Gun control advocate David Hogg is urging fellow gun control proponents to fight efforts to arm Florida teachers for self-defense.
His attempt to rally gun control supporters comes as Republican legislators in Florida seek to expand the state’s Guardian program to allow teachers to carry in the classroom for self-defense after volunteering for the program and going through the proper training.
The Guardian program currently applies to school staff members but bans guns in the classrooms, which is the very place teachers and their students huddle and hide in the midst of an attack. Republicans want to augment the program so that teachers can protect themselves and their students if all other measures fail.
A social media lead for Moms Demand Action Florida, going by the Twitter handle Crystal Fx, tweeted: “Today at 4PM there will be an education committee hearing about Bill 7030. This would expand Florida’s Guardian program & allow teachers to be armed!!! Floridians—fill out the form below to tell lawmakers NO to arming teachers!”
Notice that the language of Crystal’s tweet inadvertently admits that the effort underway in Florida is not to force teachers to be armed but to “allow teachers to be armed.” Yet the gun controllers are lining up to oppose the option.
Hogg retweeted Crystal Fx’s tweet, including a link to a Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control petition, urging people to sign it to keep teachers unarmed:
Teachers were unarmed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when the February 14, 2018, attack occurred. The school had an armed resource officer, but that officer refused to go in and confront the gunman. With no resource officer to worry about and no teachers who could shoot back, the gunman moved freely through Building 12, killing unarmed teachers and students alike.
Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri led the commission that investigated the Parkland shooting, and he emerged from the investigation convinced that teachers must have the opportunity to be armed to stop attacks.
The Associated Press pointed out Gualtieri’s emphasis on the fact that the gunman who killed 17 on February 14 was able to stop shooting and reload five times during his attack. The times he stopped provided a window of time for an armed teacher to take him out, but teachers were not allowed to carry guns. Gualtieri stressed that the scenario in which unarmed teachers were defenseless “gnaws” at him.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News 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.