Not sure I'm ready for guns in the classroom

Editorial Gary Mug

It’s hard to disagree with teacher Ed Booker when he wonders how it’s come to this point. The point where it’s felt by some that a percentage of school staff should go armed into our schools. This is a hard decision being made by the board, it needs your input.

A well-trained and armed teacher might make the difference between a “shooter” hurting several people or none. It’s imperative that staff gets training on how to fight back, or at least what to do so that panic doesn’t set in, but carrying guns – that’s a decision that needs to be made with a lot of input by the parents and the community at large.

It wasn’t that long ago when a shooter was loose in a Marysville, Wash. high school. I know I was especially concerned, because one of my nephews is in school in Marysville. While watching the news and texting my brother and sister-in-law, I learned that my nephew went to a different school. It is easy to see how panic could set in for those who find themselves in that situation – whether they’re a kid or adult. Any training that would help those responsible for our kids get out of the situation unharmed would be good – I’m just not sold on the armed staff at this point. Let’s see how the rest of you feel at next Monday’s meeting at the Oroville High School Commons at 7 p.m.

What else to talk about this week – well, we could discuss the 16-year-old who miraculously survived a small airplane crash and made her way through forest and rough terrain to a store in Mazama, despite both her step grandparents having perished. As of our deadline they were still searching the crash site.

Then there’s the Newby Lake Fire, it seems to keep growing, starting in Canada it has burned into the Pasayten Wilderness Area where it can be fought from the air and by non-mechanized means on the ground. It is now burning into the less environmentally protected Loomis State Forest where trucks, dozers and other methods can be used to stop it. Fire lines drawn during the Tripod Fire in 2006 are said to be aiding in the fight. While the Newby Lake Fire is less likely to threaten structures like last year’s devastating Carlton Complex, where 300 homes were lost, we are all hoping those fighting the fire remain safe and can bring it to a speedy end.

Several people took issue with me giving up my space for U.S. Rep. Newsome’s diatribe on what he, and many Republicans now call the “Activist” Supreme Court. Like, Mr. Connot, I wonder why they weren’t “Activist” when they ruled on Citizens United, giving big corporations and big money, the power to sway elections. Why weren’t they deemed “Activist” by the right when the highest court in the land threw their beloved State’s Rights out the door and told Florida they couldn’t do another presidential recount.

The Republican Party has done its best to take away the right to vote for the poor, elderly and minorities, by passing draconian voter registration and ID laws. They scream State’s Rights over everything from gun laws to flying the Confederate Flag – of course that’s only if the state has the same way of thinking as the GOP or it means more Republicans in office.