Texas Gun Store Owner Offers Teachers Discounts for Concealed Carry Permits

This is not a gimmick, and I believe that it’s a good idea.

An Austin-area gun store owner is joining the gun rights debate with a controversial offer for teachers in light of the tragic shooting in Connecticut.

Crocket Keller of Kellers Riverside Gun Store says if educators want to get a concealed handgun license, he’ll give them a discount.

“As we do with veterans, I would offer them a discount. Our normal rate is $110.00, so I would give them a rate of $90.00,” said Keller to KRLD. “If they are teachers, we would be more than happy to do that.”

Note that this is not a call for concealed carry in the classroom. It’s a call to allow teachers to gain familiarization training with firearms and get a permit to carry them if they choose to do so. We can’t turn all of our schools into fortresses. We can’t ban all guns or come up with a perfect solution that keeps them out of the hands of criminals and madmen. We just can’t.

But we can spread firearms familiarization far and wide among those who are vulnerable and who have the responsibility to protect the vulnerable. I would suggest many in the media should also obtain firearms training, but for a different reason than teachers need it. Teachers need it because though the odds are very small they may find themselves in a position to have to rely on a firearm to defend themselves and their students. Many in the media need it because when tragedies occur, they leap to report inaccurately on firearms, gun ranges, ammunition types and uses, just about everything having anything to do with guns. Training might help them avoid spreading falsehoods.