Columbine Survivor Introduces Bill to Allow Teachers to Carry Guns In School

columbine survivor carry guns

While impressionable and traumatized young students are being pushed and coached by the media to drive an anti-gun effort after the Parkland, Florida, massacre, another school shooting survivor has a much different solution that is being ignored.

Patrick Neville, Colorado House Minority Leader and survivor of the Columbine High School shooting, has introduced a bill that would expand concealed carry in schools.

Under current Colorado state law, individuals with concealed carry permits may bring a firearm on school property so long as they keep them locked in their vehicle.

Neville believes it’s time to allow teachers the opportunity to save their own lives and the lives of the children in their classroom.

“This act would allow every law-abiding citizen who holds a concealed carry permit, issued from their chief law-enforcement officer, the right to carry concealed in order to defend themselves and most importantly our children from the worst-case scenarios,” he said in a statement.

Neville went on to point out that a major factor in these more frequent school shootings is the propensity of ‘gun free’ school zones.

“As a former Columbine student who was a sophomore during the shootings on April 20, 1999, I will do everything in my power to prevent Colorado families from enduring the hardships my classmates and I faced that day,” the Republican lawmaker said. “Time and time again we point to the one common theme with mass shootings, they occur in gun-free zones.”

While the liberal media is anxious to note that these school shootings have increased as weapons have grown more sophisticated, they fail to note another correlation.

Gun violence in schools has grown exponentially since the Gun-Free School Zones Act, legislation introduced by former Vice President Joe Biden, was signed in 1990.

Before Democrats go apoplectic at the thought of legislation to allow guns on school property, we’d like to gently remind them it is an idea that was promoted by former President Bill Clinton after Columbine.

“Clinton … unveiled the $60-million fifth round of funding for ‘COPS in School,’ a Justice Department program that helps pay the costs of placing police officers in schools to help make them safer for students and teachers,” a Los Angeles Times report stated in 2000. “The money will be used to provide 452 officers in schools in more than 220 communities.”

Armed guards in schools? We thought that was crazy. The media keeps telling us it won’t make schools safer.

On the contrary, a report from the Department of Justice in 2005 explains that the program is beneficial on three fronts – increased safety in the schools, the feeling of increased safety, and improved response time.

Guess who cut funding to the program that would increase safety and response time. President Obama.

The cuts made by the Obama Administration were made despite warnings from the Government Accountability Office, which stated, “many school district officials said that they experience challenges in planning for emergencies due to a lack of equipment, training for staff, and expertise and some school districts face difficulties in communicating and coordinating with first responders and parents.”

Will armed teachers and security guards help make schools safer? Share your thoughts below!

Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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