SPRING CITY, Utah (AP)
Officials in a small Utah town want to make sure every head of household has a firearm and knows how to use it, and they want to give school teachers training with guns too.
Spring City Councilman Neil Sorensen first proposed an ordinance requiring a gun in every household in the town of 1,000. The rest of the council scoffed at making it a requirement, but they unanimously agreed to move forward with an ordinance "recommending" the idea.
The council also approved funding to offer concealed firearms training Friday to the 20 teachers and administrators at the local elementary school.
"It sends a statement that criminals better think twice," Sorensen told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "If a teacher would have had a concealed weapon in Sandy Hook, I think the death loss would have been fewer. If sane, trained people had guns, they could have shot back."
The measure, which will go before the full council in February for further review, seems to have the support of the council's five members and many residents in the farming community about 90 miles south of Salt Lake City.
But school administrators don't think arming teachers is wise, and they are not encouraging teachers to participate in Friday's training.
"The more guns you have in the school, the more dangerous it is," said Leslie Keisel, superintendent of the North Sanpete School District.
Councilman Noel Bertelson said making guns in every house mandatory was too much, but he agrees the town would be safer if everyone was armed. With only a part-time police force, he said, response time is not like it is in a big city.
Comments
I don't see any problem with arming every household in a community. The Swiss- with the lowest crime rate in the world- have done that for Centuries and it has served them well.
In Switzerland every householder is required to keep a loaded shoulder-weapon in their hallway closet for national and personal defense. It works for them- maybe we should try it.
One key difference, though, between the Swiss and us is that that they haven't allowed themselves to become "feminized". Switzerland- even though heavily into chocolate- is still a highly masculine society. Men, in that country still have intact gonads.
The Unites States started it's long road to National Decline with Female Suffrage in 1918. It's sad but true. Almost all of our problems can be directly traced to that regrettable fact.
Wow that has to be the second most idiotic thing I've heard today.
"The more guns you have in the school, the more dangerous it is," said Leslie Keisel, superintendent of the North Sanpete School District.
The anti-gunners always say things like this, but they never explain HOW simply having more inanimate objects cranks up the level of danger. Maybe MacGowan can explain. Preferably with facts.
Read up a little more on the Swiss. Since there is no army, the men, 20-30 years old are part of militia and given weapons. There has been a change in this rule since 2007. Weapons and ammunition are much more scrutinized. Check out Wikipedia!
How can this be? Home invasions will now turn deadly. Political correctness demands that we give the criminals a chance.
"If sane, trained people had guns, they could have shot back.""
That is the key word: Sane
There's a lot on Wikipedia on the subject to restore an air of reality to the media hype.
Mass shootings are simply a modern version of the longstanding "run amok" syndrome , which is a recognised psychiatric disorder . They are theorized to arise from a need to reassert masculine power of the perpetrator .
Even the explorer Captain James Cook described it occuring in South pacific villages in 1770 .
Switzerland has in fact had 2 such in recent years - in 2001 & 2002 . Most countries have them , whether or not guns are frreely available . There may be a "gun availability" influence on the likelihood of an event occuring , but this needs to be analysed by experts .