Ga State Rep tried this last session. Of course it didn’t fly with our democRATic run state legislature. Maybe we can talk them into trying again in Jan….
===========

State Lawmaker Offers Safer-School Proposal: Let Teachers Pack Guns

NOEL E. OMAN

ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Students with guns had terrible effects at Littleton, Colo., Paducah, Ky.,
and near Jonesboro, where two students last year killed four classmates and
a teacher and wounded 10 others.

What can be done to prevent such horrors in the future? Some strategists
ask: What if teachers had guns? What if they were trained to use the
weapons? Could they make a difference?

Rep. Marvin Parks, R-Greenbrier, has no answers, but he wants Arkansas to
ponder the questions before the Legislature meets in 2001.

Parks has asked the House and Senate Interim Committees on Education to
explore the feasibility of allowing schoolteachers to attend the state Law
Enforcement Training Academy to “better prepare themselves to deal with
violence on school premises.”

His proposal is one of two school-safety studies lawmakers may consider in
formulating legislation for the 2001 legislative session.

The other study proposal, sponsored by Reps. Bobby Glover, D-Carlisle, and
Shane Broadway, D-Benton, requests a more comprehensive review of what the
state can do to make schools safer.

Both proposals are pending before the committees. In an interview, Parks
acknowledged that the unstated aim of his proposal was to consider whether
to allow teachers to carry guns if they are qualified and if they have the
desire. “I want them to be prepared to respond to that [school violence] and
to meet it if they have to,” Parks said.

He is not wedded to the idea, he said. He wants it considered as an
alternative to having a certified law enforcement officer in every school.

“It is not the long-term solution,” Parks said. “But we’ve got to put
security on campus. How would you do it for every school district in the
state?”

Some of the bigger school districts in the state have a certified law
enforcement officers, often known as school resource officers, stationed on
some campuses. But having a resource officer on every campus in all 310
school districts might prove too costly, Parks said.

Having a teacher or school administrator who also was a certified law
enforcement officer would save money, he said.

Parks, a freshman, said carrying a gun into the classroom never occurred to
him during his 14 years as a teacher of eighth-grade and ninth-grade
mathematics in the Conway public schools.

He left the profession three years ago, before the Littleton, Jonesboro, and
Paducah shootings.

The idea of arming teachers occurred to him when he learned of the science
teacher who was shot while trying to escort students to safety during the
Littleton shooting, Parks said.

“What if someone had been there, prepared and qualified to respond to that
situation,” he said.

He bounced the idea of some local constituents, including two school
superintendents and a police officer. “All agreed that it is something worth
talking about,” Parks said.

He already has heard the argument that teachers are burdened enough without
undergoing law enforcement training, which would be voluntary under his
proposal. But he suggested that teachers without the qualifications are
under a heavy burden when violence erupts on campus.

“You are putting more on me in that situation when you don’t give me the
resources to deal with it,” Parks said.

Under his plan, teachers could undergo training similar to what police
officers undergo to become certified through the state Law Enforcement
Training Academy at East Camden.

A prospective police officer undergoes 12 weeks of training, or 480 hours of
instruction, said Steve Farris, deputy director of the training division for
the Law Enforcement Standards and Training Commission, which oversees the
academy.

About 15 percent of the training, or 73 hours, is firearms instruction,
Farris said. The prospective officers also must meet minimum marksmanship
standards to be certified, he said. Other areas of emphasis include use of
force, ethics, defensive tactics, Arkansas criminal law and response to
violence, Farris said.

Parks said he would not be comfortable with the idea of a teacher carrying a
gun on campus if he only had to meet the standards that citizens must meet
to qualify to carry a concealed weapon.

The same idea that Parks wants studied has provoked controversy elsewhere.
He said he didn’t know that.

This month, an Ohio school superintendent resigned in the wake of an outcry
that erupted when he suggested arming teachers. John Varis, chief of
Readings Schools, had been under fire since Oct. 15 when he made comments
about the merits of arming teachers to protect students. That drew sharp
criticism from some, but the superintendent said he was simply brainstorming
school safety ideas.

Varis is not the first official to create controversy in the discussion
about battling school violence. Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura came under
criticism when he suggested that if teachers had been carrying concealed
weapons, they might have prevented the April shootings in Littleton, which
left 15 dead and nearly two dozen hurt.

“Let’s remember that very often, if you were to have someone with a
legitimate conceal-and- carry weapon, you can stop crimes like this from
happening,” Ventura said at the time.

The ensuing uproar prompted Ventura to say he regretted the remarks and that
schools are no place for weapons.

Also this year, Georgia Schools Superintendent Linda Schrenko proposed a
state law authorizing administrators with the proper training to carry Mace,
pepper spray or stun guns.

University of Chicago Law School fellow John R. Lott Jr. also has advocated
arming teachers, saying it would deter violence.

But mainline education groups, such as the National Education Association
and National Center for the Study of School Violence in Raleigh, N.C., have
not included the option in their strategies to reduce school violence.

Education Secretary Richard Riley dismissed the idea this summer. “If you
are in a situation where a teacher has to carry a gun, then you are in a
prison-type situation,” he said in an interview with the Denver Post while
attending an education conference in Denver.

Riley noted that “school is still the safest place in the community.” Less
than 1 percent of all homicides among school-age children — ages 5 to 19 –
occur in or around public schools, he said

http://208.138.42.193/forum/a383eaa0a4209.htm