Colorado teachers to carry weapons in classrooms next year amid gun violence concerns, writes
Peter Mertz
SCHOOL teachers in Hanover, Colorado will be allowed to start carrying guns in classrooms as early as next autumn thanks to a new resolution, officials said on Monday.
“In light of recent events,” the resolution read, referring to mass shootings, “any teacher or staff member with a permit to carry a concealed weapon can volunteer for extra duty as a security officer.
“It will take some time before we can identify teachers who will take on this role,” Tambra Bernal, Hanover School District business manager, said.
Bernal said the teachers who would be allowed to carry guns were required to take “police tactical training” in advance and it would take months before guns are permitted in classrooms.
“The training is very intense and a lot needs to happen first before you’ll see guns in the classrooms,” she said.
Last week, this tiny rural school district, located southeast of Colorado’s second-largest city Colorado Springs, joined a growing number of US school districts in allowing school staff to carry guns.
According to school board president Mark McPherson, the resolution, having won narrow approval by a 3-2 vote last week, was triggered by concerns over the school’s remote location, some 32km from the nearest police station. Hanover’s resolution received favourable responses from most parents in a prior survey by the school, in a bid to promote students’ security.
But the move was also met with dismay from gun-control advocates.
“Guns do not make us safer,” said Sandy Phillips, whose daughter was gunned down in a Colorado movie theatre shooting in 2012, five months before the Sandy Hook tragedy. The Aurora theatre shooting took place at a midnight Batman premiere in 2012 killed 12 and injured 70 after a 24-yearold gunman diagnosed with schizophrenia attacked the theatre east of Denver. However, McPherson downplayed the timing of this resolution – exactly four years after 20 children and six staff were shot dead at Sandy Hook Elemen- tary school in Connecticut by a 20-year-old gunman – saying the measure had more to do with the school’s geographic isolation and recent growth of a marijuana “cash-crop” industry, which had increased the risk of gun violence across the region.
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Although the 2012 Colorado movie massacre triggered some mild gun control legislation, gun-control advocates said with Donald Trump elected president, their campaign is “dead in the water”.
The district, located in a conservative rural region which largely voted for Trump, has only one elementary school and one combined junior and senior high school with about 245 pupils and a total of 30 more teachers and staff.
“Let’s just pray some child doesn’t get shot (in Hanover),” Phillips said.
Phillips, founder of Jessi’s Message, travelled around the country with her husband Lonnie to help grief-stricken families cope with the loss of their loved ones due to gun violence.
Their daughter Jessica Gawhi, 24 when killed, was an aspiring sports reporter before her life was cut short by a mentally ill man in Aurora, who admitted to a psychiatrist he had thoughts of killing people two months before he opened fire at the theatre. Phillips, a gun owner, has a simple message: more gun-control measures starting with better background checks. Such checks are seen as an effective way to identify psychotic killers and stop them from buying weapons.
Phillips said 34 000 Americans died each year from gun deaths, while the number in all EU countries combined was only 6 700.
“The more guns, the more gun deaths; the more gun control, the fewer gun deaths… it’s pretty simple stuff,” Phillips said. “It’s too bad the gun industry is more interested in making money than saving lives.”
Still, the managerial level of the Hanover School District thinks guns in classrooms are a good idea. “We’re not the only ones in American schools looking for ways to protect our children,” Bernal said, referring to a handful of school districts in rural parts of Texas and California which had passed regu- lations permitting licensed and trained staff, including teachers, to carry guns.
“This is one option for better security, and it’s not open to anyone at the school,” Bernal added. “We’ll see how many step up to the plate to apply.” – ANA-Xinhua