When a tragedy such as a school shooting occurs, there’s one thing you can be sure of these days. The political left is going to roll out their ever-present anti-gun talking points, going on and on about how guns need to be limited in the American population and that some guns need to be banned altogether.
President Trump has a vastly different idea. In fact, it’s the exact opposite.
According to a recent interview with Breitbart, his idea is to actually put guns into schools and in the hands of “teachers that are very good with firearms.” And it wouldn’t take very many, either.
As Trump explained during a speech in mid-April to the National Rifle Association’s annual gathering in Indianapolis, school shootings, much like most violent acts of the day, are a “spiritual problem.”
He noted that our country has been “chock-full” of firearms for centuries now, ensuring our freedom and safety. And yet, it wasn’t until around the year 2000 or so that mass and school shootings started to become a problem.
This means that the issue is not with guns but rather with society, culture, and our mental health. Now, of course, the increased drug use in the nation doesn’t help with this. In fact, Trump says it’s a huge contributing factor, thanks to Biden’s open border policies and the millions of illegal immigrants that have been allowed to pour through our southern border.
According to him, if we are to solve the growing violence issues in America, we must first resolve the mental health and drug issues.
Of course, that doesn’t mean there aren’t measures we can’t implement in the meantime – like training and recruiting trusted teachers to protect our kids with firearms in schools.
Hell, Trump would even incentivize such a plan for those teachers.
According to his speech, he would “create a new tax credit to reimburse any teacher for the full cost of a concealed carry firearm and training from highly qualified experts (who are) better.”
During his interview with Breitbart, he expounded on this, saying he would encourage teachers with firearm experience, such as military veterans, former police officers, etc., to participate in the program. If they “qualify at a very high level,” Trump would allow them to take concealed carry weapons inside school campuses with them.
In addition, he says he would put armed security guards at school doors. But the real threat to mass shooters would be the armed teachers inside.
As he said, “If people thought that randomly the teachers have guns, they wouldn’t go into the schools.”
And pretty much every bit of history and data supports this.
Just look at crime rates in states with limited gun control measures. In Maine, for instance, you don’t have to have a concealed weapon permit. As a result, potential criminals know that behind every door and around every corner could be a concealed gun in the hands of a trained and practiced citizen. So most don’t even try.
In places like Chicago, America’s murder capital, on the other hand, it’s very hard to obtain the legal means of owning and carrying a gun. So criminals know that most of their crimes will go unpunished, at least by their gun-owning peers.
As Superintendent of the River Valley Local School District in central Ohio, Adam Wickham told the Marion Star most “active shooter events” take place in “’gun-free zones’ or with minimal safety measures in place.” Unfortunately, this makes them the perfect “soft targets” for mass shootings, as shooters know they can get there and do whatever they want with very few consequences or resistance.
That is precisely why his district has recently joined 21 others in the state in arming a few teachers while on campus.
According to Trump, it wouldn’t take all that many teachers. Just 5 percent, in fact, would do the trick. If just five percent of all US teachers were allowed to carry in schools, just think how much safer our kids would be.