Guns Went Off by Mistake

Well, they must have their own minds…..:)

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“If this can happen with a highly trained police officer, why would we give teachers guns?” interim superintendent Lois Berlin of the Alexandria, Virginia, school system asked after the incident involving the officer whose accidental discharge put a bullet through a wall at George Washington Middle School. He was placed on leave and is under investigation.

Amid a nationwide push to arm teachers or add more police officers and armed guards, the AP review suggests that doing so will almost certainly have unintended consequences. The accidents are rare, but the actual number is probably higher because schools are not required to report them. And they have frightened students, outraged parents, prompted disciplinary and criminal investigations and left at least nine people injured.

Some insurance companies have refused to cover schools that allow non-law enforcement personnel to be armed. And many school employees have said in surveys that they would feel less safe if more of their colleagues were carrying weapons.

Nevertheless, calls to encourage districts to add more armed educators and officers have intensified since the Feb. 14 shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students and educators dead.

Speaking Friday to the NRA convention in Dallas, President Donald Trump called for allowing trained teachers to carry concealed weapons in schools, along with more armed security guards.

He said the best deterrent to would-be school shooters is “the knowledge that their attack will end their life and end in total failure.”

He added, “When they know that, they’re not going in.”

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Sean Simpson is among the educators who have said publicly they would be willing to have firearms training, but the Marjory Stoneman Douglas science teacher recently had his own mishap. He was charged after leaving his loaded handgun in a public restroom at a crowded beach pier in April. An intoxicated homeless man found the weapon and fired it before Simpson snatched it back, authorities said.

The National Association of School Resource Officers has raised concerns about allowing teachers to be armed, saying they may not have the training to use guns effectively during a high-stress situation or to keep them secure. The group is pushing for an officer in every public school instead.

Executive Director Mo Canady, a former school resource officer in Alabama, said he believes accidental discharges and other mistakes involving school officers’ guns are “much more rare than people might think.”

“When you’ve got 20,000 officers in schools across the country, things can happen. There’s no perfect situation,” he said.

Earlier this school year, a fifth-grader in St. Paul, Minnesota, managed to pull the trigger on a gun in an officer’s holster, firing a bullet into the floor. The same day in Florida, a parent discovered a school resource officer’s gun in a faculty bathroom. A deputy’s gun went off in Michigan last fall during a struggle with a high school student.

Parent Rashmi Pappu, who has two daughters at the Virginia school where a bullet went through a wall and into a refrigerator, said she was stunned by the incident because she wasn’t aware the school’s officer was armed.

“I want to know why he was even handling his gun in the school and what the procedure is,” she said. “I just felt that in a safe school environment, this is ridiculous.”

The same day as the Virginia incident, Dennis Alexander was teaching his criminal justice class at a high school in Seaside, California, when he pointed a gun at the ceiling as he checked to make sure it was not loaded. The weapon went off. At least one of the students injured has hired a law firm and is considering legal action.

Alexander resigned his jobs as a teacher and reserve police officer. He also apologized, as did Michael Main, the Isabella County, Michigan, sheriff whose gun was found in a gym locker room where he’d left it while changing uniforms.

“I have worked diligently my entire career to protect people, especially our youth,” Main said in a statement. “However, I have failed to do just that, and I’m devastated with my lack of accountability in this matter.”