Sen. Rand Paul: Let's arm teachers

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Thursday that, despite the risk of occasional accidents, he favors arming teachers and principals to prevent tragedies such as the Dec. 14 shootings at a Connecticut school that killed 26 students and faculty.

"If my kids were at that school, I would have preferred that the teacher had concealed-carry and had a gun in her desk," Paul told a group of Oldham County, Ky., business leaders during a luncheon.

"Is it perfect? No. Would they always get the killer? No. Would an accident sometimes happen in a melee? Maybe," he said. "But nobody (at the Connecticut school) had any defense, and he just kept shooting until he was tired and he decided to shoot himself."

Paul's statements were almost immediately rebuked by some educators, who said adding guns to classrooms would be dangerous.

"It's a ridiculous idea," said Brent McKim, president of the Jefferson County Teachers Association. "The solution to gun violence is to implement common-sense laws to make them more difficult to have, not to introduce more guns into schools."

Paul's comments came a day after President Barack Obama laid out his proposals for tougher gun measures in response to the Newtown, Conn., shootings that left 20 students, six adults and the shooter dead.

Obama's plan calls for prohibiting the sale of assault-style rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines. He also signed 23 executive orders, including ones to make more federal data available for background checks and to end a freeze on government research into gun violence.

Paul said in his speech to the Oldham Chamber & Economic Development gathering that he plans to file legislation next week to reverse Obama's executive orders.

He also promised to fight Obama's other gun-related initiatives, including the plan to ask for legislation requiring background checks before all gun sales and prohibiting the possession, transfer, sale or manufacture of armor-piercing bullets.

"I think banning the guns is not the way to go," Paul said.

He said he doesn't know how to solve the nation's gun-violence problem but added that self-defense should be part of the solution, as should tackling the issue of mental illness.

Paul did say private citizens should be allowed to restrict guns on their property and that they should be prohibited in bars.

"I think alcohol and guns are not a good idea," he said, before adding that he agrees with rules that prohibit people from having guns in the U.S. Capitol, saying, "probably not a good mix either."

In a news conference afterward, Paul said teachers and principals who have passed concealed-carry courses should be allowed to carry guns on school property.

Currently, the federal Gun-Free School Zones Act allows an extremely limited number of people to carry weapons on school property.

But teachers and school administrators questioned Thursday said they oppose allowing teachers and principals to carry guns, saying they are not properly trained to engage in shootouts.

McKim said having more guns in schools in the hands of people who don't receive ongoing training is too dangerous and that children could die.

"That's not an accident," he said. "What he (Paul) is calling an accident would be a tragedy."

Jefferson County school board member David Jones Jr. tweeted his concern about Paul's plan in states such as Kentucky with "stand your ground" laws, which remove the duty to retreat before using deadly force in self-defense.

"How would this work in 'stand your ground' states -- teachers shoot students they fear?" he asked. "Bad idea."

Brad Hughes, spokesman for the Kentucky School Boards Association, said that group also would oppose Paul's plan.

"We would like to have every school that wants a trained school resource officer have one available, but we are adamantly opposed to opening it up for any principal or custodian or teacher's aide or teacher who has a concealed-carry permit," he said.

"What do you do if a teacher goes off the deep end? School employees have brought weapons and killed people in schools before."

Josh Zeller, a special education teacher at Western High School, said he also opposes allowing teachers to carry weapons. "I didn't get into teaching to carry a gun."

Jon Akers, executive director of the Kentucky Center for School Safety, also criticized the idea, noting that police officers go through extensive training to learn how to secure their weapons and learn techniques to subdue people that don't involve firearms.

"It just scares me to think about arming school people," Akers said. "They are trained to teach kids, they are not trained in riot control."

Experts on law enforcement and security testifying before a new legislative committee on school safety in Frankfort on Thursday said teachers are not properly trained to carry and use firearms in response to school violence.

Alex Payne, a retired Kentucky State Police sergeant, said teachers are much more effective at protecting students by implementing lockdown procedures rather than using a gun.

"To throw teachers into a position of having to assume that duty on top of the immense duties they already have, to me would serve no purpose," he said. "…It would endanger those people around them."

Payne added that studies show that having uniformed police officers stationed in schools decreases the chances of a school shooting to nearly zero.

Other experts testified that schools should look at low-cost measures to beef up security, such as entry control, security cameras, better building codes and active-shooter training for school personnel along with annual reviews of emergency response plans.

"We need to build basic redundancy, basic security into the system," said Mark Filburn, a retired lieutenant from Louisville Metro Police. "This is not complicated. It's not expensive."

But state Rep. Keith Hall, a Democrat from Phelps, Ky., said the subcommittee should review the possibility of allowing principals to obtain concealed-carry licenses and training to protect schools with firearms. "They are the first line of defense, and they are the manager, the CEO, of that school," he said, arguing that an armed principal could have likely stopped the shooting in Connecticut.

Contributing: Mike Wynn