TPM has an article, Tennessee Considers Arming Teachers.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) has said the idea will be part of his discussions about how to prevent a shooting like the one in Newtown from happening in the Volunteer State.
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State Sen. Frank Niceley (R) told TPM on Tuesday he believes it’s time for that to change. He plans to introduce legislation in the next session, which begins Jan. 8, that will require all schools to have an armed staff member of some kind. The current language of the bill — which is in its early form — would allow for either a so-called “resource officer” (essentially an armed police officer, the kind which most Tennessee high schools have already) or an armed member of the faculty or staff in every school in the state. The choice would allow schools that can’t afford a resource officer to fulfill the requirement without having to pay for anything beyond the cost of the training and, presumably, the weapon. But Niceley said schools should use the wiggle room to train and keep on hand armed staff not in uniform.
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“Say some madman comes in. The first person he would probably try to take out was the resource officer. But if he doesn’t know which teacher has training, then he wouldn’t know which one had [a gun],” Niceley said by phone. “These guys are obviously cowards anyway and if someone starts shooting back, they’re going to take cover, maybe go ahead and commit suicide like most of them have.”
This is insane.
This is completely insane.
Nicely's supposition that a shooter would "take cover" if fired upon is utter bull. Deputy Gardner, in Columbine, exchanged fire with one of the shooters. He didn't cower, he shot back. The shooters then "took cover" in the school library, where in seven minutes, they injured twelve students, and killed seven others.
The GOP is living in a Red Dawn fantasy world where gun owners are heroes protecting society from violence. They have totally lost touch with reality. I'm not sure I know what else to say about this.