Teachers In Utah Now Trained And Carrying To Protect Students

[Midwest]

Teachers In Utah Now Trained And Carrying To Protect Students

A free shooting and safety lesson was offered to teachers by the Utah Shooting Sports Council in order to help protect students. After the lesson the teachers paid $49 for the concealed carry license fee and the teachers can carry in school per Utah law.


http://americannews.com/teachers-in-utah-now-trained-and-carrying-to-protect-students/


'Elementary school teacher Janette Pocock said she feels better about dealing with a crisis situation since the class.'

“Crises happen,” she told KSL. “It’s one thing to hide and be quiet, but there are times when people break into those classrooms, and if you have a gun, you’re more likely to be able to handle that at the same level as the shooter than if you are just covered by chairs.”
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[morcey2]

Being a Utah resident, I get in discussions about this all the time. I've know at least a couple of teachers who carry at every school that my kids have attended in the last 10 years. The law doesn't apply to private schools and some of the state universities <cough> "U of U" <cough> are trying to assert their own illegal gun-free-zone policies, but they keep getting slapped down. Technically, a teacher with a Utah CFP can open-carry while on the job, but I don't know anyone who does. Students with Utah CFPs can also carry, but that doesn't apply to K-12 students. The UEA (teachers union) at one point tried to push through a law that required a list of any public school teacher with a CFP to be made available to the public, whether or not the teacher planned on carrying at school.

I've open carried in our local high school on quite a few occasions when I was headed out fishing or some other activity that made concealment unnecessary and I was only stopped on one occasion. That was by a teacher who knew I was an NRA instructor/CRSO and he needed an RSO for a BSA shooting activity in a couple of weeks. The holstered gun jogged his memory.

My father started as a high school teacher and eventually became a district superintendent. He was never a "gun guy", although we owned a couple of rifles. He was a principal when Utah went Shall-Issue (1995 or 1996) and he was really concerned about people having guns in schools. As of last week, he thinks that there should be more armed teachers in school than unarmed teachers. His reasoning is that if the teacher can't be trusted with a gun, they shouldn't be trusted to teach our kids either.

Matt

 

[BSA1]

So widens the gulf between the Northeast and West coast states and the rest of America. Next year in Kansas carrying of firearms at Public Universities becomes legal.