New Op-ed: Teachers Packing Heat?
This was in TCS Daily today:
Good intentions do not necessarily make good rules. What counts is whether the laws ultimately save lives. Unfortunately, too many gun laws primarily disarm law-abiding citizens, not criminals.
Banning guns from schools seems like the obvious way to keep children safe. But a teacher, Shirley Katz, in Medford, Oregon, is proposing the exact opposite and is stirring up debate across the nation. Recently the first round of a legal battle went to the teacher, since the judge would not accept the school district's claim that her case should simply be dismissed. . . . .
Banning guns from schools seems like the obvious way to keep children safe. But a teacher, Shirley Katz, in Medford, Oregon, is proposing the exact opposite and is stirring up debate across the nation. Recently the first round of a legal battle went to the teacher, since the judge would not accept the school district's claim that her case should simply be dismissed. . . . .
Labels: GunControl, GunFreeZone, TeachersGuns
posted by John Lott at 7:18 PM
3 Comments:
I read, with interest, this article and being a CCW permit holder myself, I had to wonder if you considered all the variables. I am of the opinion that even if a concealed permit holder was armed and present in a school setting when/if an "attack" occurred, that permit holder would be more apt to protect him/herself and his/her immediately present students than to go "hunting" for the attacker.
Don't misunderstand what I am saying. I am a strong advocate of allowing those teachers who want to be armed to do so, but school administrators need to consider more security as well.
Our schools should not become armed fortresses, but they DO house our most precious resource for several hours every day...our children. Declaring schools as gun-free zones for CCW holders is foolish.
Dear Dr. Lott:
Good op-ed. I suspect that most states will eventually see reason on this issue and allow teachers to carry concealed, but I fear that it will take several spectacular attacks, even more deadly than Virginia Tech, before the pendulum begins to swing.
This issue is tailor made for those who bring up "the children" because their arguments can't hold water. Guns and children don't mix, and all the usual worn-out bromides that have been disproved about firearms and adults will have to be engaged and disproved all over again.
One can only hope that too many children and teachers won't have to die before the tender sensibilities of the anti-gun left are rightfully considered to be of less value than the lives of children. Sadly, some will have to die on that wobbly alter.
Thanks. If you are interested is seeing my work on this issue, I suggest that you pick up the second edition of More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000). There are literally hundreds of variables such as arrest and conviction rates, prison sentence lengths, the death penalty, many other measures of law enforcement, income, poverty, unemployment, 36 different demographic measures, many different types of gun control, different types of police policies, etc. My newest book, Freedomnomics, also has a 10 page summary of the empirical evidence on this debate.
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