Boston school superintendent: Arming teachers would be stupid and dangerous

Boston School Superintendent Tommy Chang announced today he would fight any effort to arm BPS teachers - not that he's likely to see any proposal from either City Hall or BPD, where officials have long called for more restrictions on guns, not fewer.

In a statement in reaction to the president's proposal to arm some teachers with guns, Chang said in a statement:

The mere thought that teachers should be armed in order to ward off violence is utterly illogical and will only result in making our students and teachers less safe.

The real issue at hand continues to be access to guns. In Boston, we have some of the strictest gun laws in the country. We have a Mayor and a Police Commissioner who are fighting federal proposals that threaten to move us backward, such as the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act. Just last year, we hosted the New England Regional Gun Summit right here at the Bolling Building to work with our neighboring cities and states on preventing the illegal flow of firearms into our city.

When it comes to school safety, we know that our focus should be on violence prevention and creating a culture of inclusion in all of our schools. We are providing regular training that’s rooted in best practices to ensure the safety of our students if a situation were to occur, not wasting our time training educators how to carry and use a firearm. Our priority in Boston will always be the well-being of our school communities, and bringing guns into schools is simply not the answer.