Texas Teachers Carrying Guns to Class

Most people know that Texas has some pretty lenient gun laws, but when is lenient too lenient? A Texas school made news recently for being the first to allow and implement a plan that allows teachers to carry concealed weapons in school as a form of protection. The teachers who do carry the guns are not to let the students know, though as some have stated in the small town, that’s one thing that won’t stay a secret for long since “everybody knows everybody”

The man behind this controversial move is schools superintendent David Thweatt who was quoted as saying, “Country people are take-care-of-yourself people. They are not under the illusion that the police are there to protect them.”

The superintendant also went on to say in an interview with the New York Times, that the teachers who are carrying the weapons received special training through a security consultant and, in order to keep things as safe as possible, have guns armed with a special type of ammunition that prevents ricocheting. He feels that the ‘gun-free zone’ that most other schools have adopted makes a school a bigger target by letting a shooter know where there are no people with guns to fire back. His theory also includes the belief that someone would think twice about starting something because a shooter would not know who to shoot at first whereas with a police officer or armed guard the choice would be obvious.

As you can imagine this decision has caused quite a bit of controversy. There are those who side with the superintendant and believe that after incidents like the Columbine shootings and the Virginia Tech massacre, that this is the best way to protect the students from something like that happening there. Then there are others who feel that guns have no place in schools at all and others who believe that guns in school are fine as long as they’re in the hands of police officers and not teachers regardless of the training they received. Many have pointed out that with guns around there is more risk for accidents and having the gun go off during a small struggle and others also expressed concern over the fact that a teacher is “not trained to make a life-or-death decision”.

This decision shows just what kind of an impact those school violence incidents have had on teachers and administrators. Whether right or wrong, there is no denying that teachers are facing and fearing the realities of school violence even though massacres to the extent of Columbine and Virginia Tech are still considered to be quite rare. How do you feel about this idea?


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