10/07/2006

More on whether teachers should be able to carry guns at school

"Just taking a course and shooting some bullets down-range every six months does not adequately prepare you for the potential risk of having that gun taken from you," said Pochowski, a former Milwaukee police officer.

"These high school students are bigger than they've ever been," he said. "We've seen them take guns from police officers who are trained in how to retain that weapon."

The measure has also drawn criticism from gun control advocates, both in and out of Wisconsin.

"I'm shocked," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. "When I'm making a decision on where to send my kids to school, there's a lot of factors that go into it. I don't think people want to look at the marksmanship scores at the same time they're looking at the academic scores."

"I think it's an absolutely ridiculous response," said Tom Mannard, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence. "This will help score some points with at least the gun lobby in Wisconsin. I don't know that it's going to help educators and those in the classrooms." . . .


A couple of responses:

1) Prior to the end of 1995, almost all the states with concealed handgun permits at that time allowed people to carry concealed handguns on school property. I know of no case where there was any problem.
2) Utah and Oregon allow people to currently carry concealed handguns on school property (I would have to check in New Hampshire also). I know of no case where there has been any problems.
3) Other countries allow this (Israel and Thailand), but again there are no problems that I have been able to find and there is no discussion in either place of preventing this policy from continuing.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Rail Claimore said...

I believe South Carolina allows concealed-carry on school property as well. Alabama doesn't have a state law against it, but the different county sheriffs can put limitations on that. Very few have that I'm aware of.

Alabama is one of the pre-Florida CCW states, and as a result, the laws were written differently for a different time and just haven't been updated except to require background checks (that's how we finally got reciprocity with Texas). We're legally a "may-issue" state with de facto "shall-issue" policy thanks to the Civil Rights Movement and resulting case law.

10/07/2006 4:47 PM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear Rail:

Unfortunately, the 1995 law changed the default. Unless the state law specifically allowed permitted concealed handguns on school property they were banned. Prior to that the states only listed places where they were banned.

10/07/2006 11:35 PM  
Blogger Rail Claimore said...

John, did the 1995 federal law blanket license holders as well? I thought that part was left up to the states.

Here's the info on Alabama:

Section 13A-11-72 and 13A-11-75 of the Code of Alabama state that persons issued an Alabama Pistol License (13A-11-75) are exempt from 13A-11-72. APL holders can carry in schools, but licensees from other states cannot... assuming the 1995 law doesn't make that meaningless.

10/09/2006 2:54 AM  

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