When it comes to a proposal in the Mississippi Legislature to arm teachers as a means to prevent mass shootings in schools, Greg Gilmore said he’s opposed.
“We need to build more relationships,” the security director for the McComb School District said.
The Valentine’s Day shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in which 17 students died, has ramped up the debate between gun control and protecting Second Amendment freedoms to bear arms.
Proposals to allow teachers to receive training to carry guns in schools have come from President Donald Trump and leaders in some states including Mississippi, which is considering an amendment to House Bill 1083 that would allow school personnel to carry guns if they receive training.
Gilmore said that’s not the answer.
“There are warning signs. We just need to recognize them, but to arm teachers, I don’t think so,” he said. “That would create chaos if a teacher is walking around strapped with a gun.
“If everyone has guns, that’s scary, that’s really scary. I don’t like the idea at all. Someone can come in and disarm a teacher.”
Gilmore said if schools were required to arm staff, it would need to be a small specialized team whose roles are anonymous.
“It has to be classified. These people are the only ones who are to have them,” Gilmore said. “You don’t want anyone mad or having a bad day with a gun. Someone can do something and they take it the wrong way.”
He said there’s also the issue of someone thinking a gun gives them power.
“They think they’re in power. They have those things on their hip and they think they’re God,” he said. “There are kids and they pay attention to everything.
“Where would they keep them (guns)? Would they keep them in a purse? It’s too crazy.”
Gilmore said the Legislature’s solution could end up creating more problems for security.
“It’s really crazy to have every teacher armed,” he said. “Can you imagine it? Somebody try something and another risk just went up. A risk we didn’t have just went up. You have a bunch of guns on campus, now we have another risk. It’s too much crazy stuff that could happen.”
He noted that in Parkland there were seven to eight guns on a campus with armed personnel and 17 people still died.
“If a killer wants to kill someone, he or she is going to get to whoever they want,” he said.
Gilmore said he’s dealt with students with guns before, recalling one incident in which a student was shooting a gun by the railroad tracks.
“When we got the information, we didn’t wait until he brought it to school. We went out to the house and talked to the mama,” he said. “She told us there wasn’t a gun in her house. We asked if we could check and we found the gun under his bed. We got the gun, confiscated it and gave it to the police. Now, it’s not on the kid or at the house. We got the information and we reacted to it.”
Gilmore said he was only able to get a to find ut a student had a gun because his peers at school felt confident enough to tell him about it.
“The kids provided us with all information we needed. Someone told us at school,” he said.
Gilmore said that’s the real solution to the problem.
“Arming the teachers is not the answer. Arm the teacher with building relationships so kid can tell information,” he said. “Get to know them. Learn what music and movies they like, what they do in their pastime. Ask somebody a question, get a feeling they think. Build a relationship with them and they’ll tell you everything we need to know.”
• • •
Amite County Superintendent Scotty Whittington said he hasn’t thought much about the prospect of arming teachers, but it may not be a bad idea — if a gun goes to the right teacher.
“Most schools cannot afford to hire a law enforcement officer that has guns, so arming a teacher might not be a bad idea,” he said. “But the devil is in the details. You would have to have some way to determine who would do it. I haven’t made up my mind about it.”
He cited risks with the idea, including guns coming into play when disputes arise on campus.
“That’s the problem I have with it,” he said. “If you have a very easy-going, laid-back teacher that’s armed, it may have a help, but I don’t know.”
Mississippi lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow the arming of teachers who take an enhanced concealed carry class.
“There would have to be some type of training or it wouldn’t work at all,” Whittington said. “Just arming teachers isn’t going to work.”
He said Amite County has two school security officers at the high school and elementary school who have received state training.
“In this part of the world, everyone has guns. We’re used to it,” he said. “When I was going to school, all the boys had gun racks in their trucks, but it’s a different world from back then.”
During a recent board meeting, Amite County High School Principal Celdric McDowell expressed concern about the effectiveness of the school’s current active shooter drill. Whittington said the district is working on a new drill.
• • •
South Pike Superintendent Johnny Vick said if the measure to give teachers guns goes into law, he’s not sure if he would enact it because he has a lot of unanswered questions.
“How would they get trained? Who would conduct the training?” Vick said. “I would be reluctant to follow through with it if it became law.”
Vick said a safer route would be to increase more funding for school resource officers.
“We should look into having more security personnel on campus that are trained through the Mississippi Department of Education, and we should let our teachers be teachers. They already have so much going on,” he said. “There are so many things that can backfire and go wrong.”
Like Whittington, he said a teacher who’s had a bad day, or a teacher who doesn’t like another teacher, or a teacher who’s overpowered by a student, are all scenarios that have to be considered.
“You have to be highly trained when dealing with a weapon,” he said. “You have to know how to react in certain situations. I think we would take a step back from this. There are other ways to make sure our schools are secure, but I don’t think this is the answer.
“There are too many variables to this. There are so many things going on. I’d be really frightened by that,” he said. “By arming teachers, you’re have the potential to create something else in the schools. There are other means.”
A North Pike School District spokesperson was not available for comment.
