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November 27, 2009

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Letter: Giving guns to teachers is not the answer

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006 | 7:21 a.m.

Republican state Sen. Bob Beers wants to arm teachers to deter school violence. Most citizens are opposed, and, as a former teacher, I am surprised the idea is even getting consideration.

First, there are practical issues such as school liability and gun security, not to mention that there are some teachers who, for many reasons, should not have guns. Second, the psychological message of gun-toting teachers to their students is that school is not a safe place to learn and that teachers are cops.

Teachers are learning facilitators and not cops. If they had wanted to be policemen, they would have chosen that profession.

If security is a problem in our schools, a reasonable plan might be to require teacher and student IDs, get a metal detector, and hire more counselors and security people. So why does Bob Beers want to turn teachers into gunslingers? I suspect it's because real solutions cost money, and as Republicans are fond of saying, "You can't just throw money at the problem."

No, conservatives tend to see everything in terms of good guys and bad guys, and the Second Amendment gives us good guys the right to shoot the bad guys. Giving teachers just one more job to do is a simple solution and twice as cheap.

Jerry Bitts, Las Vegas

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