When I see unarmed guards at our schools, it gives me no extra sense of security for our children. I would be 100% behind hiring highly trained armed guards for schools.

Arming teachers, however, is another story all together. This is such a complex issue with so many potential scenarios that do not have good outcomes. There are security procedures and apparatus that can be used first before we take such a tenuous step as this.

Arming teachers is a non-starter. The teacher's unions uniformly resist any routine background checks and drug tests. Teachers, as a population, are no different than those outside of schools. Some people should not be armed. Different mechanisms can be put in place to root those out. Teachers unions would never permit that.
Hiring properly trained and armed security would be more of a deterrent to wrongdoing.

"Goodman...said gunman killed 13 people and wounded 29 others in November 2009 at Fort Hood, an Army base in Texas with plenty of well-armed, well-trained soldiers" Goodman conveniently failed to mention (or is completely ignorant of the facts) that none of those killed or injured were permitted to carry while on base. They obeyed the posted regulation (abided by the law) while the shooter had complete disregard for the same. When something like that happens, the best way to stop someone with a gun and evil intent is someone with a gun with good intent. More mis-information from the people that want to disarm law abiding citizens.

Having an armed presence must accomplish something in the way of making schools seem less like "soft targets". I imagine the Philadelphia School District might concur, given the number of schools at which they request police presence during arrivals and dismissal. Of course, it's a different type of violence they are targeting, but nonetheless.

For those schools and school districts that cannot afford guards - armed or not - then certainly it seems like a reasonable solution is to have some teachers, though not actively walking around with weapons, with weapons at their disposal with all the appropriate safeguards in place.

I'm of the belief that is such a condition were common knowledge, even the deranged would know that rushing a school would not fulfill whatever their twisted agenda is

We protect so many valuables with armed guards, knowing that some criminals wouldn't hesitate to shoot their way into or out of a lucrative heist. Why not so the same for our children?

The desire to increase school security after Newtown is understandable, but short-sighted. As tragic as it was, it is precisely because it was so shocking and emotional that we be should be especially careful of rushing through extreme security policies that we will have to live with for a very long time. Right now Central Bucks is in the process of implementing the following new security measures: Locked entrances with buzzer entry.

Before we move to turn our schools into fortresses, we should bear in mind that they are already very safe. According to the Department of Education’s figures, rates of violent crimes in school are low, with only 14 incidents per 1000 in 2010, compared to 53 per 1000 back in 1992. Incidents like the one in Newtown are so incredibly rare, it’s difficult to find an adequate comparison. But one criminologist, Gary Kleck estimates that our children are more likely to be hit by lightning than shot in school. In other words, it would be hard to make our children safer than they already are.

More importantly, this security comes at a terrible price. Schools are where we pass on our collective wisdom and values. By treating parents and other members of the community as suspects, we are effectively saying that safety matters more than everything else. Excessive security institutionalizes suspicion.

Don't implement new procedures just for the sake of “doing something.” The best “something” to do is to resist the urge to overreact.

What is to prevent a trusted teacher with a weapon from using it in a similar way to the Newtown tragedy? Teachers still represent the population in general,so i don't think letting them have access to weapons is smart idea..PLUS, who is going to pay for the added costs? Taxpayers already are fretting the annual school tax increases...

What I’m saying is that if teachers who already own a gun for protection at home or in public, and already have a gun permit (CCW) to carry should be allowed to carry in school. If carried in public, the weapon should not be able to be seen at any time when carrying with a permit. So the only ones who would know who was carrying in school would be the administrators not the students or the parents of the students. I also believe that if the teachers or anyone who would carry in public should have a complete background check. This should be done for teacher when they are hired and every five years to continue to keep teaching our children.

I believe that it would be a good idea for some of the school staff to be trained and certified to carry a Gun in schools. Not all teachers need to have a gun. I believe we as taxpayers really don't see where our school taxes are going so why not have a record of where this money is spent. I think that you would be surprised at how much of a surplus the schools have to spend on this type of program to protect our children.
Something has to be done to protect our future generation. Our Children are very Much Needed protection from the Crazy people in the world.

Mike Shortall and David Long are right. Those teachers who are comfortable and licensed to carry should be allowed (and they should be allowed to carry any means of self protection with which they are comfortable). The fact that there might be armed resistance at any school will deter the murderers. No one but administrators will know which teacher, if any, has a means of protection whether it be a firearm, taser, mace whatever. We don't need gunslingers who are quick on the draw in front of the kids. We need people in the school to be able to access a locked up, hidden weapon when the lockdown occurs so they can protect the kids with whom they are huddled in the closet of their classroom. We should rescind this policy when all crazy people have been proven to be prevented from accessing firearms of any kind, legal or illegal which is never.

Arming teachers is one of the worst ideas I have ever heard. Mike Shortall (as usual) just throws up Republican talking points. If he ever has an original idea someone let me know.

Schools are places where kids go to learn, not armed castles. We only need to think about arming teachers because we have foolishly made access to firearms WAY TO EASY. Gun rights and gun proliferation are not the same thing.

To sensible people, Newtown, CT was tipping point. Our great gun experiment has failed - it isn't worth having kids slaughtered in mass numbers at a goddam elementary school.

Gun advocates only care about themselves. Join a well formed militia like the 2nd Amendment says, then we can talk. Until then, lets be sensible and restrict gun access.

I for one, am completely behind the idea of using armed gaurds and school police to protect our kids. There is nothing in this world that is more valuable and worth protecting than our children. They deserve the highest level of safety and security. They deseve to feel most safe in the place they are more often then they are home. As parents, we deserve the peace of mind, knowing that when our kids walk out that door, they will return in the same physical and mental condition that they left in. I need to know, that while I'm at work, I don't have to suffer the anxiety of worry and concern that my children may not be safe at school. I do however sit on the fence in regard to teachers carrying guns. It is to easy for a gun to be taken off of someone's body. Having a few administrators who are trained in weapons safety, have a complete mental health exam, and have no criminal history, could have LOCKED access to additional firearms in the event of an emergency. But I don't think admin, or teacher, should be able to "carry" on their body while school is in session. With armed gards on site, there would be no reason to have teachers armed. We need to have more planned out escape routes specific to acts of terror. The simple "fire drill" type of response is unexceptable.

Locking, bullet proof doors and glass windows, Additional front and rear personnel to cover the exits, a load speaker type alarm system to imediatly notify students and faculty of danger on the campus imediately(Like the Bristol/Levittown fire alarms), and arming ALL teachers with police style tazors, are other improvements that the schools could make to add to security without arming the teachers themselves.

Honestly, with more and more stories of teachers sexually abusing students, I'm not really comfortable hading them a weapon to make it easier to keep their abuses secret. There are a lot of options available for making our schools more secure. But in the end, it all comes down to budgets. And there are not many Philadelphia or Bucks schools with the funds currently available to impose more safety regulations and armed personel.

I say, offer all the unemployed vets who are searching relentlessly for work that isn't available, who would be happy to keep our children safe, who would feel a great sense of purpose, a job doing just that. Let the people who were trained to protect us in combat, protect our kids from the terrors that they face at home.

I agree arming teachers is a very bad idea. There should be a better secure system for entering the school. A double door system where one must show picture id, which can be swiped through a system to give information, then one should wait there till the child is brought to them or if they are there to see a teacher they must wait till the teacher comes to them and goes to a secure area. Guards should be appointed to the schools, Sad it has come to this but an alternative would be online schooling.
I don't believe arming all teachers because some of these teachers aren't competent enough to use the guns

I appreciate your comments Lavender. But if I had a choose a society without guns, or one with guns that required us to keep our kids home and have the school online, the solutions is a no brainer.

Our great gun experiment has failed, and the cost was terrible.

And what will be the result when a gun belonging to a teacher,somehow harms a stduent, and this WILL happen..i would bet more students would be injured by teachers having guns, then the # of incidents it prevents..

I think that having armed guards in schools is a great idea. As far as teacher's are concerned I'm undecided. I think giving teacher's macs or a taser wouldn't be such a bad idea. @Nick what is this government experiment you speak of?

Gun experiment*

Nick I am not against guns not at all what I am about is the system and how easy it is for any idiot to get one, there are so many people out there who are not competent enough to be armed, there is no real answers because if a person wants to do harm they will, what needs to be done is prevention, we need to protect the innocent, we need to have our families feel safe about sending the kids to school, we need to have people who can protect them while they are there, people who are trained, people who can take out the bad guys (or girls) even when un armed. The problem lies in how easy it is to get into these places, hence the option to make it more secure. The problem with arming some teachers is then you have a trigger happy individual (no not all) who will abuse the power.
I don't believe our schools are safe, I don't believe we have adequate people in there making the correct decisions, I don't believe that the problem with this will be fixed in a short period of time. I do believe there are individuals who can "fix" this but they are not being listened to by the powers that be