Z*********i
发帖数: 3422 | 2 Four days after the deadly school shooting in Connecticut that left 20
children and six teachers dead, two Republican governors have spoken
favorably of considering proposals to put guns in the hands of teachers and
administrators.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry expressed support for allowing school districts to
determine whether teachers can carry concealed handguns in class, which at
least one Texas district already permits.
"In the state of Texas, if you go through the process, have been trained,
and you are a handgun-licensed individual, you should be able to carry a gun
anywhere in the state," Perry told the NE Tarrant County Tea Party Monday
evening, according to ABC News affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth.
Virginia Gov. McDonnell said during a WTOP radio program today, "I know
there's been a knee-jerk reaction against that. I think there should at
least be a discussion of that. If people were armed, not just a police
officer but other school officials who were trained and chose to have a
weapon, certainly there would have been an opportunity to stop aggressors
coming into the schools. So I think that's a reasonable discussion that
ought to be had."
In Michigan, the day before the Newtown shooting, the state legislature
passed a bill that would allow people with a permit and training for
concealed weapons to carry them even in "gun-free zones" such as schools and
day-care centers. Individual schools could individually ban guns on their
property. The Republican governor, Rick Snyder, is expected to decide this
week whether he'll sign the bill.
Some state laws already allow individual school districts to allow concealed
weapons on campus. The thinking is that law-abiding citizens with concealed
weapons can deter and react to the person bent on destruction.
This is not the majority opinion in the United States, however. An ABC News-
Washington Post poll conducted in the aftermath of the Friday shooting found
that 54 percent of Americans favor stricter gun control laws in general and
59 percent support a ban specifically on high-capacity ammunition clips
such as the ones used in Newtown.
But Perry and McDonnell are far from alone.
One Texas school district, the Harrold Independent School District, adopted
a policy in 2007 allowing teachers to carry concealed handguns in schools.
Almost 200 miles northwest of Dallas, Harrold is a small school district
near the Texas-Oklahoma border that teaches 100 children K-12.
"We're a rural community," Harrold superintendent David Thweatt told ABC
News in a phone interview. "We're in a county about a little smaller than
the state of Rhode of island, so we're 30 minutes from law enforcement.
Thirty minutes is an extremely long length of time."
Harrold implemented the "Guardian Plan," the district's policy that allows
teachers to carry concealed handguns, after the 2006 shooting at an Amish
school in Nickel Mines, Pa., which killed five young girls, and the 2007
massacre at Virginia Tech that led to the death of 32 students and teachers.
"We were just concerned with trying to protect our kids, and there were
enough shootings, as far as I was concerned, to develop this plan," Thweatt
said.
Click Here: Complete Coverage of Sandy Hook Massacre
In Perry's state of Texas, lawmakers in 2011 narrowly failed to pass
legislation allowing permitted handgun owners to carry concealed guns on
college campuses. But they are allowed in the statehouse.
Five states have provisions allowing concealed weapons on college campuses
and 23 others allow individual schools to allow guns on college campuses.
Some proponents wouldn't stop at college campuses.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, a gun rights advocate who represents an east
Texas district, said he wished that the principal at Sandy Hook Elementary
School had been armed when Adam Lanza opened fire on the young school
children and teachers Friday morning.
"I wish to God she had had an M-4 in her office, locked up so when she heard
gunfire, she pulls it out and she didn't have to lunge heroically with
nothing in her hands. But she takes him out, takes his head off before he
can kill those precious kids," Gohmert said on FOX News Sunday.
In Texas' Harrold Independent School District, The Guardian Plan consists of
four components. An employee must obtain a concealed handgun license from
the state of Texas, and the school board would approve them individually to
carry in schools. The teachers must then go through extended training, and
the ammunition used in the guns must be frangible, meaning it is made of
small particles and breaks apart when it hits a hard object like wood or a
plastic wall.
Harrold employs about 25 teachers and personnel, but superintendent Thweatt
would not specify how many employees or which ones carry concealed weapons
in the schools. Thweatt said many parents in his district support the
concealed-handgun policy for teachers.
"Parents often cite that the reason they're bringing their kids to our
schools is because we have better security for them," he said. "When you
send your kids to school, you want them to come home to you."
In the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary, Thweatt says more
school districts in Texas have reached out to him for information about
Harrold's concealed-handgun policy.
The Texas penal code prohibits weapons from being used in schools or
educational institutions "unless, pursuant to written regulations or written
authorization of the institution," language allows for school boards to
determine whether teachers can carry handguns in schools.
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, said the
agency has not heard of other school districts' wishing to implement the
same policy as Harrold but noted that the districts would not be required to
report it to the agency |
