited passions. To wit: I received an email this morning from the Front Sight Firearms Training Institute [click here for the full text of Give That Man A Gun! on their website]. If you expected a highly visible gun training organization to remain politically agnostic, boy were you (i.e. I) wrong. Not to put too fine a point on it, the improbably named Dr. Ignatius Piazza lets slip the dogs of war.
Ever since the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, CO, I have been a very vocal advocate of arming and training teachers to carry a concealed handgun to protect themselves and their students from the cowardly lunatics who continue to target ‘gun free zones’ also know as ‘disarmed victim zones.’ The only reason these schools, their teachers and students continue to be victims of these hideous crimes is because the perpetrators know there will be no armed resistance.
It’s an “oversight” that Front Sight’s founder would like to correct . . .
Shouldn’t Dr. David Benke and similar teachers and administrators be given the trust and training to protect themselves and our children? Shouldn’t they be armed with more than just their own courage and bare hands?
As long as we continue to create “disarmed victim zones” by not allowing teachers with Concealed Carry Permits to carry a gun concealed on campus, our schools will continue to be targeted by deranged cowards bent on shooting children.
Give Dr. David Benke (and those like him) a gun and training!
Needless to say, Dr. Piazza is offering to provide said training to Dr. Benke gratis. Not because it would give the Institute an enormous amount of free publicity. Because . . .
This is my way of thanking David for his heroic actions that proved once again, in every school across America, there are courageous men and women who place their students’ needs and safety above their own. We owe such courageous teachers and administrators the trust of putting a gun in their hands and providing them with the training to use it to defend themselves and their students.
Is Dr. P wrong? Should we even be asking this question? (Or that one.) Is school “spree killing” so rare that we shouldn’t take the risk of arming teachers? Could such a move trade one tragedy for another, given that a teacher could go postal?
Besides, isn’t student-on-student violence—some of which involves firearms—the more pressing problem? Would Dr. P and his acolytes also agree to metal detectors at the doors of every school in the U.S. instead, or in addition?
It’s one thing to allow teachers to carry a gun, it’s another to actively encourage it. Isn’t it?
I have been a teacher for over 13 years and have taught at some of the worst inner-city schools, but currently have been at a suburban school district for some time. I also am a CCW permit holder and have been trained in defense tactics. There is only one area of my life in which I do not feel safe… school!! We had metal detectors in the inner-city. Students let students in through back doors. Are we going to man every entry way in a school? Consider the school your son or daughter goes. How many entry ways (doors, windows, etc.) are there? Can you feasibly man them all? The answer is no. How many times have we heard a teenager lazily say “I could just kill him” and it is obvious there is no seriousness behind their words. So we will now take anyone who says anything remotely violent and have them seek counseling? Another interesting strategy, but you would have 1/3 of the school population in the counselor’s office. Also, if some students realize I can get out of math class today by saying “I could hurt you”, some will. However the real problem is that a small group of people in the world do wish harm on others. If you completely disarm the large group that doesn’t mean to do any harm, they become sheep for the slaughter. Do I want to pull the trigger on anyone (including a teenager)? Absolutely not. If it means saving myself, my family or others in my care (such as my classroom of students), I would in a heartbeat. The only problem is, the government won’t allow me to protect those who are in my care. In parting, if a student decides to come armed to my school and tear up the place, I have only one thing to say…. we could have minimized the tragedy, but the government wouldn’t let us.
I have served in the military (USAF), am a volunteer police officer with our county’s Sheriff’s Reserve, and am a high school teacher. I have personally witnessed shootings in only one of those fields… teacher. I have been privy to four school shootings. These aren’t the type that make the national news… hell, they didn’t even make the local news since they were in urban school districts.
School districts, in my opinion, are one of the MOST dangerous areas I place myself, because they are the one place I must go in my daily routine, where the 2nd Amendment does not apply. Just because we place a sign “gun free zone” or even more laughable “drug free zone” doesn’t mean it will be.
Let me protect the children that people have put their trust in, a teacher. I am trained and continue to train to make sure that both I and my firearm are reliable. Let us have the same right to defend and protect our students as airline pilots have in protecting their passengers.
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