West Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates has voted to allow teachers and other school staff who undergo training to carry guns in K-12 public schools.

West Virginia’s Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to allow teachers and other school staff who undergo training to carry guns in K-12 public schools.

The bill, which now heads to the Senate, would allow teachers, administrators and support personnel with concealed carry permits to volunteer to bring a firearm into school with the intention of using it to defend the school in case of an active shooter event. Designated a “school protection officer,” the staffer wouldn’t receive any additional compensation for doing so.

Supporters say not every school system in West Virginia can afford to hire a full-time school resource officer. This program would provide another option.

Before the vote, Republican Del. Dave Foggin of Wood County, a physics teacher, said he can’t think of anything worse than shooting someone in his classroom. But he said if that person came into his school trying to hurt his students, he would do it.

  • BOMBS@lemmy.worldEnglish
    101·
    8 months ago

    I’ve been shot at a lot. I have been in firefights. The first thing everyone does when they realize they’re being shot at by surprise is have a total complete meltdown and beg the savior/heavens for safety. I’ll never forget the face of one guy that was in pure terror when he accepted he was going to die. He was paralyzed hiding. It takes a few exposures to start getting comfortable with it. Ask any combat veteran what happened the first time they were shot at by surprise.

    Additionally, to shoot the enemy, you have to place yourself in the line of fire from them, placing yourself in lethal danger. You also have to be calm enough to aim so that you hit just the shooter, not anyone else like another kid. The mass shooter doesn’t have that problem because they want to kill as much as possible and have already accepted their death. The mass shooter has a significant advantage.

    Aside from maybe a deranged psychopath (which def shouldn’t be carrying a gun) or an experienced combat veteran/police officer, I would imagine most teachers would be completely useless in a mass shooter event. Look at the trained police officers in Uvalde that were too scared to go into the school. Wtf is some teacher with a bit of weapons safety training going to do??

    Everyone has this fantasy that they’re going to be some kind of hero in a gun fight, but the reality is that when the first round pops off, your body takes over and you aren’t making decisions anymore. You’ve lost control as your body does what it has evolved to do, which is survive. See how you react the moment you’re at gun point and know that your entire experience is about to end. It takes some actual exposure to learn to override that.