Beginning March 16, 2020, teachers in Texas’ Santa Fe Independent School District will be able to carry guns on their persons as part of the state’s Guardian Plan.
An attacker struck Santa Fe High School on May 18, 2018, killing 10 innocents and wounding numerous others.
The Texas Tribune spoke to Flo Rice, a former substitute teacher who was wounded in the attack, and she welcomed the news that teachers will be armed under the Guardian Plan. And she made clear she wishes they had been armed on the morning on the attack, saying, “I understand the other side that does not want more guns in the schools, but I just know from my personal experience and what happened to me, [the Guardian Plan] could have made a difference in the outcome.”
Rusty Norman, Santa Fe ISD school board president, addressed the decision to adopt the Guardian Plan, saying:
This is not some knee-jerk reaction, this is not something we are taking lightly. We have a school and we have a community that suffered a mass tragedy, and we’ve had to respond accordingly, with things that others may or may not choose to do.
The district had the choice of one of two programs–the school marshal program and the Guardian Plan. A key difference between the two is that the marshal plan requires teachers to keep their guns in a locked box, whereas the Guardian Plan allows teachers to carry a gun on persons, at the ready, throughout the day.
School board president Norman observed:
This is just another layer as a last line of defense, if something gets past all of those other layers and becomes an issue in a classroom or hallway or in one of the school facilities, that someone may be there that could protect themselves along with all the students and staff that are around them.
On March 8, 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation allowing Florida’s teachers to be armed for classroom defense. That move was the result of the February 14, 2018, Parkland high school shooting, and the legislation DeSantis signed was promoted by Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland shooting victim Meadow Pollack.
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.
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