Sunday, March 27, 2005

Some Want Teachers To Pack Heat

As a southern Californian, I spend quite a bit of time in my car. Last evening, I was listening to a Los Angeles talk radio station while doing some errands for the WifeWonk. The host of the show was Wayne Resnick, who is billed as:
The smartest, hippest, most cherished weekend host in the history of Los Angeles Radio. Every Saturday at 7pm, Wayne Resnick takes a chainsaw to the top issues of the day, carving away the fat and gristle to get to the truth underneath.
I don't know about being "hip," but Resnick definitely was running his chainsaw last evening because what Resnick was saying caught my immediate attention. In light of the recent violence at the Red Lake Indian Reservation, Resnick was actually advocating the arming of classroom teachers.

And no, he wasn't putting on schtick. This man was being serious. He actually spent the better part of an hour expounding his belief that teachers need to be trained in the use of firearms in order to defend themselves and their students from the "street thugs" that the schools are forced to enroll.

Incredibly, most of the callers were being supportive of the idea.


Using Google, I decided to look into this notion a little further. Sure enough, I wasn't disappointed: the Salt Lake Tribune is reporting that Sandra Froman of the National Rifle Association is advocating:

All options should be considered to prevent rampages like the Minnesota school shooting that took 10 lives - including making guns available to teachers, a top National Rifle Association leader said Friday.

''I'm not saying that that means every teacher should have a gun or not, but what I am saying is we need to look at all the options at what will truly protect the students,'' the NRA's first vice president, Sandra Froman, told The Associated Press.

If the teachers at our junior high school were ever given firearms, I would be more afraid of the teachers shooting themselves or each other than some intruder...
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