Fairfax Teachers Union Launches Safety Survey
In light of Sandy Hook shootings and ahead of Virginia General Assembly kickoff this week, union turns to members to get opinion on guns in schools and what safe schools should look like.
In the weeks since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., politicians and advocacy groups have issued recommendations for how schools can try to prevent the tragedy — which killed 26 students and school employees — from happening again. A voice so far largely absent from those discussions in Fairfax and Northern Virginia: teachers. One of Fairfax County's largest teachers unions is hoping to change that, launching Tuesday a security and schools survey asking its 4,265 members about the use of guns in schools, where the system could use extra security personnel, how safe schools are now and how to make them safer, among other topics. "What I see more and more of is politicians posturing up and taking positions …
In this Article:
Chuck Stein
12:58 pm on Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Germany has one of the strictest gun ownership laws in the world, yet that did not stop two school massacres, in 2002 and 2009. After the U.S. assault weapons ban lapsed in 2004, the Urban Institute conducted a study and found that the ban had zero effect -- zero -- on reducing gun violence. There are plenty of studies empirically demonstrating that the safest communities have the highest rates … more ›