Article: Superintendent resigns after gun suggestion

A

AKrob

New member
Friday November 12 8:30 AM ET

School Chief Resigns After Gun Suggestion

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - A suburban Ohio school superintendent who suggested that teachers be armed resigned under pressure late on Thursday.

John Varis, superintendent of Reading Community Schools for the past 13 years, had provoked a firestorm of criticism when he said at a public meeting Oct. 15 that arming teachers might
improve school security.

Many parents in the working-class community were alarmed by the suggestion and circulated petitions calling for his removal. No action was taken by the Reading school board until after
the Nov. 3 election, when two new members were elected.

Seeking to ease concerns, Varis said the suggestion had been one of many ideas tossed about at a brainstorming session and would never have been applied without community approval.

He said he envisioned keeping guns for possible use by teachers in a tightly secured central location.

School board members declined to elaborate on an agreement under which Varis stepped down immediately and received a $165,000 buyout on the remaining three years of his contract
with the 1,400-student district.

In another incident involving classroom safety, six public schools reopened on Thursday in Mason, Ohio, after shutting down for two days following a mailed bomb threat traced to prison
inmate.

The inmate, Christopher Kerr, 28, signed his name to a letter threatening that a bomb would be detonated in the Mason High School cafeteria on Wednesday. Intensive searches of all
schools turned up no evidence of an explosive.

Kerr, who has been in solitary confinement at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, admitted to prison authorities that he sent the letter. They said he was still upset because he had been
expelled from the high school several years ago.

_____________________________
Thoughts?
 
Baaaaa....baaaaaa....baaaaaa...

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John/az

"The middle of the road between the extremes of good and evil, is evil. When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
 
My gut reaction to this professional beauracrat is that if he truly believed this, why the hell did it take so long to make it known? Oh there is that immediate negotiable leverage of an exit agreement based upon a politically unpopular position which is counter to the Marxist Union Dogma. 165k, yep that is my price. Pay me and I will shut up forever. As if the toad had anything valuable to to say or teach in the first place!
 
And, in other news, the Reading Community School PTA has announced another of their popular book burning events,to be held this weekend at the south end of the soccer field. Featuring works by Massad Ayoob, Col. Jeff Cooper, Stephen Halbrook and David Kopel, the event is titled 'Death to the Purveyors of Violence'. All ages are welcome ... ;)
 
Where he goofed was the suggestion to "arm" the teachers. This makes it sound like all teachers will be required to be armed. A simpler and more effective method would be to allow teachers who wish to be armed to carry concealed. After all, many wouldn't want a firearm even if they were avalible. And with CCW the bad guys would have no way of knowing who was or wasn't carrying. That crap about storing the weapons "in a tightly secured central location" would prove useless. First, could a teacher reach them in time? Second, the BGs would certianly know where the armory was located and be waiting for someone to unlock it.
I agree with the idea, but in order to work you have to keep the BGs guessing.
 
Someone in this area, not connected with the public schools, suggested the same thing. The response of the teacher's union was, "We want to educate our kids, not execute them."

I guess they figure that if you carry a gun, you are going to shoot someone. Who is a teacher going to shoot besides a student? And the great irony of the whole thing is that they will probably hire armed guards to watch over the schools eventually.
 
This, in the context that he spoke, makes no sense whatsoever.
Armed teachers, but all arms kept in a central location til needed...

Basically we have unarmed teachers and a weapons cache somewhere on school grounds.

Yeah right, that would have helped at Columbine....can you say bait?


I'll admit I'm cynical...this thing sounds either like a guy who figured a way out of his contract or an HCI/et al publicity ploy.

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" RKBA!
 
For a similar message, but with a more logical presentation, here is a press release by an Arizona legislator. She was essentially pilloried for expressing these views:

_____________________________________________

REPRESENTATIVE BARBARA B. BLEWSTER
Arizona Legislative District One
P.O. Box 1622
Dewey, Arizona 86327
Phone: 520-632-1163
FAX: 520-632-1165
E-mail: blewster@northlink.com

October 23, 1999

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
On October 20, 1999, I attended a Safety Answers for Education Commission meeting in my legislative district. I listened to reports concerning threats and assaults against teachers and mass public shooting incidents in our nation's schools. All across the country similar commissions are forming to figure out how to prevent tragedies like we have seen in Littleton, Colorado, Jonesboro, Arkansas, Pearl, Mississippi, and other schools across America.

Many in attendance spoke out about the need to increase spending for councilors, hire more coordinators, consultants, and others to gather all the information about schools, discipline, safety, etc., and then share it with everyone across the state. Most of the attendees were representing local school districts and were urging the commission to recommend more spending for schools.

The following day I received a call from a reporter at the Arizona Republic. He asked me about my opinions regarding the violence in our nation's schools. I believe that all children should be safe and protected at school and that most Americans would agree that we should be willing and able to protect our children while they are at school. We have laws in this country that make it illegal to possess a firearm on or near school campuses. The gunmen who have terrorized American schools of late predictably have not obeyed the law.

There is ample data to suggest the effectiveness of concealed firearms carried by law-abiding adults as a deterrent to mass shootings. University of Chicago Law Professor John Lott, Jr. has probably done the most extensive research on the topic. His analysis is based on data from all 3,054 counties in the United States, including 18 years of F.B.I. crime statistics. Professor Lott's report concluded that states that have passed concealed carry legislation have seen pronounced drops in mass shootings. The per-capita death rates in those states due to mass public shootings plummeted by 69 per cent. Ten states that passed concealed carry laws saw the death and injury rates from mass public shootings reduced to zero after five years.

Professor Lott's findings based on data from all 3,054 U.S. counties from 1977 through 1992 concluded that allowing citizens to carry concealed firearms deters violent crime while producing no apparent increase in accidental deaths, and no increase in the "Wild West"-type dangers opponents of concealed carry laws had predicted. According to Professor Lott, "Putting more guns in the hands of responsible adults may be one of the best immediate steps we could take to help solve the plague of school shootings."

In the early 1970's PLO terrorists targeted many Israeli schools, kindergartens, and school buses. The schools were a very attractive target because of the publicity and infamy that the media afforded terrorists who attacked schools. The schools were also unprotected. Armed gunmen could easily kill large numbers of children and take many hostages. When the Israelis trained citizens in firearms use and teachers, nurses, parents, and grandparents worked together to guard the schools, the terrorists failed in two separate attempts to infiltrate schools. Afterwards, the terrorist attacks against Israeli schools stopped.

In America those seeking infamy have begun to attack our schools. We have laws forbidding firearms on or near school grounds. We have tens of thousands of gun control laws. None of these laws have deterred these attention-seeking sociopaths. In 1997, 16-year-old Luke Woodham entered Pearl High School and opened fire. School administrator Joel Myrick ran to his car, grabbed his Colt .45 semi-automatic pistol and forced the gunman to surrender by pointing the gun at his head. In 1998 14-year-old Andrew Wurst opened fire on an eighth-grade dance in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. The owner of the banquet hall grabbed a shotgun from the office, confronted the gunman, and he surrendered. The death toll was limited to one.

I am not suggesting that all school personnel be armed. Moreover, I believe there are many long-term cultural issues that need to be addressed. We need stronger families and higher standards for children, not just in terms of academics but in terms of the conduct that we will and will not tolerate among our youth. In the short term, however, we should be willing to protect our schools from sociopathic gunmen who would make a name for themselves by shooting and terrorizing unarmed teachers, school personnel, and children. I believe that volunteer school personnel who pass rigorous psychological examinations and undergo appropriate training in firearms and the judicious use of deadly force could, if they were permitted to carry concealed firearms, deter mass shooting incidents at public schools. It would, of course, require that only those involved with a crisis management plan know which personnel had concealed weapons. When it comes down to a mass shooting incident, and American students' lives are on the line, the ability to stop the gunman by force or threat of force immediately is the most effective way to preserve lives and reduce injuries.

Although the data suggest that guns in the hands of law abiding adults dramatically reduces violent crime, and does not increase accidental shootings, many are so committed to disarming the American people that they have no interest in the data that supports an armed society. Although it is hard for many Americans to imagine school personnel carrying concealed handguns, just a few short years ago it would have been even harder for most of us to imagine the horrific mass shooting attacks on our nation's schools.

In the short term I believe the best deterrent to these attacks is to protect our school children by whatever means are necessary.

Finally, in closing, it is much easier to attack me personally than to thoughtfully discuss the merits of what I have proposed. We should look at the possibility of having armed, trained, law-abiding adults prepared if necessary to protect students from a gunman who's goal it is to take as many lives as possible, thus having a place of infamy in the American media. I stand by the Second Amendment to our Constitution. I believe we should give our children the benefit of the most rigorous research on the issue of school safety, and quickly, lest we lose more lives.
_____________________________________________

Not perfect, perhaps, but pretty compelling in my book.

Regards from AZ

[This message has been edited by Jeff Thomas (edited November 13, 1999).]
 
So send her a polite, brief email commending her for the rationality of her statement.

I have difficulty in finding any reason for her to be pilloried in the press, which might help explain my contempt for most editors and reporters. (Reporters are supposed to report, not editorialize, but...) The doofus crowd, such as HCIers, is incompetent at analyzing written statements as to realism.

Later, Art
 
Ok, somebody set me straight here. Is the school "gun free zone" federal or state law? If its a state law we have a better chance of fighting it. If its federal, we're probably sunk.
However, if the state passes a law allowing CCW in these gun free zones will federal law override it and prevent it from being used?
 
Greyfox: It's a federal law. However, it's a federal law which the Supreme court has already struck down as unconstitutional once, only to have the Republican controlled Congress re-enact it. It was stuck in a committee bill, and the GOP leadership lied to their members, telling them that there were no gun control amendments in the bill, 'cause a floor fight over this would have delayed their vaction by a couple of days. So it was voted into law by members of Congress who had been told by their own leaders that it wasn't in the bill; Don't you love the way clean, above board way Congress functions?

I expect the Supremes would strike it down again, in a heartbeat. But that would require a test case, and I haven't heard that the new law is actually being enforced; Just left on the books to intimidate people. Then again, isn't that the case with most federal gun laws?

------------------
Sic semper tyranus!
 
More from the Blewster commentaries! More, I say!

A most logical, persuasive argument.

As an educator and handgun owner, I do not disagree at all with CC for teachers willing to do so. Teachers are held fully responsible, by law, for the students under their care for the duration of the period in which those students are in class. During a crisis, teachers would have to stand in the gap, so to speak, for those students. A responsible, trained, armed teacher would have the immediate advantage in a crisis until the proper authorities arrived.

Likewise, Gov. Ventura stated it best when asking why we put our money under armed, tight security when our best investment is our youth.

Interesting thought.

My wife also teaches. She and I have often discussed how legislators have, at once, trickled away more and more authority from educators hands while placing more and more responsibility onto our backs. Sorry, but if I carried in my classroom, and some sociopath decided to do the most severe injustice to my students, to my colleagues, and to me, then, by God, self-preservation takes precedence over my job.

My first year teaching, I was the only male teacher present when some juniors decided to fight. One boy was choking the other blue. Most educators are scared sh*tless to lay hands in an unreligious manner on students, but that day, breaking a chokehold for a youth who couldn't breath was my job. I forced the choker off him. Things could have gone badly if I had maintained current socially engineered educational thinking ("Never touch a student!"). As I see it, any inaction on my part would have created its own liabilities with which I could not have been comfortable.
 
Greyfox,
I don't know about the gun free zones, but I do know that it is currently legal for a CCW holder to carry into a public school in my state. There is an initiative drive that is trying to change that. Pretty foolish in my mind! I need to find out what is being doen to oppose the initiative.
 
lied to their members, telling them that there were no gun control amendments in the bill

Then the members get what they deserve for not actually reading the friggin' bill they're voting on. Bozos.
 
It seems to me that the parents who started the petition and protest against the sugestion of properly testing,training and arming the teachers were the real fools here!
It seems to me that they are incapable of seeing the correct solution to the problem of school terrorism when it hits them on the head with a 2x4 to get their attention. Of course, this is about what you would expect from a bunch of dis-informed by socialist elitests, liberally dis-educated and socialist brain washed sheeple.If this is to be the future of Americia , then we will all end up slaves to the whims of the government. Both stupidity & ignorance are dangerious and we have a lot of dis-informed Americans out there unwilling to learn the truth.When they finally learn the hard way, it will be too late for them & us! I'll bet this is what the first respondent ment by BAA---BBAAA!

[This message has been edited by ernest2 (edited November 13, 1999).]
 
While I agree with CT, I'd note it is the public who gets what we *don't* deserve.

If Brett has it right, then the Republicans intentionally created and passed a gun control bill - proving the Republicans also have gun control goals.

Left wing Democrats, right wing Republicans, they're nearly all Republocrats. As Brett and Johnny point out, they're screwing up our education system and violating the Constitution. And let's not forget how they become rich on our tax dollars while they take more and more power unto themselves.

It really *is* time for a change, folks.

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited November 14, 1999).]
 
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