The College Fix

While many government officials responded to the Newton shootings by calling for more gun control, a Pennsylvania school taken a more aggressive approach, hiring armed, retired troopers to patrol its schools and protect its students.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy, superintendent Mike Strutt of Butler, PA was concerned about how to prevent a similar massacre, should the unthinkable occur in one of the schools under his leadership.

The Washington Post reports:

Strutt stood from his desk and called the president of the Butler County School Board, Don ­Pringle.“This could happen here,” Strutt said. “Armed guards are the one thing that give us a fighting chance. Don’t we want that one thing?”

That question has preoccupied schools across the country since 27 people were killed in Newtown, Conn., last month, and the emerging solutions reflect the nation’s views on gun control. In a divided America, guns are either the problem or the solution, with little consensus in between. A dozen states have proposed legislation to put armed guards in schools; five others have drafted plans to officially disallow them.

Groups in Utah are training teachers to carry guns, Tennessee is hiring armed “security specialists” for $11.50 an hour and the National Rifle Association is working on a plan to arm school volunteers even as teachers gather in protest outside the group’s headquarters.

At stake in the debate are basic questions about the future of gun control in the United States. Do guns in schools assuage fears or fuel them? Do they keep students safe or put them at risk?

Here in Butler, a shale-mining town in the woodsy hills north of Pittsburgh, Strutt and the school board decided their reaction to Newtown could allow for neither hesitation nor ambiguity…