Teachers and Guns

by Barbara Kaiser and Judy Sklar Rasminsky

Thanks to the New York Times, we’ve just learned that 29 states permit educators to bring guns to into their schools. Some people seem to think that arming teachers can be a solution to school shootings, even if the teachers have little training.

The Times asks educators what they think of this. If you’re a teacher of very young children, you may feel this has little to do with you, but we urge you to think of Sandy Hook and remember that there have been 40 school shootings this year.

This article is an interview with Utah County Sheriff Mike Smith, a law enforcement officer for 28 years. He first zeroed in on school shootings in 1999, when Columbine made all of us aware of what they can do.

After Smith discovered that teachers were bringing guns into their classrooms and leaving them unsecured, he decided to help them understand what arming themselves means and prepare them at least a little for a school shooting situation. His 6-week course, Teacher’s Academy, attracts teachers at all levels and currently has a waiting list.

Listen to the podcast of this interview here, read the Times story here, and participate in the Times questionnaire here (if you’d like to).

Listen to the podcast and read the article before you complete the questionnaire.