Armed Teachers

A gun ownership rights advocate says there's one way to stop -- or at least lessen -- the number of school shootings in America, but anti-gun forces want no part of it, he notes. It is already legal in Utah; and at least one other state is considering a radical but effective approach to school safety: arming teachers and principals. Erich Pratt with Gun Owners of America says there are documented cases of teachers and administrators using their own guns to stop an attacker from killing students. "The only schools that have stopped these school shootings in their tracks are ... where there was a principal or a teacher who had a gun and used it responsibly to stop the attacker and save lives," says the gun advocate. He cites incidents in Pearl, Mississippi, in 1997, and in Grundy, Virginia, in 2002. "And this has happened over and over again," he notes, "where the shooters were surprised by people who actually had guns there at the school." Pratt claims that is why 85 percent of the American public supports the idea of an armed teacher or principal having a gun to stop a school massacre." But Pratt says anti-gun forces, driven by an irrational fear of firearms, are strongly opposed to the idea. He says their fear of guns is what allows gunmen to walk onto campuses and start shooting.