Published December 28, 2012

FoxNews.com

Kasey Hansen, a special education teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah, says she would take a bullet for any of her students, but if faced with a gunman threatening her class, she would rather be able to shoot back. Dec. 27, 2012: Clark Aposhian, President of Utah Shooting Sport Council, demonstrates with a plastic gun during concealed-weapons training for 200 Utah teachers.

SALT LAKE CITY – Gun-rights advocates in Utah offered six hours of training Thursday in handling concealed weapons for hundreds of Utah teachers in the wake of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut.

The latest effort to arm teachers to confront school assailants was organized by the Utah Shooting Sports Council, which hosted the training session to help educators become eligible for concealed firearm permits, FOX 13 News reported.

More than 200 teachers flocked to the training class in the Salt Lake City suburb of West Valley City. Raye Ann Blauer, a kindergarten teacher, told FOX 13 she is considering using her permit to carry a firearm at school.

“[A]fter everything that happened in Connecticut, I want to be aware of how I can help in the classroom and protect my kids and whatnot. Be aware,” Blauer said. “I think it’s really smart. Especially with everything that’s happened lately.” English teacher Kevin Leatherbarrow holds a license to carry a concealed weapon and doesn't see anything wrong with arming teachers in the aftermath of the deadly Connecticut school shooting.
"We're sitting ducks," said Leatherbarrow, who works at a Utah charter school. "You don't have a chance in hell. You're dead -- no ifs, ands or buts."

In Ohio, a firearms group said it was launching a test program in tactical firearms training for 24 teachers. The Arizona attorney general is proposing a change to state law to allow an educator in each school to carry a gun.

The moves come after the National Rifle Association proposed placing an armed officer at each of the nation's schools after a gunman on Dec. 14 killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

There are already police officers in some of the nation's schools. Parents and educators, however, have questioned how safe the NRA proposal would keep kids, whether it would be economically feasible and how it would alter student life.
Some educators say it is dangerous to allow guns. Among the dangers are teachers being overpowered for their weapons or students getting them and accidentally or purposely shooting classmates.

"It's a terrible idea," said Carol Lear, a chief lawyer for the Utah Office of Education. "It's a horrible, terrible, no-good, rotten idea." Utah educators say they would ban guns if they could, but legislators left them with no choice. State law forbids schools, districts or college campuses from imposing their own gun restrictions.

Educators say they have no way of knowing how many teachers are armed. Gun-rights advocates estimate 1 percent of Utah teachers, or 240, are licensed to carry concealed weapons. It's not known how many do so at school.

Gun-rights advocates say teachers can act more quickly than law enforcement in the critical first few minutes to protect children from the kind of deadly shooting that took place in Connecticut.

"We're not suggesting that teachers roam the halls" for an armed intruder, said Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council, the state's leading gun lobby. "They should lock down the classroom. But a gun is one more option if the shooter" breaks into a classroom, he said.

The council said it would waive its $50 fee for the training. Instruction will feature plastic guns and a major emphasis will be for people who are facing deadly threats to announce they have a gun and retreat or take cover before trying to shoot, he said.

"Mass shootings may still be rare, but that doesn't help you when the monster comes in." At the class, teachers offered their fingerprints for a permit as an instructor in the "psychology of mass violence" kicked off the gun class.

"I just bought a bra holster," said Jessica Fiveash, a 32-year-old Utah teacher and wife of a retired Army sergeant who grew up shooting and said she had no hesitation packing a gun at school. "Women can't really carry a gun on their hip."

Utah is among few states that let people carry licensed concealed weapons into public schools without exception, the National Conference of State Legislatures says in a 2012 compendium of state gun laws.

Leatherbarrow said he often felt threatened while working at an inner-city school in Buffalo, N.Y., where he got a license to carry a pistol. He moved less than a year ago to Utah, where he feels safer.

But he said gun violence can break out anywhere. He said he was highly trained in handling guns -- and was taking criticism from parents who don't appreciate his views on school safety.

"I'm in agreement not everybody should be carrying firearms in school. They're not trained. But for some parents to think we're cowboys, that frustrates me," he said. "I wish parents would understand."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Brought to you by, CharlottePAC.org

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Could Armed Teachers Prevent the Next School Shooting?

The Sunday morning news shows are ablaze with the debate for arming teachers to prevent the next school shooting!

As a parent and grandmother, I want my children to be effectively defended. When a parent drop their children off at school, those same parents look forward to seeing their children safe and happy at the end of the day. Our most precious resources, the future leaders of this nation!

Stricter gun laws would not have prevented "monsters" like Adam Lanza, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and others from committing mass shootings, and I wonder why students, unlike banks, don't have the protection of armed officials.

Armed police are currently in many schools, but, the police cannot be everywhere to provide protection and to make our children safe. A shooter could take out a guard or officer with a visible, holstered weapon, but well trained teachers could slow down the mass killings in our schools, because the killer would not know how many teachers are carrying. Criminals are lazy...once they find out that they will encounter an obstacle in carrying out their crime, they will typically seek an easier pry.

Instead of heralding Ms. Victoria Soto, a 27-year-old Sandy Hook elementary teacher as a hero for dying while trying to hide her pupils; an armed Victoria Soto could have been heralded as a hero who was able to send her children to the safety of their homes after that horrific mass murder attempt.

Connecticut has a ban on assault weapons and those precious children were not protected.

Criminals work outside of the legal system. Additional gun bans will not stop them from killing. According to National Rifle Association chief Wayne LaPierre, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

Eleven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, a growing number of U.S. airline pilots are armed, prepared to use lethal force to protect the cockpit. More than 10,000 pilots carry government-issued guns on a voluntary basis, or about 10% of the nation's 100,000 pilots.

These pilots, officially known as federal flight deck officers, keep sidearms handy to provide one more layer of security and a last line of defense against hijackers.

To become flight deck officers, pilots undergo six days of intense training at a federal complex in Artesia, N.M., including weapons handling and close-combat techniques.

"We must speak for the safety of our nation's children," said LaPierre. "We care about our money, so we protect our banks with armed guards. American airports, office buildings, power plants, courthouses, even sports stadiums, are all protected by armed security. We care about our president, so we protect him with armed Secret Service agents. Members of Congress works in offices surrounded by Capitol police officers, yet when it comes to our most beloved innocent and vulnerable members of the American family -- our children -- we as a society leave them every day utterly defenseless. And the monsters and the predators of the world know it and exploit it."

If it is possible to stop the monsters from harming our children, I'd rather try this approach than to do nothing. Connecticut has a ban on assault weapons. The ban for assault weapons did not work to protect those 20 innocent children who lost their lives! It is time out for applying band-aid, political correct solutions to solve problems.

It's time to implement solid solutions. Let's do something that WILL WORK and give our teachers the tools needed to EFFECTIVELY protect our children!

It's time to armof educators. While this may seem like a bizarre proposition to some, in the tiny Texas town of Harrold, this practice is hardly controversial and it is effective.

~ Brought to you by CharlottePAC.org