Absolutely NO!

We should have more armed guards and metal detectors. It is unsafe for a teacher to have it in a classroom. Where would a teacher keep a loaded gun if it were allowed?

The funds supposedly aren't available for teachers to be paid to teach. From where will the funds come to purchase the guns and train everyone to secure and use them properly?

The solution is not penalizing those who have legally purchased their guns, but to reduce the number and types of guns that are available in the first place. I'd be interested in knowing the statistics of the number of violent crimes that occur with legally registered guns vs. illegal guns. Going after those with licenses is an "easy" fix to a problem that goes beyond licensure.

No, I wouldn't put guns in the hands of teachers. Who's to say a teacher couldn't go nuts and become a shooter themself? All schools need to have one, and only one, dedicated entrance that all visitors must pass through with some level of security present. I would have to think more about what exactly that security would be.

How about more art and music and after school activities instead of more guns. Time to change the culture.

And/or counselors and psychologists.

We need metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs. There is a serious drug problem in the WO schools and we need to eradicate that before we think about gun violence.

There are procedures and laws currently in place to protect the public's safety that are not being strictly adhered to; Many years ago, the School District fired all the regular busing bus - aides. I called the Superintendent. I said " Don't you think that 40 children who are on a bus for a significant amount of time should have a monitor"? He said " We had to make some tough decisions because of budgetary constraints." I asked " Did you take a pay cut? " He replied,"No." I asked, "Did you take a pay freeze"? He replied "No." I asked "Did the teachers and Administrators have their compensation cut or frozen ? " He ,No, but Aide or no Aide, the students are required to obey the Code of Conduct the District has formulated." So I asked, "Would a teacher leave a classroom unattended for 30 to 45 minutes"? He said "No." I asked, "Would it be o.k. if a teacher, occupied with something else, sat with her back to the class for 30 to 45 minutes?" He said "No." I told my children, be on your best behavior, and alert me to any bad behavior on the bus. Isn't there a mandatory home smoke - detector inspection law on the books? Has the Township and Fire Department enforced this public - safety law? Are all homes in compliance? Of course not.

Why would the Fire Department have to "monitor" us anyway? Inspections or no inspections, the public is required to obey the law, i.e. to follow a "Code of Conduct", correct?

No, I don't believe teachers should be armed.

Also, Didn't the Township Have a police officer assigned to WOHS who had to be reassigned to street duty because of "budgetary constraints"?

Those "Drug Free School Zone" signs should be replaced with signs that say "Gun and Drug Free School Zone" It worked for drugs didn't it?

Still a WOPD office at the High School. And hardly a 'drug problem'.

The tragedies of Newtown, CT and Aurora, CO have begun a debate that is surely worth having but, we are all best guided by using common sense and keeping practical realities in mind.

While a soldier in combat has a reasonable expectation of confronting an armed enemy and is prepared to do so, that is simply not an expectation for most of us as we go through our daily lives. A sworn police officer, appropriately trained and armed is schooled to observe his surroundings and react when necessary but, even his/her ability to curtail an aggressor is limited by their proximity to them and normal, human reaction time.

If someone chooses to draw a firearm and discharge it among a group of people in any venue, a great deal of carnage can result before anyone could do anything to stop it and that is precisely what happened in both Newton and Aurora; the perpetrator in the former incident commiting suicide and, in the latter, meekly surrendering to police when they arrived. The point being, the damage had been done before anyone could have done anything about it.

In both cases, the mental health of the actors has come under scrutiny and it is entirely likely that we'll never make any sense of the reason either acted as they did. No amount of security, whether human or technological, will come close to eliminating the possibility of such things happening...but, they are not so prevalent that arming teachers should even be a consideration.

I believe that better security measures should be provided, before an anyone is allowed in the building. Each school should have a separate secured entrance were the persons identity and reason for there visit can be verified. Once this is done then the individual can be allowed to enter into the building. Example would be one way into the building were a security guard is stationed with a computer to verify if this person is employee parent etc., once verification is done and the trained security officer feels this person is not a threat, then they can be allowed through the secured entrance and into the building.

Michelle Scott:

The problem with such check points is the assumption that someone hell bent on creating mayhem would only try to access a building through one.

Our schools weren't designed as fortresses (and retrofitting them as such would bankrupt us) and there are plenty of ground level windows through which most of them can be entered.