At the urging of parents who participated in a listening session on mass shootings at The White House yesterday, President Trump says he supports arming a limited number of teachers to provide the first line of defense to students in the event of a school shooting.

 Trump tweeted his support for the idea:

“I never said ‘give teachers guns’ like was stated on Fake News @CNN & @NBC. What I said was to look at the possibility of giving ‘concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience- only the best - 20% of teachers, a lot, would now be able to immediately fire back if a savage sicko came to a school with bad intentions."

 

"Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards,” 

 

“A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!”

Trump is correct.

Teachers in at least 18 states are allowed to carry a loaded gun on school grounds with certain permissions. Hundreds of school teachers in Ohio, Colorado and elsewhere have been trained by an organization called Faculty/Administrator Safety Training and Emergency Response (FASTER). The group is operated by the Ohio-based Buckeye Firearms Association.

Arming teachers is the most sensible way to make classrooms safer for students and staff and should immediately be considered in all 50 states.

Editor's Note: Barry Richard is the afternoon host on 1420 WBSM New Bedford. He can be heard weekdays from Noon-3 p.m. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Information used in this blog was obtained through Twitter; Fox News

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