‘IT WILL ONLY MAKE SCHOOLS SAFER’: Cruz backs teachers’ rights to arm themselves in classroom

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Texas Senator Ted Cruz on Thursday said teachers who choose to do so should be free to arm themselves in the classroom.

“I think it makes perfect sense that if teachers want to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, that it will only make schools safer,” Cruz said while speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

“I don’t think you should make teachers do that, but if a teacher is comfortable and wants to be prepared to defend himself or herself, that’s a good thing,” he added.

The former Republican candidate for president’s comments come a week after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida resulted in the deaths of 17 and the injury of dozens more.

President Donald Trump on Thursday also called for similar measures, adding that protecting our schools through the use of armed teachers and former military members may be a solution to the ongoing violence.

“…Giving ‘concealed guns to gun adept teachers with military or special training experience- only the best,” the president tweeted. “…Highly trained teachers would also serve as a deterrent to the cowards that do this. Far more assets at much less cost than guards. A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people. ATTACKS WOULD END!”

Cruz said the most effective way to combat gun violence is for law enforcement officials to target violent criminals and not law-abiding gun owners.

“The left’s answer is always, always always strip the Second Amendment rights from law-abiding citizens,” he said. “You want to see crime take off? Disarm the law-abiding citizens.”

Since the February 14 shooting, Democrats have called for stricter gun control laws and a ban on AR-15s.

NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre, however, said cracks in law enforcement was to blame for last week’s shooting, not Second Amendment protected gun owners.

“What they want are more restrictions on the law-abiding,” LaPierre said while speaking at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday. “Think about that — their solution is to make you, all of you, less free.”