As the recent school shootings have raised serious concerns over gun laws and student safety, lawmakers are considering measures to arm teachers or hire military and police veterans as school guards.
Alabama lawmakers have pushed forward a bill that would allow for some teachers to have firearms on K-12 school properties. The bill, HB 435, was passed on March 15 with a 5-4 vote in the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee.
The bill now has the potential to go to a floor vote sometime in the next few weeks. Its sponsor, Republican Rep. Will Ainsworth, says arming certain school faculty would not directly affect state or local funding. The bill would also require communication between the schools and their local law enforcement and civil immunity, according to Ainsworth.
Ainsworth says this bill is “common sense,” when it comes to establishing the protection of students.
U.S. Army veteran Chad Jordan says he does not believe arming teachers is the answer.
“The most recent school shooting in Florida shows that even an experienced person has a hard time reacting to a high stress situation,” he says. “So, you can only imagine a teacher not having as much training or hours in using a weapon being put in that kind of a situation.”
Another question raised was this: What if a child were to gain access to a gun kept in a teacher’s classroom?
