Brewster: Arm, teachers educators: Say what?PHOENIX (AP) - State Rep. Barbara Blewster 7 says teachers should be allowed to bring guns to school.
But state officials and educators say allowing concealed weapons in classrooms is not the way to reduce school
violence.
"I can't imagine anything more disturbing," said Penny Kotterman, president of the Arizona Education Association, the state's largest teachers union. "We have been focusing on creating a safe environment that is completely absent weapons and guns-"
Arizona law generally bars possession of deadly weapons on school grounds. Exceptions are allowed for storing unloaded weapons in an adult's vehicle and those being used in a schoolapproved program.
Blewster, R-Dewey suggested during a conversation with other legislators before a school-safety meeting in Prescott this week that having armed people inside a
school- would make it less likely
that a shooter could walk in and open fire.
Some gun-rights advocates
advocates said Blewster's idea has merit.
Teachers with concealed
weapons permits and training
firearms use could deter or even attack, said Terry
Allison, a Scott retiree who is president of the National Rifle
Association's state affil- Scottsdale
iate.
"If someone has the ability and means to stop an attack on schoolchildren, I would consider them morally '10
4 reprehensible not to
it," Allison said. Spokeswomen for Gov. Hull and state Superintendent Public Instruction Lisa Gralam Keegan said each opposes ing teachers to carry gun school. "If we have to resort to teachers to get kids to we've lost the battle a long xxxx ago," said Keegan spokeswoman Laura aura Penny. "There must be See BLEWSTER, Pas