Exclusive: Nevada Lawmaker Says Teachers Should Have Firearms
A day after Nevada Senator Bob Beers talked with the Channel 8 I-Team about his proposal to permit school staff to carry concealed firearms in the classroom, a high school student was arrested for having a pellet gun at school.
More than a dozen weapons have been confiscated on and near school property since school started in August. The most recent happened Tuesday when an Eldorado High School student was found with a shotgun on campus.
Now, a Nevada lawmaker wants to put more weapons on school property -- not in the hands of students, but in the hands of their teachers and school staff.
State Senator Bob Beers believes guns in the hands of highly trained, law-abiding citizens can serve as a deterrent to criminal activity. And what better place to stop crime than in the classroom, he told the I-Team in an exclusive interview.
Clark County School District police find a shotgun on a student that classmates characterize as having an anger problem. The "what-ifs" of the situation aren't hard to imagine. Images from Columbine High School have become part of the American collective consciousness.
But where gun control has failed, Bob Beers believes gun proliferation may succeed. The republican senator for Clark County said, "The theory is that insane people don't go on shooting sprees around people who have weapons."
Beers plans to submit a bill draft this week to allow school personnel to carry concealed firearms on campus provided teachers, principals and even bus drivers complete weapons training that, in his words, would exceed law enforcement training standards.
Beers pointed to Israel as a model of school safety. "They started allowing school teachers and administrators to be armed and they have not had a single incidence of gun violence on campus since."
CCSD Police Chief Hector Garcia recently returned from law enforcement training in Israel. He challenges Beers' proposal and his understanding of the Israeli system.
Garcia said, "The personnel who carry these weapons are on the periphery, they're ex-military and they're trained. It's a different mentality with an ex-military person on the periphery of a school to a teacher in the classroom."
Garcia prefers a visual deterrent, like an officer in uniform, to a concealed weapon. Particularly in a crisis situation he fears police may not be able to distinguish an armed employee from a suspect.
He also questions the security of the weapons. "Where are they housed? What is their availability to students, to people who are unauthorized, in this case, to have them? And how do they interplay with law enforcement?" Garcia asked.
He believes students are safest in schools without weapons, thinking that's supported by state and federal laws banning guns on campus.
According to Beers, that law doesn't appear to be effective. He argues the rash of school violence nationally and locally demands a different approach. "I do believe that having weapons in the hands of responsible, trained people would deter school violence," Beers said.
The Metro Police Department echoed the concerns of the school police chief particularly with respect to how the weapons would be stored.
The North Las Vegas Police Department declined to comment and the Henderson police chief told Eyewitness News he would be open to discussing the idea.
The president of the teacher's union told Eyewitness News he believes our schools should remain gun free and not be turned into "military camps."
