Arkansas school districts can't use a little-known state law to employ teachers and staff as guards who can carry guns on campus, the state's attorney general said Thursday in an opinion that likely ends a district's plan to arm more than 20 employees when school starts later this year.



Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, a Democrat, wrote in a legal opinion issued by his office that a state board that licenses private security agencies didn't have the authority to allow districts to employ their teachers and staff as security guards. A state lawmaker requested the opinion a day after The Associated Press reported on a plan by the Clarksville School District in western Arkansas to use more than 20 teachers and staff as volunteer security guards armed with concealed 9 mm handguns.



"Simply put, the code in my opinion does not authorize either licensing a school district as a guard company or classifying it as a private business authorized to employ its own teachers as armed guards," McDaniel wrote.



Most Americans with school-age children continue to say they would feel safer if their child attended a school with an armed guard and think the decision to put armed guards in the schools should be made by local government officials.



A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 62% of Americans with children of elementary or secondary school age would feel safer if their child attended a school with an armed security guard. Just 24% say they would feel safer if their child went to a school where no adults were allowed to own a gun. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure.



Independence Institute scholar and University of Denver law school professor David Kopel told the Senate Judiciary Committee today that the only way to immediately stop the next copy cat killer in a school is to allow trained teachers to carry guns.



Kopel praised the state of Utah because it allows teachers, in particular, to carry concealed guns if they pass a background check and undergo training.



He said the gun prohibition lobby has created scare tactics around this, but Utah’s policy — in place for several years — is proof that it works.



“Quite notably, we’ve never had an attack at a Utah school,” Kopel told the committee, which held the gun violence hearing just a week after an assault-weapons ban was introduced in the U.S. Senate. “If we want to save lives, armed defense in the schools is the immediate and best choice.”



Shortly after the Sandy Hook tragedy, the National Rifle Association suggested putting armed guards in America's schools in order to protect our children from deranged killers. They weren't the first to suggest this idea. Former President Bill Clinton started putting armed guards into schools back in the 1990s and many schools today have police officers on duty. Regardless, the NRA was mocked and ridiculed by the Left and the anti-gun crowd for their suggestion.Since December, many school districts have taken safety measures into their own hands. Most recently, we saw teachers at an Arkansas school getting extensive concealed carry and emergency situation training. Nearly $50,000 was set aside to purchase handguns for qualified teachers, but the state's Democratic Attorney General Dustin McDaniel, put a hold on efforts to keep kids safe and wrote in a legal memo that districts do not have the ability to train teachers as armed security guards. But a new poll from Rasmussen Reports shows a majority of parents would feel safer if their kids went to a school with an armed guard.Utah has allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons in schools for more than a decade and has never had a mass shooting.