US public opinion divided over arming teachers

In the aftermath of yet another mass school shooting, President Donald Trump says that if one of the victims, a football coach, had been armed "he would have shot and that would have been the end of it."

Revisiting an idea he raised in his campaign, Trump's comments in favor of allowing teachers to be armed come as lawmakers in several states are wrestling with the idea, including in Florida, where the 17 most recent school shooting victims are being mourned.

The debate breaches statehouse walls, and teachers and the public are divided on the issue. A poll released this week by ABC News/Washington post says 42 percent of Americans believe teachers with guns could have prevented the Florida shooting.

Salt Lake City, Utah, teacher Kasey Hansen said the idea to arm herself in school began with the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults died.

"It just really hit home that these teachers, all they could do was pile those kids in a corner and stand in front of them and hope for the best," said Hansen, who carries a concealed handgun as she teaches special education students.

"I'm not here to tell all teachers that they have to carry a gun," she said. "For me personally, I felt that it was more of a solution than just hiding in a corner and waiting."

Utah is among at least eight states that allow, or don't specifically prohibit, concealed weapons in K-12 schools, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, called arming teachers "one of the worst ideas I have heard in a series of really, really, really bad ideas." Nevertheless, a tweeted offer by Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard Jones to train local teachers to carry a concealed handgun garnered so much interest that he quickly capped the number at 300.

When asked by radio host Hugh Hewitt about arming teachers, his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, said states "clearly have the opportunity and the option to do that."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for small groups of armed teachers in every school, and was quickly countered by Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who labeled it the new "gun industry business model - using the gun violence epidemic to sell more guns, make more profit."

The National Association of School Resource Officers favors hiring more trained law enforcement officers, in part to ensure a teacher's gun won't mistakenly wind up in a student's hands.