In layman’s terms: a Tennessee Senate bill heads to the House to allow qualified school staff to be armed.
Yesterday, the Tennessee State Senate passed SB1325 in a 26-5 party line vote. The bill would authorize a faculty or staff member of a school to carry a concealed handgun on school grounds subject to certain conditions, including obtaining an enhanced handgun carry permit and completing annual training.
Anti-civil rights groups, like Moms Demand Action, caused significant disruptions during the proceedings and were ordered removed by the State Police, in some cases screaming in emotional fits and physically resisting.
The standards to qualify to carry a handgun under the new bill are not trivial. Teachers must have an enhanced handgun carry permit (typically an 8 hour class, with use of force training and a shooting qualification); have written authorization from the school’s principal and local law enforcement; and undergo an additional 40 hours of handgun training. The teacher must also not be prohibited from purchasing, possessing, and carrying a handgun under Tennessee law and must pass a background check.
The bill would bar disclosing which teachers are carrying guns except solely to school administrators and police, but not to parents of students and other teachers. This common-sense approach is similar to concealed carry principles which are designed to not advertise who is armed and to keep criminals guessing about their targets.
Yet, many parents couldn’t see past this logic. Melissa Alexander is a mother of a child who attended Covenant School where psychopath and self-described trans-gender person, Audrey Hale, killed six people in a horrific shooting last year, including three children. In regard to the new bill, Alexander said, “That’s a pretty difficult thing as a parent, not to know who your child is going to be around that’s going to have a gun.” Alexander has apparently never considered that in her day-to-day business she walks around hundreds if not thousands of law-abiding people who quietly carry a concealed firearm.
The emotional opposition to the proposed law by anti-gun groups also didn’t seem to consider that possession of a weapon on school grounds and a prohibition on murder are already laws that were uniformly ignored by trans-criminal Audrey Hale.
Other objections to the bill included unprovable statements like this one issued by the Vanderbilt Students Demand Action chapter:
For every gun that’s placed in a classroom, a new opportunity is created for students to become another statistic. This is not the solution. In fact, it’s absolutely absurd to respond to our cries for change with a bill that will only endanger us more.
Incidentally, in all of the mainstream reporting on this story that mentioned the Covenant School shooting, no major outlets named the shooter, Audrey Hale, nor the fact that she was part of the trans-gender community.
The House version of the bill is ready to be taken up at any moment, and if passed, will head to Governor Bill Lee for his approval.
When signed into law, Tennessee will join a majority of states (more than 30) that allow teachers to carry firearms on campus.
