Rep. John Burt: MOAR GUNZ!
Fresh off his big win in the New Hampshire House where he convinced lawmakers to permit guns on the House floor and in the gallery, Rep. John Burt has set his sights on his next target: arming the state’s school teachers.
“I am working on a bill for next year that would allow ‘trained’ 'willing’ teachers to carry in our NH public schools,” the Goffstown Republican told his Facebook friends, after being lampooned by cartoonist Mike Marland in the Concord Monitor.
It’s not the first time the state’s lawmakers have attempted to arm teachers. In 2013, just three weeks after the Sandy Hook school shooting, Fremont Reps. Dan Itse and Tim Comerford sponsored legislation that would have allowed school employees to carry concealed firearms on school property if the district’s voters approved.
Rep. JR Hoell (R-Dunbarton) expressed support. “The [Gun-Free School Zones] act has created a easy (soft) target for the morally bankrupt sociopaths who are fascinated with the slaughter of innocent lives,” he wrote on Facebook. “There is no other way to address these individuals other than to ensure the staff of the school are prepared to respond to those persons.”
“Our most valuable lives are taught to hide in a corner during a lock down, but the teachers are not trained on how to respond to a deranged individual other than 'use scissors and pens,’ ” Hoell declared.
“It is both astounding and disturbing that following the recent tragedies, politicians and pundits who have spent little if any time in public schools have taken to the airwaves and to the State House floors to call for arming our teachers,” responded NEA-NH president Scott McGilvray. “As the rest of the country debates how to keep guns out of schools, in New Hampshire we are actually proposing bringing more guns in.”
House Bill 609 was killed by the House after the Criminal Justice committee recommended its defeat in a unanimous 18-0 vote.