5th-graders vote
for guns in school
Mock trial’s unanimous verdict:
Kids safer with armed teachers

By David M. Bresnahan
? 2000 WorldNetDaily.com

SOUTH JORDAN, Utah — A group of fifth-grade students here held a mock trial and delivered a unanimous decision — that adults with concealed firearm permits should be permitted to have guns in schools.

Students at the South Jordan Elementary School have conducted mock court trials for the past seven years. Teacher Laurie Erickson explained that the students selected the topic from a list of several presented to them. The students asked members of the community to participate in the trial and to offer their testimony on the subject of gun control in schools.

Students took part as attorneys, judge and bailiff, while the rest of the class members served as the jury.

Erickson said the students spent the past two weeks preparing arguments and contacting witnesses to testify on both sides of the issue.

Rep. Merrill Cook, R-Utah, was the star of the show. He told the young jurors that he did not personally want teachers to have firearms in school, but he also did not want to deny them their right to carry a firearm if that is their choice and if they have a concealed firearm permit.

Janalee Tobias, the founder of Women Against Gun Control, also testified at the “trial.” Tobias spoke as a mother, and said she was concerned about violence in schools, telling the students, “I want my kids to be protected.”

She complained that gun-control advocates often use “their children as props for gun control.” She said she was happy the students chose such an important topic and asked such good questions on their own.

Three gun control advocates who want all guns banned from schools testified. The students invited their own principal, Richard Allred, to speak on behalf of banning guns in school. Jeremy DeWall, a sophomore at Bingham High School, also testified against allowing in-school firearm possession.

PTA President KaRynn Christensen, spoke in direct opposition to the pro-gun Tobias. She told the students that as a mother, she was concerned that a teacher with a gun might suddenly use it on a student. She told them that she is also against using violent means to stop a violent person.

In the end, the student jurors declared Cook and Tobias the winners in a unanimous decision.

Court is still in session. Before the week is over the fifth-graders will decide on whether to drain Lake Powell, and whether to do chemical testing on animals.