PA Bill Number: SB945
Title: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals.
Description: Consolidating the act of August 9, 1955 (P.L.323, No.130), known as The County Code; and making repeals. ...
Last Action: Third consideration and final passage (199-0)
Last Action Date: Apr 17, 2024
Texas Senate Approves More Armed Teachers In Classrooms :: 05/23/2019
While anti-gun activists decry the idea of armed teachers, the truth is that we’ve had them in various states for quite some time. Thus far, there’s never been an issue. There also haven’t been a lot of mass shootings at these schools either for some silly reason. Apparently, mass shooters prefer their prey to be unarmed.
Anyway, following the Santa Fe High School shooting last year, Texas recognized that what they needed were armed teachers. School resource officers were all fine and good, but more guns meant more safety for students. However, in the tense aftermath, they opted to limit the total number of so-called “school marshals.”
Now, the state Senate has voted to end that limit.
Under the marshal program, school personnel, whose identities are kept secret from all but a few local officials, are trained to act as armed peace officers in the absence of law enforcement. Currently, schools that participate in the program can only designate one marshal per 200 students or one marshal per building.
The legislation — House Bill 1387 by Republican state Rep. Cole Hefner of Mt. Pleasant — would remove that limit, a move proponents of the legislation say will make it easier for smaller districts to participate in the state program.
Also, by removing the limit, you take away the potential that a shooter will assume the limited number of school marshals means a given school is essentially unprotected.
Without a limit, they have to assume the possibility of an armed teacher is fairly high. Especially in a state like Texas where guns are such a part of the landscape.
Frankly, the cap was stupid from the start. Ending it is clearly the right move.
By doing so, they have just made the chances of another school shooting in the Lone Star State plummet. In due course, it may disappear completely because of measures like this.
Meanwhile, students in anti-gun states will continue to be at risk. Anti-gun legislators will continue work against arming teacher, thus preventing a layer of protection between kids and killers. To make it worse, they’ll pat themselves on the back for it. They’ll celebrate their refusal to protect children, for crying out loud and they’ll be loved by their bases for it.
It’s disgusting.
“But teachers aren’t paid to risk their lives,” someone will counter. They’re not wrong. Teachers are paid to educate and I don’t expect a teacher to risk their lives to protect children. But I do expect that many of them will be more than willing to protect their own lives. Arming them allows them to do just that.
The benefit, though, is that by doing that they will protect children by extension. A dead body isn’t shooting anyone, after all. Arming teachers allows them to exercise self-defense. It just shakes out that they’ll defend others in the process.
I’m really OK with that.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2019/05/23/texas-senate-approves-armed-teachers-classrooms/
