At a state Senate Education Committee hearing last week, Mark Zilinskas, a teacher from Indiana Area High School, testified on behalf of a bill to allow Pennsylvania teachers and other school employees to carry guns at work.

Citing the 2012 massacre of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut and an April knife attack at a school near Pittsburgh that injured 21 people, Zilinskas told the committee that the bill proposed would enable licensed and trained school employees to use guns to potentially prevent such mass shootings, rather than react to it.Prime sponsor of the legislation, state Sen. Donald White from western Pennsylvania, said his bill would give school boards more options for protecting students, including allowing their certified and licensed staff to carry firearms in school buildings and on the grounds.Providing a counterpoint, state Sen. Anthony Williams of Philadelphia said it's a bad idea to place such a grave responsibility on people whose principal interest is educating children.Entering this fall semester, public schools in 28 states allowed adults who legally own guns to carry them from kindergarten classrooms to high school hallways.Of those states, seven specifically cite teachers and other school staff members as being allowed to carry guns in their schools.Most public schools conduct lockdown drills to prepare students and faculty for active-shooter situations but do not provide a contingency plan if the shooter penetrates the door to an area where people are being held.One proponent of the bill said the plan to arm adults picks up where the lockdown drill leaves off.It's imperative that armed adults in school are properly trained.In Missouri, where local school boards decide whether faculty members can be armed, the training includes five hours in the classroom and 35 hours on the gun range.Colorado state Sen. Ted Harvey, whose wife is a teacher, introduced his state's bill to allow school districts to let teachers carry guns.He said armed teachers at Arapahoe High School might have been able to act even more quickly after James Pierson, 18, entered the school last December where he gunned down Claire Davis and ignited a Molotov cocktail before killing himself.Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson said the sight of an armed official likely prevented further casualties and was a "critical element to the shooter's decision" to commit suicide.Harvey said stricter gun laws are not the answer."I don't think schools are safe when they are gun-free zones and criminals are the only people who carry guns," he said."Then the others are sitting ducks and can't defend themselves. I don't want my wife and kids to be sitting ducks."Alan Gottlieb, president of the Second Amendment Foundation, agrees."We have armed security protecting banks and other valuables," Gottlieb said."Aren't our kids more valuable?"By Jim Zbickeditor@tnonline.com