Group offers gun training for Utah teachers

Associated Press

WEST VALLEY CITY, Utah

Jessica Fiveash sees nothing wrong with arming teachers. She’s one herself, and she learned Thursday how to safely use her 9 mm Ruger with a laser sight.

“If we have the ability to stop something, we should do it,” said the elementary- school teacher, who along with nearly 200 other teachers in Utah took six hours of free gun training offered by the state’s leading gun lobby.

It is among the latest efforts to arm or train teachers to confront assailants after a gunman killed his mother and then went on a rampage through Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six adults before killing himself.

In Ohio, a firearms group said it was launching a test program in tactical firearms training for 24 teachers. In Arizona, the attorney general is proposing a change to state law that would allow an educator in each school to carry a gun.

The moves to train teachers come after the National Rifle Association proposed placing an armed officer at each of the nation’s schools, though some schools already have police officers. Parents and educators have questioned how safe the proposal would keep kids and whether it would be economically feasible.

Some educators say it is dangerous to allow guns on campus. Among the potential dangers they point to are teachers being overpowered for their weapons or students getting them and accidentally or purposely shooting classmates.