West Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow teachers and other school staff who undergo training to carry guns in K-12 public schools.
The bill, which now heads to the Senate, would allow teachers, administrators and support personnel with concealed carry permits to volunteer to bring a firearm into school with the intention of using it to defend the school in case of an active shooter event. Designated a “school protection officer,” the staffer wouldn’t receive any additional compensation for doing so.
Supporters say not every school system in West Virginia can afford to hire a full-time school resource officer. This program would provide another option.
Before the vote, Republican Del. Dave Foggin of Wood County, a physics teacher, said he can’t think of anything worse than shooting someone in his classroom. But he said if that person came into his school trying to hurt his students, he would do it.
It’s wild that Republicans simultaneously believe that:
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teachers cannot be trusted to teach about race, gender, and certain parts of history (aka mentioning these things at all) and need to have all books in their classrooms reviewed by an external party for inappropriate content, and
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teachers can totally be trusted with guns in the classroom.
Not only that:
Look a student they possibly know in the eyes, and kill them.
They don’t have to “kill” nor even carry a firearm. This legislation specifically allows for certified SPO’s to carry Tasers and Stun Guns.
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Ah yes, the solution in a mass shooting event is to make sure there are more panicked, armed civilians fearing for their lives around the place.
When you have bloodthirsty police who are scared of acorns in the mix too this is just going to lead to dead teachers.
the solution in a mass shooting event
Is obviously to bring more guns.
/sWhat’s better, someone completely defenseless with no options but to hide and die. Or someone able to do something about it?
The bill requires that staff carrying weapons at school undergo annual behavioral health assessments and training designed by the West Virginia Department of Homeland Security. The bill lays out a list of at least 15 different topics that should be addressed in the training, including crisis intervention, trauma and first aid.
These are supposed to be trained individuals, not just a random 1st grade teacher that got handed a gun the day before.
It’s certainly less comprehensive than police training, and even that is lacking.
No amount of training makes up for the police standing outside not doing anything.
The type of teacher who wants to carry in a school is probably going to do a lot more training than the bare minimum.
Are you earnestly saying that you think gun owners are all responsible and well trained?
I’d bet instead that the main people who are going to carry in schools are going to be shitheads that replace their personalities with guns and who will mainly use them to threaten students. This gives any wannabe authoritarian a great big green checkmark to carry a deadly weapon around kids.
Are you earnestly saying that you think gun owners are all responsible and well trained?
No one believes that or is saying that. “All Gun Owners” aren’t even in this conversation so why are you talking about them? We’re discussing a subset of “All Gun Owners”. These will be the ones who have permits and training, you know…the things that most people on Lemmy continually advocate for to help make sure that all gun owners are responsible gun owners.
Yes, exactly. Just like how everybody with a driver’s license is a well-trained and certified driver.
Or, like with police, the opportunity to carry a gun around like a badass will attract the wrong people to the job, and we’ll end up with teachers pulling guns on students for not treating them as deferentially as they’d like.
As a person who trained to handle a firearm in the army, keep them the fuck away. They have no fucking place in a school.
As a person whose shot with people trained by the Army…stay the fuck away from me at the Gun Range. Most of you don’t belong in a lane unless you are under the direct supervision of an RSO.
The simple fact is that many CCW holders handle firearms better than most Cops or Soldiers.
As a person who knows anecdotal evidence can’t be reliably extrapolated from (and someone who watched a person swing their loaded, jammed weapon at everyone else on the range looking for the instructor for help at a CCW class and still pass) I’d like to know if you based that “fact” on anything concrete.
“Fact” is a figure of speech here I’m guessing. I shared my own anecdote above. And that’s all it is, a story.
Anecdotal, I know, but the only person I’ve ever had to keep on eye on at camp was my ex-Marine friend. And he was a firearms instructor when he served.
He came close to flagging us a time or two, and one night popped one off downrange without letting everyone know. And that’s a rule at my camp. Everyone must be in sight, and you must make eye contact with them and be certain they’re wearing ear pro.
Maybe those guys get a little more casual? And for that matter, women are the best to train. They pay attention and follow rules. Guys tend to cowboy up, act like they know it all.
I mean, cops are supposed to be trained individuals, too. Training flies out the window when shit gets real.
My money is on this leading to an armed teacher getting shot by the police, an unarmed teacher being shot by the police because the police were jumpy or trigger-happy running in (if they can be bothered to run in at all) or, and this one is most likely, a gun a teacher brings legally to the premises being used in a shooting.
The evidence we currently have seems to indicate that while the presence of guns MIGHT lead to fewer property crimes, they don’t actually make places safer for people (and may actually make them more dangerous).
The reason we don’t have much data is because the gun lobby, until very recently, effectively kept the government from doing any research, which indicates to me they either already knew what the data would show or, at the very least, feared what it would show.
hahahah well trained anything in west virginia? arent they at the very bottom of education? but sure, lets add Firearms to the teachers. that will help.
crazy how people convince themselves that carrying a human killing device makes them safer when its demonstrably false.
if you carry a human killing device, you have increased the danger to everyone around you. you become the problem.
The SROs who forget their guns in school bathrooms are trained individuals too.
This law is a terrible idea.
Sorry… why is it “hide and die?” Are you under the impression that it is impossible to hide from a mass shooter?
He’s already completely ignored the “don’t let a potential mass shooter have a gun” option.
It’s fucking infuriating that “more guns” is the only option that can get any traction.
This is America. I have no hope of that ever happening. Too many people are too in love with The Precious.
He’s already completely ignored the “don’t let a potential mass shooter have a gun” option.
That’s already not an option. There are more guns than people in the US. Guns have been so engrained into our culture for so long. You will no eradicate gun ownership in the US without starting a civil war
If only there were options other than “ban all guns” and “free guns for everyone”. I didn’t say eradicate gun ownership in my first comment.
Gun ownership has been going down for years. The reason there are so many guns out there is people who own dozens or hundreds of firearms.
Hey, specifically to address the hide question and no other part of the conversation: I’ve worked in a lot of schools. So, in many classrooms, it’s absolutely impossible to hide effectively. I told my last room if something real happened we just needed to take our kids and run. It was a death trap in a shooter situation. Some examples would be doors in-between rooms, doors that don’t lock, doors that do lock with glass panes, outside doors that were mostly glass. Single-exits with no locking doors and no windows so you’d be trapped. I hate having to think like this. Certain rooms are insanely vulnerable. I’ve consulted in a middle school that was like a fortress too. But all the elementary schools were pretty much the same.
Sounds like there’s nowhere for a teacher to hide a gun either in that case.
Also, students in Uvalde literally talked about hiding from the shooter.
Not only did they hide from him, they hid from him in the cafeteria. And they still survived.
So I’m still suggesting maybe “hide and die” isn’t the only option other than “teachers with guns.”
Yeah there’s no place for a gun in a school. Even on the best days staff are all over the place. It’s a bit of organized chaos, ya know. And some schools are really small. So if someone comes in the front door your chances of getting to safer spot are slim. My last one was literally a hallway and booking it out the back door was our crisis plan (like I said, death trap).
Sounds like there’s nowhere for a teacher to hide a gun either in that case.
You don’t hide a gun, you carry it. Tucked away inside your clothing hidden in a way that nobody should be able to see it. A gun hidden away during an emergency is useless.
Can you show me where the law says the gun has to be carried? Because the article just says it has to be “concealed on campus.”
Are you saying that every single teacher permitted to carry a gun in school will definitely have it tucked inside their clothing hidden away where no one will be able to see it? Because the law sure doesn’t say they have to.
Are you also saying that it is impossible for a student to be able to get a gun away from a teacher if the teacher believes the gun to be hidden under their clothing? Is there at least a chance that a student could do that?
The summary of the bill is
Permit teachers in K-12 schools be authorized to carry concealed firearms as a designated school protection officer
What’s better is to treat the core causes of gun violence, like high rates of gun ownership and an increasing lack of common-sense gun laws.
I’ve asked advocates of this before what happens if a student somehow gets a hold of a teacher’s gun and I’ve essentially been told by them that it would be impossible.
Which is weird, because kids sure can get access to everything else that is inside a school.
I mean for fucks sake, what if a teacher just shouts for everyone to be quiet with his hand on his gun. That is a scary, oppressive environment. The gun doesn’t even need to be used to easily see how terrible this idea is.
It’s easy to find stories about SROs leaving their gun in the school bathroom.
No way for a kid to be the one who finds it…
There’s an expectation of competency here that I cannot condone.
The gun industry really has us by the balls don’t they?
US: Help we have a problem with mass shootings!
Republicans: Have you tried more guns?
News report about a teacher at the end of their rope shooting their own students in 3… 2…1…
What’s more likely is that one day, when the classroom is crazy, they will leave their gun storage unsecured, and a 7-yr-old will find it and shoot their friend by accident.
Yeah that too. But I guarantee the other will also happen.
This was my first thought. Cops leave their guns places all the time.
I’ve been shot at a lot. I have been in firefights. The first thing everyone does when they realize they’re being shot at by surprise is have a total complete meltdown and beg the savior/heavens for safety. I’ll never forget the face of one guy that was in pure terror when he accepted he was going to die. He was paralyzed hiding. It takes a few exposures to start getting comfortable with it. Ask any combat veteran what happened the first time they were shot at by surprise.
Additionally, to shoot the enemy, you have to place yourself in the line of fire from them, placing yourself in lethal danger. You also have to be calm enough to aim so that you hit just the shooter, not anyone else like another kid. The mass shooter doesn’t have that problem because they want to kill as much as possible and have already accepted their death. The mass shooter has a significant advantage.
Aside from maybe a deranged psychopath (which def shouldn’t be carrying a gun) or an experienced combat veteran/police officer, I would imagine most teachers would be completely useless in a mass shooter event. Look at the trained police officers in Uvalde that were too scared to go into the school. Wtf is some teacher with a bit of weapons safety training going to do??
Everyone has this fantasy that they’re going to be some kind of hero in a gun fight, but the reality is that when the first round pops off, your body takes over and you aren’t making decisions anymore. You’ve lost control as your body does what it has evolved to do, which is survive. See how you react the moment you’re at gun point and know that your entire experience is about to end. It takes some actual exposure to learn to override that.
Only vets with combat experience should get to provide input on weapons in the US. Full stop.
When the students act up, shoot em with your gun
West Virginia is quickly becoming as [poorly managed as Utah. Sorry guys but teachers carrying guns will NEVER stop a gun assault at a school, under any circumstances, ever. Only a complete nitwit (and stooge of the NRA) would ever believe that could be some kind of solution.
These dingbats will defend being gun nuts no matter what, but the truth is, nobody with a gun will ever stop a school shooter before the shooting happens -it will be over with before you even know what’s going on, that’s how mass shootings are, ask anyone who has ever survived one. There is no advance notice that gives you time to draw a gun, and most teachers are not going to fire a gun in their classroom no matter what.
This is a sick and stupid answer to a problem that our gun culture keeps making worse every day.
I was in high school in the 90’s during the whole Columbine thing & had a History teacher who was a former Marine & a Vietnam vet.
I have no doubt in my mind he absolutely was armed 24/7, and it was going to be one of those “better to ask forgiveness than permission” sort of things if he ended up shooting someone at the school.
Also, no one ever fucked around in his class.
similar. i went to school in the 90s. the woodshop teacher was a Vietnam vet. guy was known for being whacked out, but cool. he would say the craziest shit, but had such a good heart. one day, my gf and her best friend were walking by his room, and he loudly goes, “hi, gay girls!” like a coked up clown, then just leaves. 😆 remember, this was in the 90s when being gay was much more oppressed.
everyone respected the shit out of that dude.
If they pass anything less than full SWAT training, they are unprepared for urban hostage warfare. Republicans are fucking idiots.
Designated a “school protection officer,” the staffer wouldn’t receive any additional compensation for doing so.
I give it six months tops before some poor kid gets shot with one of these teachers’ guns.
Imagine a kid getting a bad grade and goes into the teacher’s purse for the gun when her head is turned…
Now take a school field trip to the state govt… See how far they let you in with a gun.
West Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow teachers and other school staff who undergo training to carry guns in K-12 public schools.
What does this “training” look like? Giving a gun to staff who are going to just point in the general direction and unload could very well catch kids and staff in friendly fire. Also law enforcement needs to be consistent that they are walking into a situation where friendly fire is a very real possibility.
I feel like this would just create more situations where cops are just waiting outside or in hallways afraid of where all the guns are.
If it’s anything like police training, I wouldn’t let my kid anywhere near a school with those teachers.
What does this “training” look like?
Still to be developed but it will take 24 hours of training to get and 8 hours per year to keep. You can read the bill here: https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?billdoc=hb4299 eng.htm&yr=2024&sesstype=RS&i=4299
At least on paper the topics to be covered look pretty thorough.
