A Pennsylvania lawmaker wants to try to prevent another shooting by arming teaches with guns. On Monday, Rep. Greg Lucas (R-Erie/Crawford) announced he plans to introduce legislation in the near future that would empower teachers to protect students by enabling qualified school personnel in Pennsylvania to carry firearms on school property.
“This is about trusting our teachers to protect our students,” Lucas said. “We trust our teachers with our students’ minds. However, current law prevents them from defending our children’s bodies during an emergency situation. My law would change that.”
Current Pennsylvania law severely restricts firearms on school property.
Lucas’s bill – the “School Personnel Right to Carry Act” – would allow, but not require, teachers, principals, administrators and other school personnel to carry a firearm if they pass a three-point check system.
Teachers would have to pass the background check that is already a pre-condition for employment in the Pennsylvania School Code. The teacher also would have to pass an additional background check – including the investigation of character and reputation by their local sheriff – necessary to obtain a license to carry a firearm. In order to qualify, a teacher also would have to acquire the same certification in the use of firearms currently used by law enforcement officers.
Lucas brings a unique perspective to this issue. Nearly 15 years ago, one of his friends was shot and killed during the Parker Middle School dance shooting at Nick’s Place in Edinboro. That situation ended when the assailant, Andrew Wurst, was confronted by the restaurant’s owner, who was armed with a shotgun.
“Fifteen years of school shootings is far too many,” Lucas said. “We know what happens when we don’t enable our teachers to protect students. We have had a decade and a half of unarmed teachers and school tragedies. We cannot continue doing the same thing and expecting different results. None of us wants another set of parents to learn that their child was killed by a madman because their teacher wasn’t armed.”
A copy of the legislation is available on Lucas’s website at www.RepLucas.com.
9 Comments to “Erie lawmaker wants teachers to carry guns”
January 8, 2013 at 8:21 AM
no no no! this is a stupid idea. if you want the children protected hire guards to do so. i dont think that guns have any place in the classroom. i can only see tragic things happening from this.
January 8, 2013 at 6:13 PM
Guns in the schools. You have got to be kidding. Thats not the answer. What about a tazer or some other type of protection. They need to work on coming up with a better idea than that. Guards are too expensive? What is our children's safety worth?
January 8, 2013 at 6:40 PM
The only thing that will stop a bad person with a gun is a good person with a gun.
January 8, 2013 at 10:10 PM
What about a school bus. Tell all the outlaws they can't kill them till after they are in school. If that works I have ocean front property in Az. to sell them.
January 8, 2013 at 11:17 PM
Yes, arm a few qualified and competent teachers. Don't tell anybody which ones they are, so the criminal who scopes out the school won't know where he might have any advantage. The guard at the door can be taken out easily, but several roving teachers — not. No school district has an extra several hundred thousand to pay for armed guards in each building; it's not going to happen.
January 9, 2013 at 6:34 AM
Only in America would anyone think this is a good idea. Right now we have eliminated the issue of guns in school.This just provides a way to get a gun at school. You do not need to bring your own the school will provide 1. We need to have retard farms for these sick O's like they did 25 years ago. Where they can be provided for. Some people no matter how much they try can't control kids/adults with these issue on their own.
January 9, 2013 at 12:23 PM
Joe…….see Israel. They have armed teachers, works out quite well there. Do some fact checking. Its not ONLY here in America. I hate the idea of having to go to this extreme, but as history has proven….we've reached a point where this needs to happen. I fully back this plan. I also agree with keeping the armed teachers anonymous. Only the administrators and the armed tachers will know. That drastically reduces the appeal to a gun toting madman, as he or she knows they will immediately be targeted. As for the argument of being overpowered and having the weapon taken from you….what part of the "tactical" training didn't you see in that proposal. They will be trained to DEFEND. Part of that is being able to fend off an attempt to disarm. Educate first…..comment only after you have a reasonable argument.
January 10, 2013 at 5:32 PM
110% agree with Chris. Couldn't have said it any better!
January 11, 2013 at 9:47 AM
Why are we more worried about what madmen are bringing into the schools than the fact that madmen are getting into schools in the first place? You don't feel safe at night, (armed or not) with your doors unlocked, but allowing people to come and go unquestioned on school grounds is an acceptable practice?
The part that people keep glossing over is that in Isreal the schools are surrounded by fences with an armed guard who asks "what is your business" & "who is your student?".
A town without an outside wall is ripe for invasion regardless of how well armed the villiagers are.