The school superintendent in Harrold, Texas, who is making news with his plan to arm teachers and administrators, says that in spite of high-tech security systems, there is a flaw that exposes students to danger. That was his prime motivation for getting the unanimous approval of the school board for teachers and administrators to be able to carry guns concealed on school grounds.
Appearing on Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk radio program on Sunday, August 17, superintendent David Thweatt said that even though his school has state-of-the art technical systems of locks and cameras, there is a flaw that education leaders across the country are ignoring.
“There were two things that alarmed us,” said Thweatt. “The first was the Amish situation,” referring to the shooter who killed five girls in the small schoolhouse in October of 2006. “That was the milk delivery man. He got into the school. He was a known entity.”
Thweatt made the point that someone who is authorized to be in the school and is admitted through the security measures could then begin harming children. It could be a delivery person, a parent, or anyone.
“The other problem came right after that at Virginia Tech,” Thweatt offered. Commenting on the policy of locking down the school and locking the students into their rooms, he continued, “They did that at Virginia Tech, and guess what he did. He broke the doors down and went and shot them like fish in a barrel.”
The current school security plans were breaking down, he said, so they came up with a backup plan. That plan is to train those on the staff who volunteer, to know what to do with concealed carry guns. The training, he said, is much more than concealed carry permits require, though he would not go into details for security reasons.
The entire interview with David Thweatt can be found during the second half of the first hour of the August 17, 2008 show at www.guntalk.libsyn.com.
