Eleven of Florida’s 67 county school districts have given classroom teachers the option to carry guns. Only seven of those eleven school districts have made their policy intensions public and they include: Bay, Gilchrist, Lafayette, Levy, Okeechobee, Putnam and Suwannee. But if the idea is to deter attacks, it is better to publicly claim that they are having armed teachers when the don’t than to have armed teachers and not make sure everyone knows.…
Dr. John Lott talked to Lars Larson on both his national and Northwest radio shows about what have we learned about stopping mass public shootings in 20 years after Columbine.
(Northwest Show, Friday, April 19th, 2019, from 4:05 to 4:14 PM)
Appears on 21 radio stations, including KVI in Seattle, KXL in Portland, and KXLY in Spokane, with about 350,000 listeners.…
Dr. John Lott has a short piece on whether schools should allow teachers to carry guns in Health Behavior Research, a journal of the American Academy of Health Behavior. The paper can be downloaded here.
With 20 states having teachers and staff carrying guns to varying degrees on school property, we don’t need to guess how the policy would work.…
On Saturday, November 17, 2018, the Illinois Association of School Boards barely defeats arming teachers 53% to 47%.
…Members of the Illinois Association of School Boards voted Saturday against a resolution that would give school districts the option to train and arm staff.
The resolution failed 203-179. . . .
The resolution was mostly supported by rural districts that were concerned about emergency response time and their ability to hire resource officers, the statement said.
Over the last two months, what would have been mass public shootings at schools in Illinois and Maryland were stopped by armed school resource officers. Of course, this should be three cases in a row. While Broward Deputy Scot Peterson arrived at the building one minute after the attack started, it was another 10 minutes before any officers attempted to enter the building.…
Should teachers and staff at schools be armed? John Stossel and producer Maxim Lott made a video analyzing that question, and used CPRC research to do so.
More information on concealed handguns at schools is available here. There are a couple of nitpicking points to make about the video. The accidental discharge in California occurred at a firearms training class outside of normal school hours. …
concealed handguns allowed on school property, Media Discussion on CPRC, school security
Three or four teachers and staff carrying at schools would probably be enough to protect most schools. Time after time comments are made that teachers are just unwilling to carry. Yet, every time free classes are offered for teachers, more want to take the classes than there is available space.
The latest example is from Michigan.…
concealed handguns allowed on school property, school security
The Miami Herald has this description of the incredibly slow response from the Broward Sheriff’s office. While Broward Deputy Scot Peterson arrived at the building one minute after the attack started, it was another 10 minutes before any officers attempted to enter the building. From the Miami Herald:
…Cruz was dropped off at the school by an Uber at 2:19 p.m.