By John Murphy
The legislation advanced on Thursday concerns school protection officers. Currently, school districts may designate only teachers or administrators as school protection officers. This bill adds other designated school personnel to the list of employees a district may designate as a school protection officer.
School protection officers have the authority to carry a weapon on school grounds if the officer has obtained a concealed carry endorsement permit.
State Rep. Kathy Steinhoff, a Democrat from Columbia, voted in support of the bill, but she made her stance on gun control in schools clear.
“I oppose guns in schools, so it was really hard for me to support this bill because on face value it looks like it’s against everything I believe in,” she said.
Steinhoff said it’s important that if people carry guns in schools, it must be the right person. “If a school board chooses to authorize someone to carry a gun in their schools, I want to make sure they have the flexibility to make sure that the right person is doing that,” she said.
Steinhoff added, “I believe the success of public schools lies in making sure that every position is filled by somebody who’s highly qualified and highly trained. I don’t see teachers and administrators being the ones who can carry out that sort of job duty.”
Kristin Bowen is a volunteer with the Missouri chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. Her organization disagrees with the committee’s decision to advance the bill.
“We were disappointed, not surprised,” she said. “This is a bill that expands who can carry loaded guns in our K-12 schools in Missouri.”
Bowen argued any legislation that increases the number of potential guns that could be brought into a school is bad.
“We know, research shows, putting more guns in our schools puts kids in a position of being less safe, not more safe,” she said.
Steinhoff said that each district will have to make its own decision on who can be a school protection officer even if the new bill becomes law.
“This is not mandating it,” Steinhoff said. “It’s making it so that a school board can choose to do that. I hope that no school board chooses to do that.”
10 comments:
This is our unfortunate reality, a nation fearful of the common good, arming itself against anyone not white and Christian. Guns in church, schools, and every other domain in society. The MAGAts have temporarily taken the upper hand by instilling fear into the most white, ignorant segments of society, who consequently, are the most ardent loyalists of the most unstable and disloyal individual ever running for president.
It seems taht generally the republicans don't trust school administrators to make book selection decisions, and more than a few republican legisiators have complained about furries allegedly using school provided litter boxes.
Where the surprise is now is that these same republicans now apparently trust these same school administrators to pick the membership of the local school based 'well regulated militia'.
The only thing I can think of to explain this is these pasty dohboys in Jeff City just get carried away every time they can exercise their gun fetishes and ammosexuality.
Sickening; guns in the classroom, guns in the church sanctuary. White nationalism must be eradicated from this country if we're to survive.
Well said 507, the pubes are no longer legislators. They're traitors, manipulators, exaggerators, and conspirators. Real "citizens of the year" types for sure....ha.
How many white nationalist have started school shootings? If a school wants a custodian who was a military or police retiree to carry a gun I am all for it. Better them than an untrained teacher
I bet you support mask mandates and forced “vaccines”, That’s what’s sickening
Well I doubt Randy will publish this but I’ve been out of school for 30 years and I can tell you there is only a few teachers that I had that would be able to handle a gun, and that’s when men were men and women were women, not this delusional nonsense we have know in the school system. I understand that is a broad definition, put your thinking cap on please. Remember those days when 2+2 still equaled 4, so thankful for the time I grew up in common sense was the go to.
The "opposite" talk, and people who believe it, is the most irritating thing about MAGA land. Except for the pride they have in their stupidity --- which is also highly irritating.
Republican MAGA has become a center of excellence for Dunning-Kruger sufferers.
Because a person saying that very few school shootings were committed by white nationalist does not make them a white nationalist.
Let’s treat every person who wants to bring a gun to school the same way we treat women who want an abortion:
Waiting period
Superintendent's permission
Doctor’s note
Watch video on dangers
Force them to travel hundreds of miles to gun store
Make them walk through protestors
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