Chick Gives Students Lesson in Government

When Los Angeles Councilwoman Laura Chick made an appearance before a group of students interested in law and government careers Thursday morning, she didn’t just tell them about the inner workings of government.

Chick engaged the students at Monroe High School’s magnet program in a lively discussion of topics facing the council’s Public Safety Committee.

One of the topics up for debate was issuing guns to the city’s park rangers, who are now armed only with pepper spray and batons. Los Angeles Police Department officials are against the idea, but rangers say they need to be able to protect themselves from park-goers who have guns.

The magnet students overwhelmingly took the rangers’ side, but Chick also asked them for suggestions for alternatives that would make the parks safer.

“It makes me heartsick to think that we live in a day and age when children going to school and families going to parks have to be checked for weapons,” Chick said, after one girl suggested having metal detectors and gates at park entrances.

Chick then broadened the discussion to include gun control and the right of citizens to carry concealed weapons.

The students were surprised to hear that only about 300 civilians in Los Angeles County are licensed to carry a weapon.

Many of the students were against allowing wider permission of concealed weapons because “if you’re able to carry a gun, so will everybody else, and it wouldn’t make it any safer,” one student said.

But freshman Alfredo Favela said citizens should be allowed to carry small guns for protection. “This society has a really big problem with robbers,” the 14-year-old said. “If you carry [a gun], it’s only because of self-defense.”

Chick was visiting the school at the request of the magnet’s instructors to give the students a view of law enforcement from the perspective of a lawmaker.