Harrold, Texas may be miles from anywhere, but today it’s heading into the red-hot center of the American gun debate. That’s because the school district has just announced a set of rules allowing teachers to carry loaded firearms in the classrooms and corridors of the main campus.
The Associated Press says it is the first school district in the nation to do so, but its reporter is wrong. A town in Georgia (U.S.) actually required all adults to carry firearms for a time in the 1990s. And there may well be other Western school districts that do not have Manhattan and Manhattan Beach-style gun phobias.
The high school in Harrold says it is vulnerable because it sits on an interstate where criminals can easily do the worst and flee while the nearest law-enforcement office is some 50 miles away. Teachers who want to pack heat will have to be licensed by the state of Texas, be approved by the school district and use ammunition that is less likely to ricochet. On both counts, the assessment of the potential threat and the restrictions, the school district seems prudent. (Though regulating the civil rights of teachers may be unconstitutional in a public school in this post-Heller world.)
What everyone forgets is that most school shootings are stopped when a teacher goes to his car, retrieves his legal firearm and either confronts or shoots the attacker. Every year, some two million criminal incidents are stopped without firing a shot when a law-abiding citizen simply brandishes his gun and demands the retreat or surrender of the perpetrator, according to statistics compiled by the American Rifleman magazine.
So the Harrold precedent could be the beginning of a sensible school safety measure: let teachers carry guns.
Will it happen soon? Not likely. Too many Democrats in the Bush years are bitter and cling to their anti-gun religion.
Well put.
Far too many people, many of whom have never left New York let alone been to the emptier parts of Texas, simply cannot disassociate carrying a gun with being a criminal.
Harrold, Texas, is remote – but maybe it’s not remote enough. Highway 287 (which is not actually an interstate but a US Highway) is the major road corridor from Dallas/Fort Worth to Amarillo and points west, and has a great deal of traffic. It passes through small towns, not around them as an interstate more likely would. The town’s concerns about crime have a basis in fact.
I can guarantee that despite the paranoid fears of many, there won’t be gun battles in the hallways; if mere possession of a gun caused firefights, big gun shows in Dallas would be bloodbaths. Instead, they’re some of the most civilized and safest public events anywhere.
I know many people who are concealed-handgun carriers (I might be one such person myself), and none of them are criminals. Obtaining a concealed handgun license requires classroom time, firing-range time, an extensive background check, and periodic requalification – a far more detailed process than one must go through for many professions…like being a journalist, for example.
Scott
This story made http://detentionslip.org! It’s #1 for crazy school news like this.