Posted: Monday, December 23, 2013 2:30 pm | Updated: 6:12 pm, Mon Dec 23, 2013.
HARRISBURG — As a Colorado community mourns a school shooting victim who died Saturday, a Pennsylvania lawmaker is reviving a push to let teachers bring guns to work.Senate Bill 1193, by Indiana County Sen. Don White, would allow school boards to decide whether administrators, teachers and staff members could carry guns on school property. The armed school officials would have to obtain concealed firearm licenses and meet training requirements.“As we weigh our options, I believe we need to consider providing school employees with more choices than just locking a door, hiding in a closet or diving in front of bullets to protect students,” White said in the memo seeking support for the bill. “With the legal authority, licensing and proper training, I believe allowing school administrators, teachers or other staff to carry firearms on the school premises is an option worth exploring.”
Five co-sponsors have signed onto White’s bill: Sen. Elder Vogel Jr. of Beaver County; Sen. Randy Vulakovich of Allegheny County; Sen. John Rafferty Jr. of Montgomery County; Sen. Bob Robbins of Mercer County; and Sen. Michael Waugh of York County. Last year, state Rep. Greg Lucas, a former teacher who represents parts of Erie and Crawford counties, pitched a similar proposal with House Bill 122.
The concept of arming teachers goes against recommendations made in a report released last month by the House Select Committee for School Safety. The committee based its findings on input from school officials, state agencies, law enforcement, mental health specialists, students and parents following four public hearings.
“A number of testifiers noted that carrying firearms falls outside of the professional roles of school personnel,” the report states. “Other testifiers pointed to the potential dangers in placing in school's individuals, who have not been properly and thoroughly trained to handle firearms, with one law enforcement professional noting that approximately six months of dedicated training is required in order to become a police officer in the Commonwealth.”
Locally, Centennial School Board President Jane Schrader Lynch and Vice President Mark B. Miller each said they oppose the legislation.
"I would not want to have any weapon in our buildings that is not under the control of our local partners in law enforcement," said Miller, who's also vice president of the Pennsylvania School Board Association. "At present, we have a school policy that would prohibit weapons on our campuses or property, including our Administration Building and Transportation Center. I would oppose any change."
At the federal level, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., said he wouldn’t support arming teachers and faculty as a means to curb school shootings.
“If someone has a right to carry a weapon, then that is their right, and it is certainly part of our legal system and a part of our culture, but I don’t think arming teachers is the answer,” Casey said during a news conference Monday. “We have to figure out more and better ways to protect our schools.”
The push to arm teachers gained some legislative momentum nationally in the aftermath of the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last December, when a gunman killed 20 children and six adults.
Following that, lawmakers in 34 states introduced bills related to arming school staff members or hiring armed guards for schools. Six other states have enacted such laws, starting with South Dakota in March, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports. Recent news reports show similar efforts continuing in several states, including Florida, Nebraska and South Carolina. A Missouri bill now under consideration would arm teachers with pepper spray instead of guns.
The latest victim of a school shooting, 17-year-old Claire Davis, died in the hospital Saturday. Reportedly a random target, she was shot at point-blank range inside Arapahoe High School in Littleton, Col., on Dec. 13 -- one day before the one-year anniversary of the Newtown massacre.
“Because time is a critical element in responding to a school shooting, the faster someone stops a gunman, the more lives will be saved,” White stated in his co-sponsorship memo. “As the dynamics of school shootings are studied, it is becoming clear that we have to look at a line of first defense in stopping these tragedies.”
That notion fits into a larger shift in thinking about school safety, with some schools taking an interest in training and policies that go beyond lock-down norms, such as training teachers and students to flee and even fight back under certain scenarios.
Arming teachers was the only one of eight gun-related proposals that didn’t win public support in the aftermath of Newtown, according to some surveys, with 57 percent of Americans opposed to more teachers and school officials with guns in a January poll by the Pew Research Center. The most popular proposals in that poll involved expanding background checks and preventing people with mental illness from purchasing guns, with more than 80 percent of people surveyed favoring those efforts.
In Pennsylvania, 56 percent of registered voters opposed arming teachers in a poll conducted in February 2013 by Mercyhurst University's Center for Applied Politics. Those who owned guns in their households were more likely to support the idea, while 76 percent of respondents who didn’t own a gun opposed it.
White’s bill to arm school officials has been referred to the Senate Education Committee.
