West Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow teachers and other school staff who undergo training to carry guns in K-12 public schools.
The bill, which now heads to the Senate, would allow teachers, administrators and support personnel with concealed carry permits to volunteer to bring a firearm into school with the intention of using it to defend the school in case of an active shooter event. Designated a “school protection officer,” the staffer wouldn’t receive any additional compensation for doing so.
Supporters say not every school system in West Virginia can afford to hire a full-time school resource officer. This program would provide another option.
Before the vote, Republican Del. Dave Foggin of Wood County, a physics teacher, said he can’t think of anything worse than shooting someone in his classroom. But he said if that person came into his school trying to hurt his students, he would do it.
It’s certainly less comprehensive than police training, and even that is lacking.
No amount of training makes up for the police standing outside not doing anything.
The type of teacher who wants to carry in a school is probably going to do a lot more training than the bare minimum.
Are you earnestly saying that you think gun owners are all responsible and well trained?
I’d bet instead that the main people who are going to carry in schools are going to be shitheads that replace their personalities with guns and who will mainly use them to threaten students. This gives any wannabe authoritarian a great big green checkmark to carry a deadly weapon around kids.
No one believes that or is saying that. “All Gun Owners” aren’t even in this conversation so why are you talking about them? We’re discussing a subset of “All Gun Owners”. These will be the ones who have permits and training, you know…the things that most people on Lemmy continually advocate for to help make sure that all gun owners are responsible gun owners.
Yes, exactly. Just like how everybody with a driver’s license is a well-trained and certified driver.
Or, like with police, the opportunity to carry a gun around like a badass will attract the wrong people to the job, and we’ll end up with teachers pulling guns on students for not treating them as deferentially as they’d like.