Indiana Bill Would Fund Firearms Training for Teachers, School Staff
The lower chamber of Indiana General Assembly approved a bill to allow state-funded handgun training of teachers and school staff.
The Indiana House Republicans were able pass House Bill 1177 On February 21, this bill would finance handgun training for teachers in order to safeguard their students and classrooms. The bill passed the House with a 71–24 vote along party lines.
The legislation will now be sent to the state Senate.
Critics say that the bill will only encourage guns in schools and more violence.
Indiana state law currently permits school districts to allow their teachers and staff to be armed, but no specific firearms training is required or has been funded by the state.
Only a handful of Indiana school districts permit teachers to bring firearms into the classroom.
Under the proposed law, the state would pay for up to 40 hours of voluntary law enforcement-style training provided by a qualified instructor.
Jim Lucas, Republican state Rep., was the bill’s sponsor. Fox News That “sadly, it’s something that’s necessary for the tragic world we live in today.”
The Indiana Republican said that his bill is a common sense response to deadly mass shootings at schools across the country and that he also worked with law enforcement and public safety consultants to craft the legislation.
“This is just a standardized [training] format that the state will pay for,” Lucas spoke on the floor at the state Legislature.
Democrats Oppose Firearm Training For Teachers
After much debate earlier this month, the Indiana House Education Committee passed the bill in a 9–4 vote, with all Democrats voting against it.
Tonya Pfaff, a Democratic state Representative, also claimed during floor debate that the proposed bill would cause to “more guns in school.”
She explained that having guns in the classroom could increase the dangers and that students could get the weapon from a teacher or access it themselves.
“We want to teach, nurture, and inspire students,” Pfaff stated, adding that “we don’t want to carry guns on our hips and normalize guns in schools.”
According to the, legislators from both parties debated this bill for around 25 minutes. Indiana Capital Chronicle.
Victoria Garcia Wilburn, Democrat state representative, said that a better approach would be to “properly fund” Schools should have school resource officers rather than arming teachers.
Lucas said that the bill would ensure that teachers already carrying firearms are trained properly and that it will improve safety.
“When faced with a life-or-death situation, simple drills and basic training can make all the difference,” Lucas said.
Teachers and staff would have to approve the handgun training course, however individual charter schools corporations or school boards would allow it.
Training would be available to teachers at private schools who apply.
The bill provides that teachers and school employees who have received firearms training are protected from suspensions, investigations, disciplinary actions, or criminal prosecutions.
Each eligible school or district would receive an Indiana Secured School Fund annual matching grant to help pay for firearm training.
In the last decade, Indiana has given more than $133,000,000 in matching grants to school district to increase security. Lucas represents south-central Indiana schools that have received approximately $710,000 in grant funding. Just the News reported.
This measure would also allow for funding for counseling services for students and teachers as well as school staff in the event that a school shooting occurs.
Previous efforts by Indiana lawmakers to pass a law offering additional training have failed in recent years.
This was mainly due to the opposition of gun-rights advocates who felt that mandatory gun safety training exceeded local control and gun-control supporters who opposed legislation aimed at arming teachers.
Responses to School Shooting Incidents
Indiana legislators are now paying attention to school shootings. In 2018, a Noblesville middle-school student shot and injured a classmate. A second incident occurred at a Richmond middle school. This time, a student shot at officers and then killed himself. Fox News reported.
Indiana legislators repealed the requirement that gun owners must have a permit to carry a firearm in public during the previous legislative session.
The bill allows all residents above 18 years old to carry a gun in public, except for those who have been convicted of a felony, are subject to a restraining or are suffering from a dangerous mental condition.
The permit repeal’s sponsors cited a shooting in Greenwood, a suburb or Indianapolis, in which five people were shot—three fatally—before a bystander took out the shooter with his own firearm.
The bill was opposed by the Indiana State Police superintendent, as well as several local law enforcement organizations, who claimed that eliminating the permit system would put officers at risk because it would prevent them from using a screening tool used to screen people not eligible to own guns. Fox News reports that this screening tool is also being denied to officers.
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