'Arm the good guys'? Kentucky and other states weigh adding guns to schools.
The urgent drumbeat has swelled since Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Florida became the latest school to be invaded by a shooter armed with an AR-15: We have to do something. Everyone from the students themselves to their parents, the Broward County sheriff, state lawmakers, and the president agree on the need for more measures to ensure confidence that children can make it home safely from class.
What that something should look like, though, is a matter of intense debate. The students, their parents, and gun-control advocates want a ban on assault-style weapons. In red states and the White House, the solution being raised with greater frequency is putting good guys with guns in US schools.
That’s what Kentucky state Sen. Steve West is proposing. The Republican lawmaker filed his state’s bill the same day a student opened fire in a western Kentucky high school in late January, killing two students and injuring 18 other people.
“My bill will not save the world,” he says in an interview. “This is a true stop-gap measure. [We’re] just trying our best to fill in a hole and fill that hole in school safety in Kentucky.”
Speaking in his office in
'Terrible' but infrequentKentucky's proposed solutionNational momentum building