Teachers With Guns: Don’t Mess With Texas?
At the only school in the small farm town of Harrold, Texas, it’s not teacher’s pet that has everyone talking.
It’s teacher’s pistol.
In an effort to deter a Columbine-like school massacre, the local school board recently decreed that teachers could carry concealed weapons at school and in the classrooms, the first school in the U.S. to do so.
“Country people are take-care-of-yourself-people,” explained school superintendent David Thweatt. “They’re not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”
The nearest police are based 17 miles away. Lacking funds to hire security guards, the school board decided that letting teachers carry guns would result in better security anyway, since an attacker wouldn’t know who might shoot him.
Harrold’s school—which houses about one hundred students from kindergarten to high school—has a card-swipe security entry system as well as screening for visitors. But Mr. Thweatt, who calls himself as “a contingency planner,” says gun-free schools are simply targets for attack. “That’s like saying sic ’em to a dog,” he said.
The armed teachers have received mandatory firearms training and will use special bullets designed to reduce ricocheting—in this case, off chalk boards and desks.
Though “Don’t Mess With Texas” has long been a state mantra, making gun-toting teachers responsible for school security has some critics up in arms. “They are not trained to make life and death decisions,” said one Harrold resident. “There are too many things that could happen.”
“It’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said a Houston teacher’s association official. “It’s up there with the worst ideas in the history of education.”
Tell us what you think: Should teachers be responsible for providing school security by carrying guns? Schools are expected to protect their students, but where does a teacher’s responsibility end?
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Some of you missed the point...
As I have read your comments I see that a lot of you missed the point as to why this set of teachers has been allowed to carry guns. As stated in the blog “The nearest police are based 17 miles away. Lacking funds to hire security guards” This one school has allowed the teachers to carry firearms. It had also stated that they underwent firearms training, and they have enough foresight to use a type of ammunition to reduce the chance of ricochet.
I don’t believe this is for every school, but as to the circumstances of why they have allowed teachers to carry at this school I believe it to be for the best. Imagine having a kid at that particular school go homicidal: that particular individual could kill a number of other students and staff even before the police would have been called. Then you would have to add travel time onto the police getting there making it so:
1) The killer gets away
(or)
2) The killer has a lot more time to kill or maim a number of other people.
As I have stated this is not for every school, but I believe under circumstances like these, that this is a viable option. Before enacting something like this though I would definitely take up a vote from the parents/adults in that particular school district.
I would also like to say that in order to control these violent outbursts that have happened at schools we will have to understand what drove these people to this. We also have to teach the younger people in our society that just because someone is different doesn’t mean they don’t deserve respect from others. I believe through understanding and respect that most of these past disasters could have been avoided.
Also would my fellow gun owners please lock up your firearms, because it the parents of these kids didn’t make them so accessible then they shouldn’t have been able to do this in the first place.
David | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Watch out for the red herrings
- People are not crazy enough to force teachers to carry guns if they don’t want to. Let’s get past the red herring stuff like that.
– Nobody can design a security system – especially not at reasonable cost – that will guarantee we will all be safe all the time. Letting some teachers carry guns will not make us 100% safe, but anyone can see that after you shoot the perpetrator, he stops shooting, and that would be better.
– Visualize that you are in the cafeteria in Texas with 23 bloody corpses lying all around. If your first thought is that it’s sure lucky that Suzanna Gratia Hupp and various other patrons left their weapons outside, so they were not armed; because, if one of the victims had been armed, somebody might have got hurt; then, I respectfully suggest that you take another look around and think again. When the Messiah returns and the lion lies down with the lamb (as Woody Allen said, if they do that now, the lamb won’t get much sleep), we won’t need self-defense, but until then, we know there will be bad people, and those who are prepared will be more likely to survive.
– So, there won’t be a teacher with a gun in every classroom. It has been alleged that in some schools, the kids are being taught that if there is only one perpetrator, they should all throw books and such stuff at it. Seems to me that if a couple of dozen teenagers started doing that and quickly escalated to throwing chairs and desks, the incident would be over quickly.
Cauthon | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Looking for more help
Thanks for posting my comment, and fixing part of the formatting.
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For example, when I copy something from the Textile instructions, it looks OK here, but in the preview there is no formatting. See below for that, and a copy of part of my comment from what was actually posted. Again, formatting does not copy with cut and paste. Any HELP :-) will be appreciated.
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– People are not crazy enough to force teachers to carry guns if they don’t want to. Let’s get past the red herring stuff like that.
– Nobody can design a security system – especially not at reasonable cost – that will guarantee we will all be safe all the time. Letting some teachers carry guns will not make us 100% safe, but anyone can see that after you shoot the perpetrator, he stops
Cauthon | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Guns and Don't Mess with TEXAS??
OK, I don’t know how many others that are leaving comments were born and raised in Texas, but I was. “Don’t Mess With Texas” is associated with littering, not guns. I cannot imagine Texas schools allowing teachers to carry guns. No matter how much training they receive, teachers go to school to teach, not to shoot their students. Please do not let this very small school in a very small town have a positive influence on you in this matter. Install metal detectors and guards if you have this kind of problem. Please, leave this matter to professionals.
Linda Allen | 1 year, 4 months ago
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dumb
This is the most dumb thing I have heard. First of all, this school is so small that the chances of anything happening is slim. If teachers are too occupied with trying to be security, then how much teaching are they really doing? Plus, they already have security systems. I think this school/town, is just looking for attention. there is no need for their teachers to have guns. Oh. who is paying for these teachers to be certified? Is the school? if so, they could use that money to hire security.
ARF | 1 year, 4 months ago
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fskiff768
With the proper training I think it will be all right. Women in the military are doing it with the proper training.
Francis C. Skiffington | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Armed teachers
I have no problem with armed teachers. We, the people of this great country, are the best defense from either internal or foreign threats. Packing a pistol should not detract from the ability to educate students. Those who can’t manage to carry a gun and maintain their level of professionalism as an educator should do neither. Armed or not, people are their own best security. Those who are foolish enough to be mindless as to what is going on around them are just what the criminals target for their misdeeds. These professionals are not going to be playing security guards, they will be teachers. Those who cry disaster are the paranoid ones and have little faith in their fellow man. Criminal minds respond to intimidation and will find the easy target much more appealing. My great great grandmother was a school teacher and she packed a pistol; I have it in my collection. Armed citizens are our best defense.
Paul Platt | 1 year, 4 months ago
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Congratulations to the school board
Congratulations to the school board for making sense.
How odd many of the comments have been? You speak so much about teachers teaching and not being a form of security yet for how many years have we eagerly handed our children over to these teachers and allowed them the privilege of teaching them more than just reading, writing, and arithmeti? They have become the guide to children in everything besides education. You don’t know if these teachers are pedophiles or just wicked people. You don’t know if the classmates use drugs or have STDs. Yet, you willingly stick your kids in that environment for many hours a day and now you are worried about the teacher being unsafe because he has a gun.
Give me a break! Think back on Columbine. If the children had known the teachers were armed, would those bad kids have dared to shoot anybody? How much safer would the rest of the children have felt knowing the teachers were able to protect them?
So go Texas teachers!
PW | 1 year, 4 months ago
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More School Systems Should Take Note
I am a high school teacher and have a concealed firearms permit. I don’t carry my gun to school; however, my responsibility is to protect and keep my students safe. Every parent expects their child to return to them at the end of the day the way that they dropped their child off in the morning. I have always believed that if someone wanted to come and shoot up a school, the signs that state “No Weapons Allowed on Campus” are not going to stop their plans. Are we to assume that if teachers lock their doors and huddle with their students behind closed doors that this will stop an aggressive intruder. The answer is no! Perhaps, aggressive individuals set on making headlines by taking the lives of innocent children will think twice before entering a school where teachers are allowed and encouraged to pack. If you have ever shot a gun or gone through the concealed training course, you know that you have to know what you are doing. If I was forced to pick the lives of my students over the life of a school shooter, the answer is obvious. I commend the school board for being proactive.
Michelle G | 1 year, 4 months ago
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The Most Sensible Solution for that district
In my humble opinion, this sort of thing should be considered by individual school boards based on each district’s needs. In the case sighted above, requiring the teachers to carry weapons is the most sensible solution. There is no one blanket solution that will fit all needs. I think that the option to carry a weapon should never be taken away from any teacher if they feel their life is in danger. That being said, the horrible problem of school violence is but a symptom of a much broader spectrum of problems with our youth today. Foremost among these problems is bullying. Bullying today has changed. The intensity of the abuse and the degree of cruelty are worse than it has ever been. Worse still, organized bullying is now in vogue. It is considered to be hip and cool to torment those who are different from the MTV watching, rap listening crowd. Bullies have taken advantage of modern technology to coordinate their attacks to cause the maximum grief to the target. Compounding this problem, the horrendous amount of overwork that teachers today must endure to meet tightening standards with fewer resources has created a small minority of bad teachers. This is not to denigrate the work that teachers do,there are plenty of dedicated hard working teachers. The small minority of bad ones, however, have an impact on children that greatly exceeds their size. The best among them are apathetic, they don’t care what happens to their students so long as the bills are paid and they discourage students from bringing bullying to their attention, often punishing the victim, because it makes their lives easier. The worst of the bad teachers become cruel and vindictive. They encourage bullying, or even bully students themselves taking pleasure in their helpless victim’s pain. It only takes one experience with these teachers to destroy a child’s faith in the entire administration and make them feel helpless and alone. Children are often too ashamed to tell their parents what is happening and many parents simply don’t care. Worse still, both kinds of bad teachers resent any parental involvement and work avidly to discourage it. Parents need to stop trusting the state to deal with their children’s problems. This will deal with one of the fundamental problems behind school violence by giving isolated children hope again. This, however, does not address the other two problems. Organized gang activity and the demise of responsible journalism. Allow me to expound. The demise of responsible reporting and the return of yellow journalism has created an environment that gives mentally unbalanced individuals far too many ideas. Often, 24-hour cable news often seems like it is just biding time until there is a new tragedy to report. Mentally unbalanced people who just want fame may be inspired to imitate the horrible acts they see on the news for instant fame. Nothing will stop these people so long as irresponsible yellow journalism continues to feed their perverted desires. Take their guns away and they will stab people, take their knives away and they will kill with sticks and stones. I must wrap this up, but let me finish by saying that we must address the fundamental problems behind the heinous epidemic of school violence or they will continue unabated no matter how many of our freedoms are circumscribed to “combat” this menace.
Torque | 1 year, 4 months ago
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