Idaho Educator: ‘Allow Teachers More than a Soup Can to Protect Themselves’

Idaho educator McKay Gardner pressed the Preston School District to allow teachers “more than a soup can to defend themselves.”

The Idaho State Journal reports that Gardner also took a preemptive jab at the same old points levied against any suggestion to arm teachers, saying, “One of the common arguments regarding concealed carry at my school is that a teacher’s gun might be used against teachers and students. … [But] perpetrators carry enough ammo for themselves.”

McKay’s points are self-evident. First, an unarmed teacher has but a few options when an armed attacker enters the room. The options are to throw something, perhaps an eraser, a pencil, a book, or, if there is a food drive, the teacher could throw a can of soup. None of these options are lifesavers.

Secondly, teachers are armed in numerous states, and there has never been a report of a student taking a teacher’s gun. That is a scenario often used to blunt any discussion of arming teachers, but as a practical matter, it is not a scenario that translates into reality. On the other hand, perpetrators are armed, and they do arrive at the school with the intent of taking innocent, defenseless lives:

Kurt Stafford, former military, spoke to the Preston School District as well, pointing out, “At Sandy Hook, it would have just taken one teacher” with a gun to stop the massacre. But there were no teachers with guns, no staff with guns either.

On February 13, 2015, Breitbart News quoted the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission Report to Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D), which showed that the Sandy Hook gunman had more than nine minutes inside the school without armed resistance. During that nine minutes-plus, the school’s principal, Dawn Hochsprung, sacrificed herself by charging the gunman, although unarmed.

Hochsprung was among the 26 killed in the gun-free school.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.