Senators Hold Hearing on Guns in Schools
Educators, police officers and state officials weighed in Monday during a Senate hearing on proposals to arm teachers to prevent the kind of horror that took place last month at a Connecticut elementary school from happening in Texas.
At a hearing where witnesses on both sides of the issue emphasized the need for individual school districts to set their own policies to meet their communities' needs, the upper chamber’s education committee chairman, Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, acknowledged that state law could be “ambiguous” when it comes to firearms policies.
State law requires public school districts to adopt an emergency ...
Comments (21)
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Every school should have the right to arm their teachers. It is amply clear that the police can not be there to stop these events. That is not their fault but that is reality.
The state should give guidance for school who wish to arm their staff. Ultimately it will be up to the school districts to give the approval for any program created.
Alexandra Richmond via Texas Tribune on Facebook
more guns wont stop school shootings.
Tim Spotswood via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I like the quote from the Dallas ISD police. I just retired from Dallas ISD and I would trust our teachers with guns before the half-wits they hire for the police. They remind of the mall "cops" that could not get hired by a real police department. Actually I would most of our kids with guns before the Dallas ISD police!
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Debbie Riddle? Of course she would jump on this for the NRA. More guns on campus is not the answer.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
More guns ARE the answer. So far you guys who say they are not already have a gun-free zone. How about you tell us how that has worked out......
Virginia Raymond via Texas Tribune on Facebook
please legislators, talk about football. apparently something y'all can understand.
Joshua Machiavello via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Teachers should not be denied the right to defend themselves and the kids under their care.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wow, the only sane person was the Dallas ISD Police Department Chief Craig Miller.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
More guns is NOT the solution. Texas is NUTS.
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tim, force retirement?
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Texas legislature and Perry already want teachers to preach instead of teach. Now they want them to be security too.
Matthew Cowan via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Ah, yes the pithy comments of Karen Spivey. It is not Texas that is nuts, it is you who are. We Texans are sane.
If you think that the chief Miller is the only sane person then you must believe that police are ALWAYS there to stop crime before it happens. Unfortunately the way the real world works is that all too often the police are there only after tragedy happens.
How long did it take the Newton Police to respond to the school attack? 10, 15 20 minutes to respond? OH well, we know that was 1 second too long. I guess you prefer to wait for the police to arrive than protect yourself or your children. Sad
Samdavis
More guns in schools = more dead kids. This isn't the first or last time Debbie Riddle has shown she's a total idiot.
Leona Parmer
I do not want to see teachers with guns in school because unless they keep them locked up, any one could have access to their gun; and if the gun is locked up, they wouldn't be able to access it in time. There will be instances when the teacher won't be near the gun and it would be accessible to the students.
Another 99%
It could not be more obvious to eevryone in Texas and the rest of the world. Texas is full of people who love being manipulated, bullyied, by anyone associatied with corrupt money, cowboy paranoia, and gun manufacturers.
Don't raise my taxes for a bunch of paranoid gun runners. Tax them for all the senseless armed guards, and turning schools into armed camps, not education. Tax gunowners, gun manufactures, gun stores, and bullet manufacturers, need to pay for this mess. They created it. Fair is fair.
Jim Arnold
Just waiting for Tex the guard to kill some kids because of this stupidity.
Meme Me
Criminals do not buy their guns in stores. All you nits want to do is disarm the legal citizens. That's worked out real well in Mexico. Look who is in charge there now.
Christine Lund
The NRA has no shame. And they have the guns. I think the NRA needs to be dismantled and rebuilt without these extremists in positions of power. It has been infiltrated with ringers.
Christine Lund
Just watched a parent from Sandy Hook School as he was heckled at the Senate Hearing by someone in the audience. This person needs to be identified and investigated. Who let him in there and why was he allowed to speak? Aren't there rules and why wasn't this person informed of them and who does he represent?
Scared people should not be allowed to have guns and a lot of these crazies seem to be too scared to handle a gun properly. Maybe we could make a law to hold these crazies until we are assured that they aren't too crazy to have the right to own a gun? Mental healthcare is a problem and until we get all these paranoid delusionals off the street and in care facilities, we will continue to have these incidents happen. Especially in Texas, where gunfire is a daily occurrence in my neighborhood.
Roy Smalley
Rational, reasonable people all want the same thing regardless of their position on "guns". They want their children to be safe at school. Who is best able to determine what 'safe" is and then how to reach 'safe', not some federal bureaucrat, nor for that matter, the state.
Local districts have, or should have, their finger on the pulse of the district through the teachers and administrators, who are directly charged with the responsibility of their students while in their charge.
There is no perfect answer for all district or even a single district no matter how small or large. No one can guarantee something bad won't happen. But, those rational reasonable people will have to figure out on balance, the best way for now, recognizing threats come and go.
As a parent, I understand the loss and the misery visited on many parents and other loved one's and we are all distraught over the great losses at Newtown and others. But emotion should not rule, and certainly should not be exploited for political gamesmanship.
Lance Nelson
Here we go with all of the talking points of both sides. The fact is the overwhelming majority of mass shootings happen in "gun free zones". How is that working out so far? 72,000 people failed the NICS background check last year for various reasons. 62 were prosecuted. Does this seem like a logical or fair percentage or totally ridiculous? Or really bad work from our current justice department? Keep in mind that if a felon fills out the form to get a gun, they are committing a felony by doing so. If a felon so much as touches a gun, it is a felony. What if just 10,000 of the rejections were felons trying to game the system? That is 10,000 more felons off of the streets, reducing gun violence.
Christine Lund: The "video" that you reference has been proven bogus by the media. MSNBC intentionally edited the tape to make it appear the gun rights people were heckling the parent when they were not. Precisely to get the reaction out of you that they did. Quit watching such biased news and maybe your ideas of what is right and wrong may change.