The President and the NRA currently are recommending that we take six to eight teachers/coaches and allow them to carry concealed weapons to help prevent further school shootings.  By implementing this policy, we would have around a half a million armed educators (I do not believe you could even find a tenth of certified teachers interested in this proposal) which would maybe outnumber the total amount of law enforcement officers currently employed. Which teacher does anyone know that is going to volunteer to go out of their classroom, leaving their children unattended in an active shooting scenario, armed with a pistol to face someone armed with an automatic assault weapon?  What response will the SWAT officers have when they encounter an armed teacher carrying a gun in the hallway? How about another student trying to help with a teacher’s gun in an active shooting situation?   Who pays for the weapons and extensive training to handle active shooting situations?   The recent White House budget slashed school funding and school safety monies. Schools all over the country are routinely and somewhat purposefully already underfunded.  States will be hard pressed to pick up the slack as well because they are being expected to pick up 80% of all costs for intra-structure improvements to roads, bridges and other miscellaneous projects.

     Does anyone think local taxpayers won’t to be on the hook for these additional costs?   What happens to school liability insurance policies when teachers start bringing guns to school?   What happens to a teacher’s individual insurance liability policies when they are designated as a weapons carrier?  What happens during an active shooting situation when a teacher shoots either another innocent student, colleague, or law enforcement officer?   Does the teacher receive more money to carry a gun and is his/her family compensated if he/she is killed?  Who is responsible if the teacher is overpowered and the gun is taken away from him/her thereby itself creating a dangerous situation?

     These are but a few of the questions that need to be addressed by legislators advocating policies which bring even more guns into our classrooms.

Tom Moiser

Another day and another mass school shooting tragedy.  It seems like as these events become even more predictable and frequent, the time for action is indeed long past due.  Thoughts and prayers while always welcome and appropriate, have not been enough to stop the senseless shootings from military style weapons from continuing to kill our school children.

Policies beyond prayers must be taken if we as a nation, can ever begin to address the incidence and frequency of not only school shootings but mass shootings across our country.  Generally, everyone supports the second amendment right to own and use weapons.  This right should also carry some responsibilities for us as a nation to develop reasonable gun ownership policies to ensure the safety of our citizens (i.e. the right to life and liberty).  Weapons of war like the military style AR-15 used in the recent Parkland School Florida shooting, simple do not appear to fit in a reasonable and responsible gun ownership policy particularly when equipped with a 30 to 100 round drum of ammunition beyond killing large numbers of people quickly,  Case in point, in the Parkland School shooting, over 150 bullets were fired in six minutes killing 17 students and teachers, and wounding 14 other students. Bans also need to be enacted on bump fire stocks which allow semi-automatic weapons to be converted to fire as if they are fully automatic weapons.   We must also act quickly to address  background checks to determine if a person should even be allowed to purchase a weapon for not only the individual but for everyone’s safety.   The previous ban on permitting mentally ill individuals to purchase guns was lifted by executive order in January 2017.  An order to re-issue this ban should be immediately done  not only for school safety reasons but because it just makes good sense. These are but a few of the questions that need to be addressed by legislators advocating policies which bring even more guns into our classrooms.  What we can’t do is nothing and wait for the next horrific tragedy to occur.

Tom Mosier