Pirate's Cove

As Victory Girls Blog’s Deanna Fisher notes

This is a common pattern with President Trump. Propose one idea as being the right tack to take, watch and see who objects, then back off and change your mind. This time, it regards the age restriction on gun purchases.

If you remember, the president hosted a meeting at the White House a week ago that laid out his initial take on “what a president should do RIGHT NOW.” The reaction by conservatives and more mainstream Republicans was… shock.

It’s rather a pattern of what you see more in the business community, rather than in a politician, where they run ideas up the flagpole, realize that something will not fly, and change their minds, hence the reason we see this with Trump quite a bit. Also, because many of Trump’s leanings are NYC liberal (not hardcore progressive, just an average liberal, mind you), not Conservative. And here’s what’s going on

White House vows to help arm teachers and backs off raising age for buying guns

The White House on Sunday vowed to help provide “rigorous firearms training” to some schoolteachers and formally endorsed a bill to tighten the federal background checks system, but it backed off President Trump’s earlier call to raise the minimum age to purchase some guns to 21 years old from 18 years old.

Responding directly to last month’s gun massacre at a Florida high school, the administration rolled out several policy proposals that focus largely on mental health and school safety initiatives. The idea of arming some teachers has been controversial and has drawn sharp opposition from the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers lobby, among other groups. Many of the student survivors have urged Washington to toughen restrictions on gun purchases, but such measures are fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association, and the Trump plan does not include substantial changes to gun laws.

Rather, the president is establishing a Federal Commission on School Safety, to be chaired by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, that will explore possible solutions, such as the age requirement for purchases, officials said.

DeVos characterized the administration’s efforts as “a pragmatic plan to dramatically increase school safety.”

“We are committed to working quickly because there’s no time to waste,” she said on a conference call with reporters on Sunday evening. Invoking past mass school shootings, she continued, “No student, no family, no teacher and no school should have to live the horror of Parkland or Sandy Hook or Columbine again.”

Other stories I’ve run across regarding gun training and arming involves other school employees, as well. As Ms. Fisher points out, arming teachers is not popular with the teacher’s unions heads, but is popular with many of the rank and file, as is arming administrators, which, as I’ve said before, might be a wiser choice, since they tend to be more freely moving around the buildings, rather than stuck in a classroom.

But, so far, there are no plans released by the White House at this time. Also

The NRA supports the idea of allowing armed teachers in schools. Bremberg said the administration is backing two pieces of legislation: A bipartisan bill by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) that is designed to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System; and the STOP School Violence Act, which would authorize state-based grants to implement violence prevention training for teachers and students.

Democrats have been rather wishy washy on the background checks bill which was primarily written by Murphy, because they want promises of lots more gun control. I guess we’ll see where this all goes, and if the Washington Post knows what they’re talking about or they got punked.

It’d be nice if schools could remove the gun free zone signs, and replace them with “If you don’t work here, don’t bring a gun, because employees are armed, and you’ll lose”.