Classes already have plenty of books and backpacks. What schools really need are more guns.
McCullough’s resolution: Strap teachers and principals with firepower. After all, this is Oklahoma, where no politician has ever been hurt by making sweet, sweet love to the Second Amendment.
Three days after the Dec. 14 tragedy, McCullough announced he would push next legislative session to let Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training-certified teachers and principals carry firearms at school.
“I trust my children to my
local teachers and principal every day. I want to give these trusted,
responsible educators the ability to defend themselves and our children
in the same way any normal parent would, in the face of the
unthinkable,” he said.
Fortunately
for those who might be a bit alarmed by the proliferation of heat at
school, Oklahoma’s low teacher salaries make it unlikely that many could
actually afford to purchase a gun.
State
Sen. Ralph Shortey, R-Oklahoma City, seeing that a gauntlet of some
sort had been thrown, piped in with a news release that McCullough’s
idea doesn’t go far enough.
The
proposal would be better, said Shortey, if all school employees with a
concealed-carry permit could pack heat at the schoolhouse.
“Taking
a restrictive approach to our Second Amendment rights would be the
worst possible decision,” he said. “Allowing teachers and administrators
with concealed-carry permits the ability to have weapons at school
events would provide both a measure of security for students and a
deterrent against attackers.”
McCullough reserved particular scorn on those with the unmitigated gall to link guns to a mass shooting.
“We
cannot continue to be shackled by politically correct, reflexive,
anti-gun sentiment in the face of the obvious: Our schools are soft
targets,” thundered the lawmaker (well, it was a written statement, so
“thundered” is, um, literary embellishment). “It is incredibly
irresponsible to leave our schools undefended — to allow mad men to kill
dozens of innocents when we have a very simple solution available to us
to prevent it.”
There
is no word on whether McCullough’s proposal would require gun-toting
teachers to deliver snappy one-liners like, “Class dismissed, A-hole,”
once they’ve gunned down the villain and saved the day.
