Parkland's Kasky Argues His Teachers Aren't Competent To Defend Lives

The Parkland shooting stunned the entire nation. It also gave rise to those many refer to as the Parkland kids or Parkland bunch. This is used to describe the vocal gun-control activists that rose to prominence in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. One of those is Cameron Kasky.

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Kasky has since seemed to distance himself from the March For Our Lives movement he helped create, but he still holds onto his anti-gun sensibilities.

In fact, he’s so anti-gun that he doesn’t seem to think that teachers are particularly competent enough to protect human life, apparently.

Parkland activist Cameron Kasky says a new Florida law that allows some teachers to carry firearms on campus is “asinine.”

“The notion that my chemistry teacher is expected to have any sort of control of a situation where there’s a mass shooting or some sort of violence among students is incredibly dangerous,” Kasky said Tuesday on “Anderson Cooper Full Circle.”
As of October 1, some Florida teachers can carry firearms on campus.

Except, it’s not about “control of a situation.” It’s about allowing the teacher to have the means to defend human life in the midst of a situation no one except the bad guy has control of.

Let’s be clear here. These aren’t just random teachers who just get to decide if they’re going to carry or not. No, they’re specifically trained to carry a gun and respond to situations like mass shootings.

Last year, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission founded the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program. Named for the Parkland faculty member who was killed in the attack along with 16 students and staff, the program allows schools to arm teachers and staff or personnel hired specifically as guardians in the case of an armed attack.
Guardians must pass psychological and drug screenings and complete at least 144 hours of training, according to the Florida Department of Education.
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As CNN notes, the training is something Kasky actually said needed to be in place when this was discussed in 2018. Now that it’s required, it’s a problem. In other words, Kasky isn’t going to be satisfied.

Yet, let’s also understand that 144 hours is a lot of training for this kind of thing. Teachers are only likely to face a handful of scenarios where they’ll be needed to act. Meanwhile, police only undergo an average of 110 hours of firearms and self-defense training in the police academy. They also have to be trained to deal with so many other potential situations.

So these teachers will get an additional 34 hours of training with fewer potential altercations requiring an armed response.

Kasky, however, doesn’t think his chemistry teacher is up to it. Even with 144 hours of specific training for how to protect student life, Kasky is so down on his chemistry teacher’s capabilities that he doesn’t think he could correctly respond to a mass shooting.

I hope Kasky’s chemistry teacher doesn’t take this personally, that’s for sure.

However, Kasky really needs to sit down and shut up. He wanted training to be required if this was going to happen and he got it. I’d rather any teacher or staff member with a permit bit permitted to carry on campus, so this is far from what many gun rights activists wanted. He got what he wanted, and he’s still not happy.

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Shocking, I know.

Meanwhile, we’re not likely to hear about a pile of incidents at Florida schools. Guess what else we’re not likely to hear about? Another Parkland.

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