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Trump's idea to arm teachers 'ridiculous,' Portland teachers union says

"There are many, many reasons why it's a ridiculous proposal," said Suzanne Cohen, president of the union.

PORTLAND, Ore. -- President Trump is not getting a lot of support here in the Northwest after saying some teachers should arm themselves with guns to protect against school shootings.

The Portland Association of Teachers calls the idea "ridiculous."

"There are many, many reasons why it's a ridiculous proposal," said Suzanne Cohen, president of the union. "We already have a lot to do, our schools are underfunded, all the research shows more guns leads to more injuries, not less injuries and we also have a teacher shortage and we've also heard from a lot of educators who would absolutely quit and leave the profession if that is where they had to show up to work."

In front of a gathering of the nation's governors at the White House on Monday, President Trump talked about ways to combat school shootings and brought up the idea that a select group of teachers adept at handling firearms, have guns in their classrooms.

"If you don't have retribution, if you're not gonna do something very serious to these guys when they walk in, they're gonna keep walking in. You're gonna have this all the time. They have to know, they walk in they're going to probably end up dead. And if they know they're going to end up dead, they're probably not going into that school," he said.

Cohen says it needs to be more about mental health counseling and gun control. "At every level of our association, national, state and local, we do not support arming of teachers. I'm not sure what problem that's trying to solve. We want to see an end to mass shootings. Because that still leaves us practicing for mass shootings, hiding in closets and barricading our doors, we need solutions that rid us of this fear."

She describes how Portland schools practice for mass shooting incidents now just like regular fire drills. Closing the blinds in a classroom, locking the door and instead of having students get under their desks, they practice getting into an area that would be a difficult place for a bullet to hit students.

Arming our classroom teachers with guns is not a solution that makes sense to many parents we talked to either.

"I think it's insane to talk about. For them to be able to get to that gun, load it and have the presence of mind, it's ridiculous logic and we shouldn't even consider it or go there," said Don Jans, father of a 5th grader at Buckman Elementary in Southeast Portland.

Buckman is a school that does have cameras. But even on Monday, visitors told us they were able to walk right in and wander around the halls, no questions asked.

"Adding guns to guns sounds like, a bad idea," said Lisbet Christiansen who moved to Portland from Denmark where guns are illegal. "If I had kids here in the U.S. I wouldn't send them to schools that had guns or armed teachers or armed security."

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