Missouri bill considers armed teachers in classrooms

The legislature in the Show Me state has loaded up the agenda with a new proposal which, if passed, would give potential eveil-doers something to think about before they attempt an attack on a public school. If signed into law, the new bill would see some of the teachers in Missouri schools fully firearms trained and packing in the classroom.

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Missouri’s state legislative session closed on Friday but not before attending to important gun-related business that will affect students in public schools around the state.

Although lawmakers failed to pass a bill that would override federal gun laws, the Republican-majority Legislature has approved and now forwarded part of that legislation to the governor’s office.

Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon will now decide whether teachers and other school personnel will be allowed to have carry and conceal firearms while on school grounds, reported the Associated Press.

School officials would receive the same firearm training as law enforcement officers. Additionally, weapons would have to be kept on the individual’s person at all times.

That aspect of the bill continues to receive criticism and praise from Missouri residents.

Clearly it’s not a given that Jay Nixon will sign this bill, but even if he does this will need to be implemented carefully in order to avoid some unintended debacle which provides new talking points to anti-second amendment activists. The need for police level training, well above and beyond that required for homeowners, hunters or other sportsmen, is a given for those working in a school environment. The challenges are different and more numerous than in usual, daily carry use. Ensuring that a weapon doesn’t fall into the hands of a potentially out of control student would be a particularly important focus and another reason to support the proposal that the weapons would have to remain on the person of the teacher at all times.

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But assuming this goes through and is implemented properly, it could represent an excellent set of test cases for the future in terms of efforts to prevent more mass shootings at schools. A crazed loon intent on doing massive harm would have to take a different view of a building filled with any number of skilled, armed shooters as opposed to a locked down institute crawling with nothing but unarmed soft targets.

On a related note, at the same time that this bill passed, a second measure intended to nullify federal gun laws and prohibit state jobs for some former federal employees was defeated in a procedural maneuver.

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