Gun advocates debate gun control in schools

North Carolina teachers with concealed carry permits could be allowed to bring weapons on school grounds, depending on the outcome of an upcoming state debate on gun laws.

An impassioned conversation on guns in school erupted nationally in the wake of the Dec. 14 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where gunman Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 children and six adults in the Newtown, Conn., elementary school, along with his mother at her house, before killing himself.

Gov. Pat McCrory, in a Dec. 20 news conference, said he believed the best way to protect schools is to have people with public safety credentials in schools, according to a report from The (Raleigh) News and Observer.

A spokesman for McCrory could not be reached for comment.

But placing armed police guards, known as school resource officers, in every school would come at a high cost to taxpayers, said Paul Valone, president of the pro-gun rights group, Grass Roots North Carolina.

After the shooting Valone said he began receiving dozens of emails from teachers with concealed carry permits who said they wanted to be able to better protect themselves and their students.

The federal Gun-Free School Zones Act prohibits firearms on school property. Grass Roots N.C. is pushing for a bill to expand concealed carry rights onto school grounds.

Valone said the legislation is currently being drafted, and he already has bill sponsors lined up, though he declined to provide their names.

“By creating these gun-free zones, we are attracting violent predators,” he said, adding that school shootings have spiked since the federal act was reenacted in 1996. “Not only has it failed miserably to protect children in schools, it has also increased violence.”

But Rodney Ellis, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said allowing weapons on school grounds would be “ludicrous.”

“I think educators need to come to school armed with a passion to educate students, and I think that’s the only thing they should be armed with,” he said.

Ellis said he has heard from teachers who are concerned about the possibility of a similar law being enacted.

“We don’t want to go into schools brandishing weapons,” he said. “It’s not what we are trained to do.”

And although Valone said the proposed bill wouldn’t make concealed carry permits mandatory for educators, Ellis said the association would still oppose it.

“Classrooms aren’t built to secure a weapon like that,” he said.

Ellis said he favors increasing the number of school resource officers in schools.

There are already officers at high schools and middle schools across the state, but originally, there didn’t seem to be a need to have a school resource officer in every school, Ellis said.

“Until recently, who’s thought to have what is basically a sheriff in an elementary school?” Ellis said. “It’s a shame it’s come to this.”

The Sandy Hook shooting will probably inspire a variety of legislation, said Christopher Schroeder, a law professor at Duke University.

Schroeder recently left a job as assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice. There, he helped make recommendations to improve the federal background check system used before purchasing guns.

“There’s no single magic elixir to deal with the gun problem,” Schroeder said.

He said in addition to improving the background check system, he favors a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.

Schroeder said he expects President Barack Obama to soon announce a package of both legislative proposals and executive action. Vice President Joe Biden is heading a task force on the issue.

And he thinks North Carolina could see some legislative changes as well.

“There’s a window of opportunity right now to take some constructive steps while everyone is still paying attention to this problem, but it’s not going to last very long,” Schroeder said — about two or three months.

“This one has uniquely affected the public consciousness about firearms,” he said. “The twenty 5- and 7-year-olds being shot several times with a high-powered weapon is the kind of mental image that causes you to lose sleep at night.”

Contact the desk editor at state@dailytarheel.com.