{"id":25155,"date":"2019-06-10T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-10T22:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/summit-community-leaders-participate-in-panel-on-the-role-of-guns-in-schools-and-places-of-worship\/"},"modified":"2019-06-10T16:32:00","modified_gmt":"2019-06-10T22:32:00","slug":"summit-community-leaders-participate-in-panel-on-the-role-of-guns-in-schools-and-places-of-worship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/local-news\/summit-community-leaders-participate-in-panel-on-the-role-of-guns-in-schools-and-places-of-worship\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit community leaders participate in panel on the role of guns in schools and places of worship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Summit School District safety and security manager Aaron Quirk, Breckenridge Police Chief Jim Baird and Colorado Council of Churches executive director Adrian Miller participate in a panel on gun violence moderated by Jonathan Knopf on Sunday, June 9, at the Colorado Mountain College campus in Breckenridge.<\/strong>
Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 Community members from across the county gathered Sunday night at Colorado Mountain College to take in a conversation about gun violence and the role of firearms in schools and places of worship.<\/p>\n

The event served as a kickoff for the fourth annual Summer Sundays Film Series put on by the Summit Colorado Interfaith Council, a coalition of faith-based groups in Summit County that works to address and lead conversations surrounding important social issues. While the group has tackled gun violence in previous incarnations, organizers wanted to return to the topic with a more specific focus on firearms in traditionally gun free areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a topic that just keeps coming up,\u201d the Interfaith Council\u2019s Diane Luellen said. \u201cTragic events keep happening and happening, and our film committee felt we\u2019d stick with that topic again this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to a pair of short documentaries, titled \u201cG is for Gun: The Arming of America\u2019s Teachers\u201d and \u201cGod\u2019s Guns,\u201d the event also featured a panel on the topic including Breckenridge Police Chief Jim Baird, executive director of the Colorado Council of Churches Adrian Miller and Summit School District safety and security manager Aaron Quirk.<\/p>\n

\u201cG is for Gun,\u201d a film by Kate Way and Julie Akeret, details efforts and opposition to training and arming teachers in Sidney, Ohio \u2014 an ever growing national debate after some states passed laws allowing teachers to be armed. \u201cGod\u2019s Guns,\u201d from Polygooi Productions, focuses on the dichotomy between a church in Kentucky actively arming its congregation with gun raffles during services and the members of the Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, which responded to the church\u2019s 2015 shooting with the national \u201cHate Won\u2019t Win\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

After the screenings, the panelists fielded questions from moderator Jonathan Knopf and members of the crowd.<\/p>\n

Quirk, who\u2019s responsible for safety measures for the Summit School District, said that while the conversation has come up, he\u2019s never seriously considered attempts to arm teachers, noting that guns should be left with professionals.<\/p>\n

\u201cSummit School District does not have any armed teachers,\u201d Quirk said. \u201cThe only people who are armed are the individuals with badges. \u2026 The individual in the (documentary) said he could get them trained in three days. That\u2019s very, very unrealistic. It takes countless hours. So arming teachers is not the answer, I promise you.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor people in my position, building relationships with law enforcement is huge because they can make the kids feel more comfortable going to school, and that\u2019s who\u2019s trained to do that job. Teachers are trained to build relationships with kids, to help them and guide them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller said he\u2019s seen similar conversations pop up in faith communities around the state, noting that he\u2019s aware of numerous places of worship wherein leadership may know of individuals in the congregation with concealed guns inconspicuously serving as security without the knowledge of the rest of the congregation. Still, Miller said he was against the arming of teachers and churchgoers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a concern, and what I\u2019m seeing coming across my email and phone is there are more organized trainings now occurring with churches,\u201d said Miller, who emphasized he was speaking for himself and not on behalf of the Colorado Council of Churches. \u201cYou\u2019ve got groups going around the country inviting faith communities to come get specialized training for such things, \u2026 but most congregations I know have decided not to arm anyone in their sanctuary. They said, \u2018We\u2019re not going to fear, and we believe that love will conquer hate.\u2019 I believe in that position, but once something happens, you start asking questions. That\u2019s what is leading a lot of faith leaders to take the step of actually having armed people in their congregation. The \u2018what ifs\u2019 are too horrific.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baird didn\u2019t give a definitive position on the topic either way, but he did provide some insight on the likely response of police during an active shooter situation. Baird set a timer on his phone and began walking around the room mock-shooting audience members with a finger-gun for five minutes, noting that the department likely wouldn\u2019t get a call for a couple of minutes and may not have officers on scene for a couple more.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, this is a very intense subject, and there are people that feel very passionately about it on both sides,\u201d Baird said. \u201cThere are some people who truly believe the teacher\u2019s role should be in a silo. They\u2019re there to educate children and shouldn\u2019t have a role in school security. On the other side of the coin, we know it is going to take a couple minutes, probably, for the police to even be aware of this incident. \u2026 In that five minutes, how much damage could happen?\u201d<\/p>\n

Of note, Baird and Quirk both lauded Summit\u2019s school system for its existing safety measures, including school resource officers from the Summit County Sheriff\u2019s Office at the middle and high schools, and locking doors requiring visitors to be buzzed in by staff. Quirk said the schools also do annual shooter-based lockdown drills, which are attended by the Sheriff\u2019s Office and police departments around the county. The state\u2019s Safe2Tell anonymous tip line also saw a record number of reports last month<\/a>, signifying that kids are more willing than ever to report suspicious behavior.<\/p>\n

As the debate about the role of firearms in schools and places of worship continues to evolve, Miller stressed that there were other potential solutions to the gun violence problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there are always steps we can take,\u201d Miller said. \u201cTo change the culture, one of the things we have to do is create safe spaces where people who disagree can come to that space and just listen to each other. That\u2019s the first step. \u2026 But it\u2019s been hard to create a dialogue where we truly hear each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summit School District safety and security manager Aaron Quirk, Breckenridge Police Chief Jim Baird and Colorado Council of Churches executive director Adrian Miller participate in a panel on gun violence moderated by Jonathan Knopf on Sunday, June 9, at the Colorado Mountain College campus in Breckenridge.Sawyer D\u2019Argonne \/ sdargonne@summitdaily.com BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 Community members from across […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[97],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-25155","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-11 21:40:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KIFT - The LIFT FM","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25155\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kift\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}