Gun Totin' Teachers

First off, I would like to separate myself from a certain group of people. In my research on this issue, I have come across a group of people that would like to do away with CCW permits, and just blanketly allow everyone to carry concealed weapons. I am not of this crowd. CCW permits allow us to sort out those with violent histories and mental instabilities. Neither of those groups of people should be allow to carry a weapon.

Secondly, I am not completely convinced arming teachers is the solution to school violence. I do, however believe there is enough evidence to support testing the effectiveness of such a proposal. Only when such a method is put in to practice on a small scale will we have the data to make an educated decision about such a proposal.

For those of you who don't already know, this debate began over at Reno and it's Discontents. I encourage you to read the whole thing here and here, including all of the comments.

I would like to point out, I did say we had no evidence pro or con for concealed weapons in schools, so we would need to make assumptions based on data of concealed weapons in the public. I was incorrect and I would like to site a couple of cases below. These both com from a World Net Daily article, based on a follow up Mr. Lott did to his first study.

In the Pearl, Miss., shooting, an assistant principal retrieved his gun from his office and used it to physically immobilize the shooter before he caused additional harm.

In Edinboro, Penn., which left one teacher dead, "a shotgun pointed at the offender while he was reloading his gun prevented additional harm. The police did not arrive for another ten minutes" after the assailant was apprehended by
school staff.

These two cases present clear evidence of lives/injuries saved by the presence of a carefully used weapon in schools. I don't intend to base my entire case around these two incidents, but for now, I have to go. I will continue this in a later post.