US official: Give guns to teachers to prevent shooting

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A senior US official has proposed arming teachers with guns to prevent increasing shooting incidents in schools, echoing similar views expressed by US President Donald Trump earlier this year, as Texas mourns the death of 10 people including 8 students in Friday’s mass shooting at the Santa Fe High School.

Republican Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, said arming more teachers could help tackle gunmen targeting students if there were "four to five guns to one", according to a BBC report. The Texan official had previous said schools had "too many entrances and too many exits" and their design should be reconsidered.

Trump, after the February 14 school shootout in Florida, had suggested giving teachers a bonus if they carried guns. The US president later narrowed the proposal to hand over guns to "only the best 20% of teachers" and particularly those with military backgrounds or special training.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick speaks during a press conference about the shooting incident at Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, US, on May 18, 2018. /VCG Photo

Patrick, a prominent champion of gun ownership, has advocated carrying weapons openly and concealed in Texas. On Sunday, he told CNN's State of the Union program that restricting school entrances and arming more teachers could reduce such incidents.

"When you're facing someone who's an active shooter, the best way to take that shooter down is with a gun. But even better than that is four to five guns to one," he said.

In another interview with ABC's This Week, he blamed a culture of violence. "We have devalued life, whether it's through abortion, whether it's the breakup of families, through violent movies, and particularly violent video games."

Patrick asserted that "Guns stop crimes."

Slain Pakistani student mourned

Members of the community pray during a funeral prayer service for Sabika Sheikh at the Brand Lane Islamic Center in Stafford, Texas, US, on May 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

Patrick’s statements came as Houston’s Muslim community gathered on Sunday to pay tribute to a 17-year-old Pakistani exchange student killed in Friday’s mass shooting.

About 1,000 people, many with Pakistani roots, converged on an Islamic center in Stafford to honor Sabika Sheikh, whose body was brought by hearse to the somber service from Santa Fe.

Among the mourners was the late teen's first cousin who lives in the United States. She said Sheikh's relatives are completely devastated.

"The family back home, we are in touch with them. They're crying every moment. Her mother is in denial right now," Shaheera al-Basid, a graduate student in the US capital Washington, told AFP at the funeral service.

"It's a shock we need our entire life to recover from," the 26-year-old added.

Men lined up in rows offered traditional mourning prayers as Sheikh's coffin, draped in the green and white flag of Pakistan, was brought into a small, cramped sanctuary.

Aziz Shaikh, father of Sabika Sheikh, a Pakistani exchange student, who was killed with others when a gunman attacked Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, US, holds for media, his mobile phone displaying photo of his daughter at his residence in Karachi, Pakistan, on May 19, 2018. /VCG Photo

Sheikh had been due to return home in mere weeks, in time for Eid al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

"It's a shock, it's so sad," said realtor Ike Samad, 67, who was born in Pakistan but has lived here most of his adult life and raised his children as Americans.

"I came here just like her, as a student," he recalled. "God forbid that could have happened to me when I was here. As a parent, it is just devastating."

Samad also addressed the painful irony that a young woman from a country that many Americans associated with the war on terror in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington was killed in a country that millions around the world see as a bastion of freedom.

The attacks were a "tragedy, and tragedy sometimes teaches you life," he said. "But it also revisits, and in this case very close to here."

Several Pakistani-American youths also attended the funeral service, including Danyal Zakaria of nearby Sugar Land, Texas.

The 17-year-old said it was "truly mind-blowing" that an exchange student his age could be cut down in cold blood at a US school.

"This nation is known to be safe," he said. "If America is not safe, then where is?"

In Texas, gun rights is paramount

Gun enthusiasts inspect firearms during the annual National Rifle Association (NRA) convention in Dallas, Texas, US, on May 5, 2018. /VCG Photo

While February’s school massacre in Parkland, Florida inspired students to launch a spirited gun control movement, observers feel similar calls for reform are unlikely to resonate in Texas, where support for gun rights is paramount.

In Santa Fe, "It's not going to happen," Jordan Flores, who graduated from Santa Fe in 2015, said as he and two friends brought donuts to state troopers posted at the high school's front gate.

The gun culture is so strong here, he said, that when reports emerged of a lockdown at the same school earlier this year, he and friends rushed to help - armed to the hilt.

"We showed up, I had a .40 on my hip, a 12-gauge on my back, he had an AK. We were ready," Flores said.

Blaming guns for the actions of individuals goes against the grain, he said. "It's outside factors" that are to blame, including bad parenting, the pressures from social media, and mental health issues, Flores added.

Sprawling and conservative Texas, a southern state bordering Mexico, has among the most permissive firearm laws in the United States, where a third of children live in a household with at least one firearm.

The state's Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, is proud of his pro-gun position.

"I'm EMBARRASSED: Texas #2 in nation for new gun purchases, behind CALIFORNIA," he memorably tweeted in 2015.

"Let's pick up the pace Texans."

Protesters hold signs during the funeral service of Santa Fe High School shooting victim Sabika Sheikh, in Stafford, Texas, US, on May, 20, 2018. /VCG Photo

The state has been the scene of several ghastly mass shootings over the years. Last November a gunman killed 26 worshippers at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs.

But residents of Santa Fe pointed to that tragedy -- when an armed citizen chased down the attacker -- as an example of the theory perpetuated by the National Rifle Association: that a good guy with a gun is often the best way to stop criminals.

"I don't think gun reform is going to be an issue at all in our community or in Texas as a whole," said Geoff Anderson, a private investigator whose son is a senior at Santa Fe High School.

Authorities ought to focus more on mental health issues and arming school personnel, rather than calling for limits on the proliferation of legal weapons, residents said.

One father of a Santa Fe High School sophomore recalled how guns were a fabric of life in the area since back when he grew up.

"We students had gun racks in our trucks. My friends would go hunting in these woods before school," said the father, who asked not to be named.

"It's not the guns."

Arguing the other side on Saturday outside the high school were Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter Jessie was slain in an Aurora, Colorado theater shooting nearly six years ago.

These days they live in a camper, traveling from state to state counselling students and parents after the latest tragedy.

So far they have been to the scene of nine mass shootings.

"Isn't that pathetic? Isn't that sad?" asked Sandy Phillips, who wore a button bearing a photograph of her late daughter.

"When you have 300 million guns on the streets, it's pretty easy to have mass shootings," she said. "To say that we don't have a gun problem, that's insanity."

[Cover Photo: Handguns are displayed during the NRA Annual Meeting & Exhibits at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas, US, on May 5, 2018. /VCG Photo]

11668km

May 18, 2018

Source(s): AFP