Indiana could become the first state in the nation to require an employee in every public or charter school to carry a loaded gun during school hours —a response to fears about mass school shootings.
Legislation approved Tuesday by the House Education Committee wound mandate the creation of a protection officer for each school. With proper training, those officers could be principals, teachers, staff members, police officers or security guards.
“This is a common-sense approach to a horrible situation,” said Rep. Jim Lucas, a freshman Republican from Seymour who led the effort to add the protection-officer mandate to Senate Bill 1.
I do believe there should be somebody armed in schools. Proudly announcing you're a gun-free zone is stupidly letting it be known you're defenseless. Why do you think so many murderous lunatics pick schools to stage their rampages in? I'm more inclined to agree with Gov. Mike Pence's spokesman that safety and security decisions should be made by school districts "with support from the state."
And just having an employee armed is problematic. One person can't be everywhere and in school all the time. Better to permit all employees to be armed if they choose, then require training if they do. If a would-be shooter knows anyone in the school might be armed, but he doesn't know who exactly, he might think twice about making the school a target. That's concealed-carry 101.
