BBC reporter passes Texas class to carry guns in school despite shooting a 'child'
BBC's Hilary Andersson took a concealed carry class with a group of teachers in Texas and discovered that using guns in schools without harming innocent children was a lot more more difficult that she had imagined.
To follow up on the mass shooting of 20 elementary school children late last year in Connecticut, BBC on Monday planned to air a Panorama special report called "America's Gun Addiction."
In a preview of Monday night's broadcast, Andersson attends a free concealed gun class that is being offered to teachers by Austin firearms instructor Johnny Price.
"Obama's out there trying to take our guns and high-cap mags," Price warns the dozens of teachers attending his class. "Guns founded America. We didn't do it on bows and arrows."
After the target practice portion of the course, Andersson admits: "It's harder than I thought it would be."
"You got your crotch area and that's always good," Price notes as he reviews the bullet holes in the BBC reporter's target. "But you got your points here. You passed."
Price adds that one bullet had "pushed" to the outside of human silhouette area on the target.
"You push, you take out a child," he explains.
But Price insists that he still believes that guns have a place in the classroom.
"Those teachers up in Connecticut, they begged, they pleaded, they cried, the kids cried," he says. "But he kept pulling the trigger. The only thing that would have stopped him was one concealed handgun. One teacher properly trained with a firearm could have stopped him."
"But you told me I would have just killed a child there," Andersson notes.
"Did I say you're ready to carry in a school?" Price shoots back. "No. Are you ready for it? No. It takes more training."
Watch this video from BBC's Panorama, broadcast March 10, 2013.