Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is fighting to ensure federal money cannot be used to arm teachers for self-defense or train armed teachers for classroom defense.
Murphy is joined by Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT).
Education Week reports that Murphy and Hayes released resolutions designed to bar the U.S. Department of Education from using funds to arm teachers for self-defense or train those teachers in the best usage of firearms.
Murphy said, “Teachers have way too much to do today as it is. They need to be educators, they need to be social workers, they need to be grief counselors. They don’t need to be marksmen.”
Hayes added, “As a teacher, I would have never wanted the responsibility…of securing a firearm with 1300 children.”
On November 21, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Florida’s Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri called for teachers to be armed. Gualtieri was heading up the investigation into the February 14, 2018, Parkland high school shooting at the time, and he noted that the attacker stopped shooting five times to reload. Each pause provided an opportunity that an armed teacher or staff member could have saved lives by taking the attacker out.
Gualtieri noted, “People need to keep an open mind to it as the reality is that if someone else in that school had a gun it could have saved kids’ lives.”
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.