Across the country, we’re seeing a huge push for constitutional carry – the permitless ability for someone to carry concealed. And in Colorado, the push has hit the end of logical debate and the beginning of pure anti-gun advocate hysteria.
Patrick Neville, a republican representative in Colorado and survivor of the Columbine school shootings, proposed a bill to allow anyone eligible to carry a gun to be allowed to do so concealed and without a permit.
This has drawn all the loonies out of the woodwork as teachers and legitimate administrators attempt to have a conversation about how such a bill would be implemented in schools.
Neville is now a Republican Representative from Castle Rock. On Monday, 16 years after surviving one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, he will defend a bill to allow anyone with a concealed carry permit to bring a firearm to school.
“I remember fathers coming up to me whose sons I knew well, asking where they were,” said Neville. “People I’d known since elementary school are no longer with us today. I think some of the staff who were heroic in so many ways that day, if they’d had the ability to equip themselves, some of my friends might still be with us.”
It’s a legitimate push to have that discussion about whether or not conceal carry is a benefit to school systems. And for that, a logical discussion ought be had. However, no sooner did the debate appear than detractors sidelined it.
Jane Dougherty, one of the most outspoken critics of allowing the guns in school debate, lambasted Rep. Neville’s argument with a wildly irrational red herring.
“It’s a fantasy that the Nevilles and other gun extremists believe that a teacher like my sister would be able to respond to a shooting in some Hollywood heroic fashion, that she would have been able to … come blasting around a blind corner and take out a shooter. It’s a fantasy.”
Quite the contrary, Ms. Dougherty. Neville never asserted that he believed teachers and administrators would be able to conduct some sort of Hollywood heroic action to save unarmed children from attackers.
Rather, the simple assumption that having people who are trained and armed being available to respond would – and wait for it – reduce that dreadful downtime between when an attack begins and first responders arrive.
The problem with using this “flip side” opinion to counter the first is it isn’t an opposing viewpoint. It demonstrates that Ms. Dougherty’s knowledge of firearms and the conceal carry community is so very lacking.
So much so that she fails to see that no one would ever expect a civics teacher or school psychologist to suddenly be a master of firearms.
Quite contrary, it’s through education, preparation, and firearms training that someone can faithfully and diligently protect those that need protecting.
And in doing so, we can begin to return to the actual debate at hand – whether or not school teachers, administrators, and personnel would be able to handle the responsibilities of a firearm in the classroom.
Robert Duensing, who teaches U.S. Government at Doherty High School in Colorado Springs, agrees with Dougherty. He doesn’t think carrying a gun in the classroom would make the school safer. Nor do 80 percent of teachers polled by the Colorado Education Association in 2013.
“We have too many distractions as it is,” said Duensing. “To add to that the responsibility of securing a firearm leaves me fearing for my child in school, should teachers have guns.”
That point made by Mr. Duensing is where the debate begins to truly form. Can teachers and school personnel handle the additional burdens of maintaining a firearm? Are these tasks they would like to be relegated with whilst instructing students?
Very good questions, indeed. And as it appears, many teachers are not very much in favor of the concealed carry in school debate. That is why this debate is so critical. The arguments must be valid and the logic cogent – else wise we’ll endlessly revolve in circles. And in the meantime, what of the children?
James England is a former United States Marine Signals Intelligence Operator and defense contractor with over two tours spread over the Al Anbar province and two more operating across Helmand and Baghdis. He is presently a writer focused on Western foreign policy and maintains an avid interest in firearms. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, he presently resides in New Hampshire – the “Live Free or Die” state. He is finishing up his first novel, “American Hubris”, which is set to hit shelves in Fall of 2015.
