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| Cowboys: Leave your guns at the bar (Photo credit: Mykl Roventine) |
South Dakota became the first state in the nation to enact a law explicitly authorizing school employees to carry guns on the job, under a measure signed into law on Friday by Gov. Dennis Daugaard.
Passage of the law comes amid a passionate nationwide debate over arming teachers, stoked after 20 first graders died in an elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December.
Shortly afterward, the National Rifle Association proposed a plan for armed security officers in every school, and legislation to allow school personnel to carry guns was introduced in about two dozen states. All those measures had stalled until now.
Several other states already have provisions in their laws - or no legal
restrictions - that make it possible for teachers to possess guns in
the classroom. In fact, a handful of school districts nationwide do have
teachers who carry firearms.
But South Dakota is the only known state
with a statute that specifically authorizes teachers to possess a
firearm in a K-12 school, according to Lauren Heintz, a research analyst
at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Representative Scott Craig, a freshman Republican in the South Dakota
House who sponsored the bill, said he hoped the measure would shift the
country’s discourse on school safety.
“Given the national attention to safety in schools, specifically in
response to tragedies like in Connecticut, this is huge,” he said. He
added that, hopefully, “dominoes will start to fall, people will see
it’s reasonable, it’s safer than they think, it’s proactive and it’s
preventive.”
The law leaves it up to school districts to decide whether to allow
armed teachers. It remains to be seen, however, if many schools will
permit guns in classrooms and whether the measure will reverberate
nationwide.
Mr. Daugaard, a Republican, said he did not think that many
schools would take advantage of the option, but that it was important
for them to have the choice available.
While many gun control advocates are horrified by the notion of guns in
schools, Laura Cutilletta, a senior staff lawyer with the San
Francisco-based Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said that what South
Dakota did would not spark a national trend.
“For South Dakota to do
this is less of a concern than if we saw it in Colorado or somewhere
else like that,” she said, referring to states that have advocated for
gun-control legislation.
Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said
the group supported the bill and lobbied for it in the South Dakota
Legislature.
“There’s certainly not a one-size-fits-all approach to
keeping our children safe in schools,” he said. “It’s incumbent upon
state and local governments to formulate and implement a plan to keep
students safe.”
The law says that school districts may choose to allow a school
employee, a hired security officer or a volunteer to serve as a
“sentinel” who can carry a firearm in the school.
The school district
must receive the permission of its local law enforcement agency before
carrying out the program. The law requires the sentinels to undergo
training similar to what law enforcement officers receive.
“I think it does provide the same safety precautions that a citizen
expects when a law enforcement officer enters onto a premises,” Mr.
Daugaard said in an interview. He added that this law was more
restrictive than those in other states that permit guns in schools.
South Dakota is a state with deep roots in hunting, where children start
learning how to shoot BB guns when they are 8, skeet shoot with
shotguns by age 14 and enter target shooting contests with .22-caliber
semiautomatic rifles.
“Our kids start hunting here when they’re preteens,” said Kevin Jensen,
who supports the bill and is the vice president of the Canton School
Board in South Dakota. “We know guns. We respect guns.”
Opponents, which included state associations representing school boards
and teachers, said the bill was rushed, did not make schools safer and
ignored other approaches to safety.
To read further, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/us/south-dakota-gun-law-classrooms.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
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