By Eric Boehm | PA Independent
HARRISBURG – Armed guards may soon patrol outside Pennsylvania’s public schools, and the teachers may be armed, as well.
A pair of Republican lawmakers in the state House are working on legislation to make Pennsylvania schools safer. But while all sides agree on the need to improve school safety, some worry about bringing guns into schools, regardless of the lawmakers’ intent.
State Rep. Greg Lucas, R-Erie, plans to sponsor legislation that would make it legal for teachers and school administrators to carry weapons in the classroom, provided they are licensed to carry a firearm and have valid and current certification under state law.
“As we consider ways to improve school safety, I believe we have to consider trusting school personnel to serve as a first line of defense. We trust them to protect our children every day. I think we need to offer them the tools to carry out that sacred trust,” Lucas wrote in a memo being circulated among members of the state House this week.
Pennsylvania has more than 3,000 public school buildings spread across 500 school districts.
Lucas, who was sworn-in to his first term in office Tuesday, said the bill is personal.
In 1998, a student in Lucas’ hometown of Edinboro brought a gun to a school dance and opened fire, killing one and wounding two others. The body count could have been higher, Lucas said, if not for the intervention of an armed citizen, who used his own gun to stop the shooter.
Students and school employees would be safer if guns were allowed in schools, he said Wednesday.
“I think it’s our duty and responsibility to protect our children, and this is one way of doing it,” Lucas told PA Independent on Wednesday.
The National Rifle Association last month called for armed guards at all American schools in the aftermath of the horrific shooting in Connecticut last month. The pro-gun rights lobby suggested using retired police officers and other volunteers.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter told MSNBC last month the NRA’s proposal was a “completely dumb-ass idea.”
Clearly, Lucas comes from a different perspective. He is a proud gun owner who has worked as an instructor for the NRA. The NRA endorsed Lucas when he successfully ran for office in November.
He was formerly a teacher and is married to a public school teacher. If people are allowed to carry guns for self-defense in most other settings, he says, the same rules should apply to schools.
Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, which advocates gun control, said Wednesday that arming teachers gives her pause.
As a parent, she worries about accidents in the classroom, but also about how students might be able to gain access to those weapons.
Goodman said it would be better to have more extensive background checks for all guns and for the purchase of ammunition, and to require residents to report lost and stolen guns to law enforcement.
Lucas said teachers who chose to be armed would likely be required to keep their weapons locked inside a desk or a safe during the school day.
But Lucas isn’t the only lawmaker looking to increase security at Pennsylvania’s schools.
State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Butler, chairman of the House State Government Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would allow school districts to hire retired police officers and others with law-enforcement experience to guard schools.
Schools would be allowed to hire people who have completed training to be a municipal police officer in Pennsylvania, graduates of the Pennsylvania State Police Academy and those who had completed other, similar law-enforcement training programs.
Under current law, it is unclear what qualifications are sufficient for that purpose, Metcalfe said.
Metcalfe said he supports Lucas’ proposal, and opposes the idea of “gun-free school zones,” but believes his bill would move more quickly through the Legislature.
“Going farther than that right now, I’m not sure we could get it passed quickly, and this is something that we should move ahead with quickly,” he said.
Goodman said more armed security isn’t necessarily the best way to prevent future school massacres. She said gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others in November 2009 at Fort Hood, an Army base in Texas with plenty of well-armed, well-trained soldiers.
Several other bills dealing with guns and school safety are expected to be introduced in the early days of the new legislative session. Notably, state Rep. Ron Waters, D-Philadelphia, has announced his intention to introduce an assault weapons ban in Pennsylvania.
Shortly after the Connecticut shootings, Gov. Tom Corbett gave little indication he was interested in such a ban. He argued that it would be ineffective when so many guns are already available.
Goodman said she hoped lawmakers, early in the new session, would approve legislation linking Pennsylvania to the national background check system for gun purchases.
Contact Boehm at Eric@PAIndependent.com and follow @PAIndependent on Twitter.
— Edited by John Trump at jtrump@watchdog.org
Arming teachers, however, is another story all together. This is such a complex issue with so many potential scenarios that do not have good outcomes. There are security procedures and apparatus that can be used first before we take such a tenuous step as this.
Hiring properly trained and armed security would be more of a deterrent to wrongdoing.
For those schools and school districts that cannot afford guards - armed or not - then certainly it seems like a reasonable solution is to have some teachers, though not actively walking around with weapons, with weapons at their disposal with all the appropriate safeguards in place. I'm of the belief that is such a condition were common knowledge, even the deranged would know that rushing a school would not fulfill whatever their twisted agenda is We protect so many valuables with armed guards, knowing that some criminals wouldn't hesitate to shoot their way into or out of a lucrative heist. Why not so the same for our children?
Before we move to turn our schools into fortresses, we should bear in mind that they are already very safe. According to the Department of Education’s figures, rates of violent crimes in school are low, with only 14 incidents per 1000 in 2010, compared to 53 per 1000 back in 1992. Incidents like the one in Newtown are so incredibly rare, it’s difficult to find an adequate comparison. But one criminologist, Gary Kleck estimates that our children are more likely to be hit by lightning than shot in school. In other words, it would be hard to make our children safer than they already are. More importantly, this security comes at a terrible price. Schools are where we pass on our collective wisdom and values. By treating parents and other members of the community as suspects, we are effectively saying that safety matters more than everything else. Excessive security institutionalizes suspicion. Don't implement new procedures just for the sake of “doing something.” The best “something” to do is to resist the urge to overreact.
Something has to be done to protect our future generation. Our Children are very Much Needed protection from the Crazy people in the world.
Schools are places where kids go to learn, not armed castles. We only need to think about arming teachers because we have foolishly made access to firearms WAY TO EASY. Gun rights and gun proliferation are not the same thing. To sensible people, Newtown, CT was tipping point. Our great gun experiment has failed - it isn't worth having kids slaughtered in mass numbers at a goddam elementary school. Gun advocates only care about themselves. Join a well formed militia like the 2nd Amendment says, then we can talk. Until then, lets be sensible and restrict gun access.
I say, offer all the unemployed vets who are searching relentlessly for work that isn't available, who would be happy to keep our children safe, who would feel a great sense of purpose, a job doing just that. Let the people who were trained to protect us in combat, protect our kids from the terrors that they face at home.
I don't believe arming all teachers because some of these teachers aren't competent enough to use the guns
Our great gun experiment has failed, and the cost was terrible.
I don't believe our schools are safe, I don't believe we have adequate people in there making the correct decisions, I don't believe that the problem with this will be fixed in a short period of time. I do believe there are individuals who can "fix" this but they are not being listened to by the powers that be
Facts are these ... There is not a SINGLE law that you can pass on gun control that would solve this problem or eliminate the threat. You can MAYBE reduce the size and speed of any potential future event. But you cannot stop them UNLESS you're willing to make a school look like a military installation or a high security prison, and swallow the costs of doing so. Restricting gun access won't do it. Reducing the size of clips or the availability of ammunition won't do it. (Wonder where I heard those solutions ... ) None of those "solutions" completely solve the problem. It's so easy to pooh-pooh ideas without coming up with your own solution that would work. So enlighten us on YOUR solutions to completely resolve this situation (without - of course - relying on excerpts from the Rachel Maddow show).
Unfortunately, if you want your gun-free utopia, you will have to move somewhere else. You can thank the Founding Fathers, who despite all the hand-wringing over the 2nd Amendment language on "well-trained militias" never bothered to canvas the country for the return of all guns once they kicked the Colonialists off the Continent, not even when some of those same FFs were serving a Presidents (Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, etc.) So sorry ...