Safety panel backs allowing armed teachers

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (NSF) - A controversial law that allows trained “guardians” to bring guns to public schools didn’t go far enough --- gun-savvy teachers also should be able to have weapons in the classroom.

That’s the near-unanimous view of a state panel created to make recommendations to beef up school security in the wake of one of the country’s deadliest mass school shootings on Valentine’s Day in Broward County.

“You’ve got to have somebody there who can swiftly and effectively neutralize the threat, and that means killing the killer. The only way you are going to do that is if you have a good guy with a gun who can take that action,” Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who chairs the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, said in an interview Thursday.

Max Schachter, whose 14-year-old son, Alex, was among the students slain at Marjory Stoneman Douglas and who serves on the panel, was the lone holdout in a 13-1 vote on the proposal Wednesday.

“I understand the sheriff’s point that we do need more good guys with a gun on campus,” Schachter said, adding, “nobody understands that wish … more than myself.”