Teacher appeals ruling forbidding gun

We are confident the Court of Appeals will affirm the trial judge's ruling A Medford English teacher who sought to bring her pistol to school has appealed a Circuit Court ruling affirming the school district 's right to forbid employees from carrying guns on campus. via Medford Mail Tribune

[Opinionated]

This is what I vote for "School districts across the state have been pressing legislators for years to pass a law that would ban everyone except law enforcement officers from carrying guns on school campuses."

[Jon]

A concealed weapon permit does not entitle the holder to do whatever he or she wants with a weapon. The interest of the State in keeping weapons off a school campus definitely trumps the rights of a concealed weapon permitee. This person also may not walk into a courtroom or a post office with her gun either, for the very same reasons she should not be bringing a gun to a school. The permit does not give the holder any affirmative rights; rather, it merely allows the holder to have a weapon on their person in certain circumstances in which a person without a permit may not. These cases come out in Oregon every couple years and are usually fed by some gun nut right wing attorney who has been "shopping" for a plaintiff to represent. This all happened at the University of Oregon a couple years ago, involving a physics graduate student. The federal court tossed the case there too. I frankly cannot believe that this is even the subject of debate given the rise in instances of gun violence at American schools. The answer to the gun problem is not arming more people. This is no longer the wild west, thank god.

[GaiaGirl]

You guys just don't get the bottom line: Outlawing weapons insures that only outlaws will have them! Examine all the school shootings in the past decade. Where were the police when they happened? The police come into the picture only after the fact--when the dead and dying are lying on the floors. It may not be the Wild West, Jon, but it isn't Utopia either. Until we have some foolproof way of ensuring that absolutely NO guns can be brought on campus (and that has never happened yet), people do have the right to protect themselves. I would rather know that my children are in a school where trained, responsible adults might be armed for protection than just hope that no angry kids are bringing Daddy's AK-47 or M-10 to show and shoot! If I saw someone (other than a law officer) trying to shoot someone (unarmed), I wouldn't hesitate to draw my concealed weapon to protect life. These days you take your life in your hands even when you walk into some corner market for a soda. People who can get illegal drugs certainly don't have any problem getting illegal weapons which they use to get money for those drugs! I feel much safer when I'm "packing," (as my son puts it). I pray I never have to use my weapon, but if the time comes and I have to protect myself, my loved ones, or some other innocent, I will thank God I have a permit to carry!

[rick]

Oregon law semms to be pretty clear on where a person with a concealed weapons permit can and cannot carry a handgun. Schools are not on the list of banned places,; but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be.