Use common sense

As state legislators consider allowing students to carry guns in the classroom, I wonder how many of them have kids of their own.

They should consider carefully that any student could easily pull out a weapon to show off or, in a state of anger, threaten a fellow student. As we know, that’s when tragedies occur — a tragedy that can happen to any one of their own kids.

A knee-jerk response by paranoid extremists should not replace common-sense approaches to finding effective ways of red-flagging those who are mentally unstable.

This story was originally published October 16, 2015 at 9:04 PM with the headline "Use common sense."