Proposal to Arm Teachers Draws Fire in Nebraska

Nebraska state Sen. Mark Christensen has drawn fire from critics for his proposal to let principals and teachers carry concealed handguns as a way to keep violence out of the schools.

Christensen introduced in the state Legislature a bill that would allow school administrators and security personnel to carry the weapons, as long as they have a permit to do so. The legislation came in the aftermath of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy and the Omaha, Neb., school shooting earlier this month.

According to the legislation, proposed last month, each school board would need to approve the measure by a two-thirds vote. Once approved, parents and students would be informed of their new gun-toting educators through written notice.

The policy would act as a deterrent, Christensen says, or in the worst-case scenarios would ensure that someone on campus could take down a shooter, should the need arise. The law would also apply to colleges and universities.

"I don't like guns in schools either," Christensen told a Chamber of Commerce meeting, according to the McCook Daily Gazette. "But I wouldn't take a knife to a gunfight."

Aneditorial in the Lincoln Journal Star said Christensen was "out on the fringe" and pointed to statistics showing the likelihood of a school shooting to be one in 12,804.

Christensen has a reputation in the Legislature for introducing bills that spark debate -- such as his proposal for state-sanctioned premarital counseling -- but don't get very far.

His proposal to let teachers pack heat deserves the same fate. We hope senators quickly toss this idea in the trash and move on to more worthy legislation.

The legislation is not the first of its kind to be proposed nationally. Similar laws have been debated in Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, according to The Christian Science Monitor. Only one district in the country, however, has adopted a concealed-gun policy.

Sponsored Links

In Texas, the Harrold Independent School District began allowing guns in schools in 2007 as long as the owner goes through training and uses bullets that shatter on impact, to minimize dangerous ricochet.

The Nebraska legislation was criticized by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which warned of the dangers of firing a gun in a classroom, the potential for missing a target and the possibility that a gun could accidentally misfire.

"It's not the gun that kills anybody," Christensen said. "You can leave a loaded gun cocked on a table all day and it's not going to fire. It takes a human."

On the same day the legislation was introduced in Nebraska, a gun went off in a Los Angeles-area school when the student who brought it dropped his backpack. Two of his classmates were injured.