Lee County School Board voted unanimously to allow certain teachers to carry guns in the classroom. Teachers who choose to carry a weapon will have to go through additional screening which includes another background check, a psychological evaluation, and a specific training program. Only teachers who choose this optional will be permitted to carry their weapon on school grounds and no teacher who opposes this will be asked to carry a weapon.
From CBN News–
“We just felt like we had to do something,” Kidwell said. “Obviously it’s a national debate but people around here want to protect their students.” The 11-school district currently works with the local sheriff’s department to conduct lockdown drills and employs resource officers at four schools. That leaves seven schools with no armed officer or employee.
Kidwell says the district would like to provide every school with a resource officer but the budget does not allow that option. “In an ideal situation, if we could afford to hire resource officers in all of the buildings we would do that over arming teachers,” he explained.
This is a positive solution to a potential problem in our schools. “Gun-Free Zones” are soft targets that advertise to perpetrators a place where few, or no one, will return fire against illegal aggression. From a practical perspective a “gun-free zone” does nothing to prevent a perpetrator from entering an area with a gun. From a legal perspective a “gun-free zone” also does nothing to prevent or deter crime; it’s just another charge that when added to someone who just killed several people is completely needless as the murder charges are more than enough to seek maximum penalties.
Arming teachers who can responsibly handle a fire arm is a responsible and reasonable answer to the horrible thought of an active school shooter. Relying on local police to come over takes precious minutes. Providing an armed guard to every school is not within most school districts’ budgets. Cheers to Lee County School Board for taking the lead by arming teachers. Hopefully more school boards in Virginia will follow suit.
The below picture is a counterpoint to this opinion piece that makes no sense.
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