Guns and students don’t seem like a genius combination, but officials in Arkansas are siding with the National Rifle Association on this one.
An Arkansas school district is preparing for situations like the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre by arming more than 20 staffers, teachers and administrators with firearms.
After undergoing 53 hours of safety training, those qualified will be able to walk through school halls carrying a 9 mm handgun.
According to ABC, the town of Clarksville isn’t known for having dangerous schools, and in fact, this is the first time a measure like this has been taken.
In strongly conservative Arkansas, where gun ownership is common and gun laws are permissive, no school district had ever used the law to arm teachers on the job, according to the state Department of Education. The closest was the Lake Hamilton School District in Garland County, which for years has kept several guns locked up in case of emergency. Only a handful of trained administrators — not teachers — have access to the weapons.
But after the massacre last December that left 20 students and six staffers dead in Connecticut, Clarksville schools received a flood of calls from concerned parents.
“We’re not tying our money up in a guard 24/7 that we won’t have to have unless something happens. We’ve got these people who are already hired and using them in other areas,” Superintendent David Hopkins said. “Hopefully we’ll never have to use them as a security guard.”
But not everyone agrees with the new measure.
Donna Morey, former president of the Arkansas Education Association, called the idea of arming teachers “awful.” The risk of a student accidentally getting shot or obtaining a gun outweighs any benefits, she said.
“We just think educators should be in the business of educating students, not carrying a weapon,” Morey said.
We’d have to agree.
SOURCE: ABC
