TribLive: Williams on Guns in Schools
At this morning's TribLive conversation, Texas Education Commissioner Michael Williams talked about possible legislation that would increase access to firearms for teachers and other school personnel.
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Comments (21)
Amanda Domaschk via Texas Tribune on Facebook
There are no words
Yvonne Massey Davis via Texas Tribune on Facebook
He is awful!
Kim Batchelor via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You mean increased access to firearms for troubled students.
Nit Witty via Texas Tribune on Facebook
AGOG. Although, this from a system trying to do away with teaching evolution. If they want to go back to the Wild Wild West so bad, maybe they should remember woman and blacks didn't get a say in how things were ran in "the good old days".
Judy Raddue via Texas Tribune on Facebook
They don't need guns - they need MONEY!
Adrian D. Riojas via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wrong. We teachers need guns AND money
Candyce Byrne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
What is the matter with that man? More important, what is the matter with US that he holds the job he holds? Beyond scary.
Casey Bennett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I don't think that having 'access" to guns is the right thing.Cut off 'access', and there will still be a slaughter. Once again,,,as well intentioned as they try to be,,,,,they will still get it wrong. AT least they are trying to do something about the risk.
Susan Syler
I had to stop listening. The lunatics are running the asylum.
Terry Killingsworth
Most of us seem to consider it normal to have armed guards in our banks, courts, and other public places - it hits me as a bit odd that some would consider the idea of providing the same protection to our most precious assets, our children, to be such a horrible idea. Well, actually, that line of thought is more than a bit odd, it's just a shame.
Katharine Bennett via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Scary.
A Lerma Stickelbault via Texas Tribune on Facebook
yes, he looks scary.
Darrell J. Gonzales via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Yeah! Its called Campus Police officers but the State of Texas cannot even fund them and they want to arm teachers? Yeah right now way! Fund teachers and Police officers first instead of cutting them in budgets cuts across the board!
Chuck Bloom via Texas Tribune on Facebook
This must be what Gov. Oops meant be restraint - more guns, less money for Texas school districts. The clown cars are back in Austin!
Adrian D. Riojas via Texas Tribune on Facebook
None of you are obviously educators, simply given your horrible grammar.
On an unrelated note, I now see that the Tx Tribune has a leftist leaning readership. I'll be abstaining from reading any longer.
Robert Ruiz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
perfect. guns in the already economically apartheid public education system.
Alice Taylor
I'm a teacher in public school and I have a few questions. I've also been in the Army and I'm not afraid of guns. What I am is very, very respectful of them.
If a school district allows teachers to carry guns on campus and one accidentally goes off and hurts someone, is the teacher liable for damages or the school district? It seems to me that if a district allows CHG on campus then it is also taking on the liability and risk that having a weapon on campus brings.
If a student is in a classroom and the teacher is carrying a gun and the student (or the parents) object to being placed in a weaponized classroom, will the student be able to transfer? Having a license doesn't make you sane or sensible which have been proven by the current tragedies. If your child in a classroom with a teacher you don't trust with a gun, can you remove your child without negative consequence?
If a teacher fires a gun in the belief that they are in danger and they prove to be wrong about the situation, will the district be liable for medical expenses incurred by the students? The point of allowing teachers to carry guns is to protect students. But what if they get wrong information or make a mistake? A good part of a policeman's training is to recognize threats and this takes a lot more training than 2 day CHG course. What if the teacher makes a good-faith error based on information from a mistaken administrator and shoots the wrong person? Who is liable?
Can a teacher plead a "hostile work environment" if he finds out that a colleague legally has a weapon and he feels that colleague is safe, mentally sound or otherwise untrustworthy? Frankly, I've worked with people I wouldn't trust with a stapler, much less a concealed handgun.
Who can have a concealed handgun on campus? Everyone? Admin but not teachers? Teachers but not janitors? It seems to me that if you allow teachers to carry, then you should allow every adult on campus to be able to carry and that includes the 18-year-old janitors, cooks and aides (under 21 can carry if they are former military).
Are school districts going to pay for the range time for practice and training of the "air marshall" teachers? If the school districts are going to use teachers as free security guards, then I think that the districts should compensate for this service by paying for the equipment, training, and liability insurance. Somehow I really don't think that is going to happen.
It amazes me that we have regulations where a teacher can't take a kid in her car and drive him home when it's raining or serve kids a cookie in a class party because someone might have a peanut allergy and yet some people don't think it's odd that the same teacher can carry a loaded weapon in to a kindergarten class.
Mary Muna via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Drug testing for teachers should also be a requirement
hans5162@ix.netcom.com hans
Dumbest idea ever. My kids are not going to a school where teachers and administrators are armed. This is simply an attempt to avoid dealing with the real issue. The NRA is simply a mouth piece for gun manufacturers. Michael Williams is an idiot, but he's consistent with Governor Dumbass's other appointments.
Jim Arnold
I wonder how many kids this brilliant idea will kill?
Jack S.
Many of you sound just like when it was being debated whether concealed carry should be allowed in Texas in the first place back in the 90's. They were always saying there would be gunfights in the streets...hilarious. So far, so good.
Utah has had concealed carry in classrooms K-12 since 1995 with no problems across an entire state for 17 years. So lay your irrational fears aside.
Michael Williams has it right. There are already MANY teachers with CHL's who carry on a daily basis away from school. They are sitting right next to you in church with a pistol and everywhere else. (I know a few.) If you knew how many people come in and out of Wal-Mart every single day with pistols right next to you, all you "sky is falling" people would never go out of your houses again.
The only way to win this fight is to allow those who are already experienced, capable, comfortable and responsible with firearms to step up.
If you are thinking the SWAT team is the way to deal with it, you would be completely wrong. Friday in L.A., there was a hostage situation in Nordstrom's where robbers took 14 people hostage, stabbing one, sexually assaulting one, and pistol-whipping one. The SWAT team was only 4.5 hours from entering the building at 3:30 A.M. The ordeal began at 11:00 p.m., and the robbers still got away. In the Columbine shooting, it took SWAT a full 110 minutes to enter the building after the shooting began.
Have it your way, but I would rather have a pistol within seconds than wait for SWAT hour after hour after hour while madmen are having their way with defenseless victims in our gun-free zones.