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 wild that Republicans simultaneously believe that:
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teachers cannot be trusted to teach about race, gender, and certain parts of history (aka mentioning these things at all) and need to have all books in their classrooms reviewed by an external party for inappropriate content, and
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teachers can totally be trusted with guns in the classroom.
Not only that:
Look a student they possibly know in the eyes, and kill them.
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Ah yes, the solution in a mass shooting event is to make sure there are more panicked, armed civilians fearing for their lives around the place.
When you have bloodthirsty police who are scared of acorns in the mix too this is just going to lead to dead teachers.
the solution in a mass shooting event
Is obviously to bring more guns.
/sWhat’s better, someone completely defenseless with no options but to hide and die. Or someone able to do something about it?
The bill requires that staff carrying weapons at school undergo annual behavioral health assessments and training designed by the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security. The bill lays out a list of at least 15 different topics that should be addressed in the training, including crisis intervention, trauma and first aid.
These are supposed to be trained individuals, not just a random 1st grade teacher that got handed a gun the day before.
I mean, cops are supposed to be trained individuals, too. Training flies out the window when shit gets real.
My money is on this leading to an armed teacher getting shot by the police, an unarmed teacher being shot by the police because the police were jumpy or trigger-happy running in (if they can be bothered to run in at all) or, and this one is most likely, a gun a teacher brings legally to the premises being used in a shooting.
The evidence we currently have seems to indicate that while the presence of guns MIGHT lead to fewer property crimes, they don’t actually make places safer for people (and may actually make them more dangerous).
The reason we don’t have much data is because the gun lobby, until very recently, effectively kept the government from doing any research, which indicates to me they either already knew what the data would show or, at the very least, feared what it would show.
Sorry… why is it “hide and die?” Are you under the impression that it is impossible to hide from a mass shooter?
He’s already completely ignored the “don’t let a potential mass shooter have a gun” option.
It’s fucking infuriating that “more guns” is the only option that can get any traction.
This is America. I have no hope of that ever happening. Too many people are too in love with The Precious.
He’s already completely ignored the “don’t let a potential mass shooter have a gun” option.
That’s already not an option. There are more guns than people in the US. Guns have been so engrained into our culture for so long. You will no eradicate gun ownership in the US without starting a civil war
If only there were options other than “ban all guns” and “free guns for everyone”. I didn’t say eradicate gun ownership in my first comment.
Gun ownership has been going down for years. The reason there are so many guns out there is people who own dozens or hundreds of firearms.
The SROs who forget their guns in school bathrooms are trained individuals too.
This law is a terrible idea.
What’s better is to treat the core causes of gun violence, like high rates of gun ownership and an increasing lack of common-sense gun laws.
I’ve asked advocates of this before what happens if a student somehow gets a hold of a teacher’s gun and I’ve essentially been told by them that it would be impossible.
Which is weird, because kids sure can get access to everything else that is inside a school.
There’s an expectation of competency here that I cannot condone.
It’s easy to find stories about SROs leaving their gun in the school bathroom.
No way for a kid to be the one who finds it…
The gun industry really has us by the balls don’t they?
US: Help we have a problem with mass shootings!
Republicans: Have you tried more guns?
News report about a teacher at the end of their rope shooting their own students in 3… 2…1…
What’s more likely is that one day, when the classroom is crazy, they will leave their gun storage unsecured, and a 7-yr-old will find it and shoot their friend by accident.
Yeah that too. But I guarantee the other will also happen.
This was my first thought. Cops leave their guns places all the time.
When the students act up, shoot em with your gun
I’ve been shot at a lot. I have been in firefights. The first thing everyone does when they realize they’re being shot at by surprise is have a total complete meltdown and beg the savior/heavens for safety. I’ll never forget the face of one guy that was in pure terror when he accepted he was going to die. He was paralyzed hiding. It takes a few exposures to start getting comfortable with it. Ask any combat veteran what happened the first time they were shot at by surprise.
Additionally, to shoot the enemy, you have to place yourself in the line of fire from them, placing yourself in lethal danger. You also have to be calm enough to aim so that you hit just the shooter, not anyone else like another kid. The mass shooter doesn’t have that problem because they want to kill as much as possible and have already accepted their death. The mass shooter has a significant advantage.
Aside from maybe a deranged psychopath (which def shouldn’t be carrying a gun) or an experienced combat veteran/police officer, I would imagine most teachers would be completely useless in a mass shooter event. Look at the trained police officers in Uvalde that were too scared to go into the school. Wtf is some teacher with a bit of weapons safety training going to do??
Everyone has this fantasy that they’re going to be some kind of hero in a gun fight, but the reality is that when the first round pops off, your body takes over and you aren’t making decisions anymore. You’ve lost control as your body does what it has evolved to do, which is survive. See how you react the moment you’re at gun point and know that your entire experience is about to end. It takes some actual exposure to learn to override that.
If they pass anything less than full SWAT training, they are unprepared for urban hostage warfare. Republicans are fucking idiots.
I give it six months tops before some poor kid gets shot with one of these teachers’ guns.
Now take a school field trip to the state govt… See how far they let you in with a gun.
