From our You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.: Oops! Arkansas advocate for arming teachers accidentally shot one

Somebody thought it would be a good idea to put a firearm in the hands of this guy?

by Ken

When NRA psychopath Wayne LaPierre and his gun-totin' fellow loonies floated the idea of arming teachers in the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting, I don't think I was alone in thinking it was urgent that these people were far too removed from reality to be allowed any voice in any discussion of school safety. Anyone who doesn't grasp the insanity of dumping guns into schools is truly a danger to humanity, in particular to the teachers and children destined to be victims of those guns.

So it's not all that shocking to learn that the gun crazies have been trying to kind of sit on the information that one of their blunder-brained blowhards, in the course of what I guess he thought was field research, actually shot a schoolteacher. Jeez Louise, you can't make this stuff up.

Here's Neetzan Zimmerman's Gawker account ("Lawmaker Leading Call for Arming Teachers Accidentally Shot a Teacher"; more links onsite):

State Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson put forward a proposal in the wake of last December's mass shooting event at Sandy Hook Elementary School that would allow law enforcement officials to deputize teachers and other staff members, effectively putting them in charge of school safety.

But an embarrassing item in today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette might make other local politicians wary of placing the gun debate in Hutchinson's hands:

After the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, Hutchinson became interested in arming school personnel, he said. He was invited to attend an ''active shooter' training and -- using a rubber bullet-loaded pistol -- he mistakenly shot a teacher who was confronting a 'bad guy.'

The experience gave Hutchinson some pause, but he still supports giving schools the authority to decide how best to secure their campuses.

Interestingly, an item on the training exercise published by the office of Rep. Kim Hammer, who was also in attendance, omitted the part about Hutchinson shooting someone, but did include this priceless quote:

"It was intense, enlightening and when we weren't being shot, it was fun," said Sen. Hutchinson. "I learned how little I knew about school safety."

Um no, Senator Jeremy. You may have gotten a glimmering that you knew very little about school safety, but it seems pretty clear that you were a long, long way from grasping just how little.

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