{"id":8153,"date":"2018-03-09T18:42:56","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8153"},"modified":"2018-03-09T18:42:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-09T18:42:56","slug":"texas-teachers-group-balks-at-carrying-guns-in-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=8153","title":{"rendered":"Texas Teachers\u2019 Group Balks at Carrying Guns in School"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Thousands<\/a>

Thousands of students, teachers and parents descended on the Florida State Capitol in protest after a former student with an assault rifle killed 17 students at a school in a shooting rampage. Photo: Moore\/GettyImages<\/p><\/div>\n

by Mark Richardson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

AUSTIN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0After the recent deadly shootings at a Florida high school, gun advocates such as the National Rifle Association and others say arming teachers could avoid another massacre.<\/p>\n

However, with few exceptions, most teachers in Texas think that\u2019s a bad idea, and that it isn\u2019t their job to take on armed attackers.<\/p>\n

Clay Robison, public affairs specialist for the Texas State Teachers Association, which represents thousands of Texas school teachers, says despite what activists may believe, firepower is not the answer to school violence.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not cure gun violence in the classroom by putting more guns into schools,\u201d he says. \u201cYou sell more guns that way, but you don\u2019t address the problem of gun violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

For several years, the NRA and other groups have promoted the idea of having teachers and other staff carry firearms to protect students in case of an attack. But Robison says TSTA, and its parent group the National Education Association, believe lawmakers should instead focus on ways to end the violence, such as passing common-sense gun laws and improving mental-health care.<\/p>\n

He says while some small Texas school districts do allow teachers with proper training to carry guns in the classroom, they are the exception, rather than the rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can train teachers to get a handgun license, but most of our members that we have talked to don\u2019t want that,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey do not want to be put in the position of having a gunfight with an armed intruder.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robison believes a large part of why many school campuses are vulnerable is because the state doesn\u2019t provide enough money for proper security.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the major school districts have their own police forces, and they have armed officers who are trained to deal with these kind of situations,\u201d he explains. \u201cYou can only go so far with the resources that school districts have, because the Legislature refuses to fully fund education.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Education Association represents more than 3 million teachers across the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Mark Richardson AUSTIN, Texas \u2013\u00a0After the recent deadly shootings at a Florida high school, gun advocates such as the National Rifle Association and others say arming teachers could avoid another massacre. However, with few exceptions, most teachers in Texas think that\u2019s a bad idea, and that it isn\u2019t their job to take on armed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8154,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8153\/revisions\/8154"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}