PINAL COUNTY, AZ (CBS5) -
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu has proposed that school administrators and designated teachers be armed in schools.
Babeu also said he supports the NRA's proposal to assign a deputy or police officer in every school.
Babeu released the following statement on Wednesday afternoon.
"Much the same way that commercial airline pilots have been trained and armed to defend their aircraft, school administrators and designated teachers would be trained by local law enforcement and armed to protect themselves, other staff and their students. Administrators and teachers are highly educated, they know their schools and love the children. Past efforts to protect innocent children and our schools have resulted in making them more vulnerable and more alluring as targets for mass killings. Restrictive gun laws, or even trying to take guns away from millions of law abiding citizens is unconstitutional and will NOT stop this violence. The immediate reality for every law enforcement leader is how do we best protect our schools, which are not fully protected and are not as safe as they should be in order to be called "safe school zones?
"The NRA is correct, we need a Cop in every school. We also need to train and arm school administrators and designated teachers to protect themselves and our school children. Even with an officer on campus, some of these schools are quite large. The officer can't be everywhere on campus and having trained and armed administrators and designated teachers could help limit and contain the active shooter. The Deputy or Police Officer should not simply provide armed security, yet should be a School Resource Officer (SRO). SRO's are carefully selected officers who are trained to teach classes, mentor students, building positive relationships with students and staff and are one of the best defenses against an active shooter in a school."
Babeu went on to say that he believes new gun laws are not the solution.
"We have a people problem, not a gun problem. The reality is there will be little if any change in gun laws, which is not the solution anyway. We have over 20,000 laws and regulations on firearms, yet none of them prevented these mass killings. Criminals, mentally ill mass killers and terrorists do not follow current law and they certainly will not follow any future laws.
"Sadly, there is a long history of school shootings in our nation and the "safe school zone act" of 1990 and 1995 have provided mass killers an even more alluring target of unarmed children, teachers and staff."
Also on Wednesday, Arizona's Attorney General Tom Horne released his proposal that no more than one person be trained and allowed access to a firearm at each school campus in order to prevent a repeat of the elementary school shootings in Newtown, CT.
Stay with cbs5az.com and CBS 5 News for updates on this developing story.
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