CNN Finally Notices Schools in Texas That Already Arm Teachers

In a report aired on Friday’s New Day and again on Saturday’s CNN Newsroom with Fredricka Whitfield, CNN correspondent Ed Lavandera actually gave attention to a school district in Texas that already arms its teachers with concealed weapons and has them train in case they need to defend the school.

On New Day, CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and John Berman seemed skeptical after the report because the teachers had not yet had a chance to demonstrate that they could defend the school successfully a the pair failed to note that the fact that they have not been attacked yet could be evidence of deterrence.

In the pre-recorded piece, Lavandera informed viewers:

Out of the roughly 1,000 school districts across the state of Texas, there are about 170 that have a policy of allowing teachers or administrators to carry a firearm. Here in the small town of Callisburg, their “Guardian” program was implemented about four years ago in large part because the city doesn’t have a local police department. They rely on county sheriffs, and, in a county this large, it can take many minutes for those deputies to respond to something like a shooting scene inside a school.

After noting that the police deputy who was assigned to the school in Parkland, Florida, had failed to confront the gunman, the CNN host then cut to a clip of Callisburg superintendent Steve Clugston predicting that the teachers that his school system has trained would perform more effectively.

Concluding the report, Levandera warned: “The armed teachers here haven’t faced the worst-case scenario, so the question remains: How will they react if they’re forced to face a killer?”

As the show switched back to the anchors live, shortly before 9:00 a.m. ET, Camerota and substitute host Berman fretted over whether arming teachers was the right thing to do for other schools:

ALISYN CAMEROTA: Yeah, I mean, so that’s the problem. A lot of it’s hypothetical. We just don’t know how this will work in any sort of big numbers until it happens — and we don’t want ever want it to happen again.

JOHN BERMAN: Will teachers want it? Will it prevent discussions about other things that might work as well?