States are pushing ahead with plans to arm teachers.

Will arming teachers -- or putting an armed guard at every school in the nation, as the NRA has suggested -- make a meaningful difference? Or would it actually increase the risk of harm, as some gun control advocates contend?

Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky recently addressed those concerns with a degree of candor that might not help advance his crusade to allow educators to pack heat. At an event with business leaders in Oldham County (as recorded by the Louisville Courier-Journal), Rand said the following: "Is it perfect? No. Would they always get the killer? No. Would an accident sometimes happen in a melee? Maybe."

Labor groups and associations representing the nation's school teachers and principals have already said that asking educators to be prepared to respond to an armed intruder with similar firepower is an unreasonable burden. At the same time, there's also been a reported spike in interest among some teachers who say they want to know what their options are when it comes to protecting themselves -- and possibly their students -- from an armed intruder on campus.

Districts in a number of states, including Florida and North Carolina, have opted in the short-term for adding more campus resource officers. (Their level of training and the weapons they're allowed to carry vary widely from state to state.)

At the federal level, President Obama has signed nearly two dozen executive orders related to gun control. His decisions were influenced by input from a committee created post-Sandy Hook and headed by Vice President Joe Biden. (U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is one of the appointed members.) The president has also proposed $150 million in funding to address campus climate and safety issues, including adding more school counselors, and more extensive training to help staff recognize and address students' mental health issues. However, as Education Week's Politics K-12 blog sagely notes, some of those dollars would be restoring school climate and safety programs and positions previously cut by the administration.

Nationally, there's been a spate of new bills proposed at the state level -- including in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia -- to either allow educators to carry weapons or to add armed guards to public schools. (In New Jersey, those newly added guards are already on duty.) It's worth pointing out that about a third of states already allow school personnel to carry concealed weapons on campus. The Harrold Independent School District in Texas has been arming its school staff since 2007.

In Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, said she wouldn't support allowing principals to carry weapons, as proposed by the state's superintendent of public instruction. A bill to arm teachers in the Evergreen State faces an uphill battle as Democrats have the supermajority, Colorado Public Radio reports. But in Tennessee, where the Republicans control both houses of the state legislature, talk of arming teachers is more likely to gain momentum.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/01/states-push-ahead-with-plans-to-arm-teachers/267390/