Pa. lawmaker renews push to arm teachers, school staff
HARRISBURG — As a Colorado community mourns a school shooting victim who died Saturday, a Pennsylvania lawmaker is reviving a push to let teachers bring their guns to work.
Senate Bill 1193, by Indiana County Sen. Don White, would allow school boards to decide whether administrators, teachers and staff 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 experts, 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 schools 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.”
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 Newtown, lawmakers in 34 states introduced bills related to arming school staff, and six other states enacted laws, starting with South Dakota in March, the National Conference of State Legislatures reports. Recent news reports show similar efforts continuing in several places, including Nebraska, South Carolina and Florida. 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, a 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-sponsor 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 lockdown 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 in favor of those efforts.
In Pennsylvania, 56 percent of registered voters opposed arming teachers in a poll last February by Mercyhurst University’s Center for Applied Politics. Those who owned guns in their households were more likely to support the idea, whereas 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.