Rep. Lucas has introduced HB 1253 concerning handgun training for teachers. The heat I’ve seen surrounding the discussion of this legislation seems to go beyond what it actually does. I’m not a supporter because I don’t think we’re going to shoot our way to safety, but the practical impact seems fairly minimal. There’s a state school safety fund that can be used to make grants to various school safety initiatives (e.g. drug dogs, truancy enforcement, bully identification, etc.) This bill would add to permissible uses of that money by allowing grants to be given to teachers to receive handgun training. Among other things, the teacher has to receive approval from their school board to get such a grant. The legislation also sets a mandatory curriculum for a firearm training program to be eligible for grant money.
I think the idea that armed teachers will make schools safer is misguided. That said, I don’t think there is anything problematic about teachers knowing how to use firearms, and this leaves it up to school boards to decide whether they want teachers to request these grants. My only real concern is to what extent these firearm training grants will divert resources from the other uses of the school safety fund. I suspect (but don’t know) that the actual expenditures will be minimal.
The one item in the training curriculum that raised my eyebrow was the requirement that the trainer have NRA certification. On its face, this looks potentially like a bit of pork for the NRA, but it could very well be that any reputable trainer is going to have this certification. I’ve posed the question to someone knowledgeable on these issues and will try to update this when I find out.
The ghost of the Lone Ranger haunts us. Remember when he shot the gun out of the bad guy’s hand 50′ away and they were both on horses? Lots of interesting research about that (from forcescience) that shows untrained people aren’t much worse shots than policemen in a tense situation, and the policemen in the study only hit the target about 1/3 of the time. Imagine a shooter in a school, knowing that teachers carry guns, who will he shoot first? If that doesn’t occur, and the teacher is able to scrounge up his/her gun and decides to shoot the bad guy in a crowded room of moving, scared kids, how about that scenario? I have a relative who works for Chicago Public Radio who tells me the story about a Chicago policeman in a shoot out with a gang member, on either side of a car. At the end of the shootout, they counted 20 cartridges and nobody was shot. Teachers with guns is a Lone Ranger fantasy in which the teacher is likely to kill as many kids as the shooter, and probably kill himself out of grief and guilt. This will not end well.
Oh where oh where do I start! The elephant in the room is guns in the classrooms right. 1. So are they going to give teachers a psych test before they can take gun training? If not, all it would take is one depressed suicidal teacher to close the door and put their back to it and start firing away. 2. Will the gun be carried or locked in the desk or a locker? I have seen kids break into desks, my son had his gym locker lock (the master lock) cut open and the person used a bolt cutter and have the school police say this happens a lot. 3. If only one teacher has a gun and is in the wrong wing of the school when a nut case goes ballistic it won’t help much. 4. The school board(s) are usually dominated by the superintendent and the administrative branch of the school systems. So do you want the superintendent picking who gets firearm training? 5. The odds that someone will come into your school with a gun looking to kill your kids or teachers are astronomical 6. Stuarts post above mine Lets hope this bill dies a timely death!
Do we not have paid policemen in our schools already? Are they not sufficient? Do we need firearms in every classroom? A liability, given time, which…?
If everyone who could walk, carried a gun in the schools, it wouldn’t be enough for some people.
I am not a huge fan of arming teachers for a number of reasons.
I will speak to the NRA training piece. There are 2 relatively distinct groups within the NRA. The political wing that raises money for lobbying and works the political lobbying stuff and the safety and training group who focuses on high quality training protocols and training instructors and who administer the competitive shooting events.
The safety and training group does a wonderful job in this area and rarely lets the lobbying/politics stuff intrude in their safety classes and training. In Indiana the 4H Shooting Sports project uses the NRA training resources for their instructors and it has been a great activity for my kids to learn firearm safety and operation. My oldest son shoots sporting clays as his hobby and would have never been part of it without quality training and guidance from the NRA trained 4H volunteers.
This is an area crying out for high quality and thorough research, and it’s not happened, mostly because of the anti-intellectual ignorance of vested interests. The NRA started to do the very thing that Paddy talks about. Very positive, but weird things have happened to twist the whole subject.
I have, in the past, asked my rep. that if more guns are the answer then why not write legislation that the State of Indiana would provide every Indiana citizen a new pistol and a box of ammo on his or her 18th birthday. He has never seemed to grasp the point of my question.
That would certainly address any excess population problem.
“That said, I don’t think there is anything problematic about teachers knowing how to use firearms, and this leaves it up to school boards to decide whether they want teachers to request these grants. My only real concern is to what extent these firearm training grants will divert resources from the other uses of the school safety fund. I suspect (but don’t know) that the actual expenditures will be minimal.”
Or, we could make gun safety training an above the line tax deduction or tax credit so it does not come out of “school safety funds”.
I can hear the principal now, “Bill, since you paid for weapons training with your own money, we can pay you a little extra for carrying your gun to protect the kids, along with a possible bonus. With that new baby in your family, you could probably use it.” Maybe an offer he can’t refuse.