OPINION: PWC School Board Chairman Feels Strongly Guns Have No Place in Schools

Ryan Sawyers, Prince William County School Board Chairman.

Submitted by Prince William School Board Chairman At-large Ryan Sawyers

In response to Delegate Robert Marshall’s (R-Manassas) HB76, which would make it legal for local school boards to allow concealed carry permit holders to possess guns on public school property, Chairman Ryan Sawyers is adamantly opposed.  Minimally trained concealed carry permit holders do not have the experience necessary to safely assess an “active shooter” event.  Experts and common sense clearly show that an active shooter situation at a school can only be made more complicated with the addition of minimally trained gun owners.

Instead of focusing on the caliber of weapon that our teachers and administrators would be asked to carry to their jobs, Delegate Marshall should be focusing on the caliber of education and funding that Richmond provides our teachers and children.  After voting to cut approximately $600 million from Virginia public schools in 2010, Delegate Marshall should set his sights on ensuring more resources reach our classrooms, not more firepower.

This very serious issue raised by Delegate Marshall is not a matter of gun rights. Chairman Sawyers is a gun owner.  He was raised in the Appalachian Mountains and was taught to treat firearms with respect.  He fired his first gun long before he was a teenager and so have both of his children.   Sawyers is not anti-gun.  He is pro-gun just as he is pro-free speech.  However, both have their limits.  This is about common sense.  We should not essentially deputize our teachers and principals, enabling them to be judge, jury and potentially executioner when they should really be focused on reading, writing and arithmetic.

Society accepts that when it comes to our children’s safety that we have special rules.  We accept that our youngest need to be in car seats when riding in a car.  We accept that the speed limit near schools lowers at the beginning and end of the school day.  We should also accept that our schools are gun free for the safety of our children and our employees.  For every instance where a “good guy with a gun” stops a “bad guy with a gun,” there are countless tragic accidents in which innocent people are killed, including innocent children.

Chairman Sawyers is always open to dialogue about making our schools safer.  He will advocate to Richmond and to the Prince William County Board of Supervisors to fund school safety initiatives that make our students, and our employees, safer.  Chairman Sawyers believes that Prince William County Schools should continue to work with any trained officer in local, state or federal agencies who lives near our schools to be first-responders in a potential active shooter event.  Prince William County Schools is no place for Delegate Marshall to experiment with his radical agenda.