A Republican-sponsored bill to set training requirements for faculty, staff and volunteers to be armed in schools brought opposition from nearly 150 people and groups and got a quick rewrite before it passed a Senate committee.
It was the bill’s first hearing since March, and the first since 19 children and two adults were gunned down at a Texas elementary school last week. It's likely to come to the Senate floor on Wednesday.
Katherine Hiland, 15, of Stark County told the Senate Veterans and Public Safety Committee that school shooters are quite often current or former students who might end up facing an armed teacher.
“You’re asking them to shoot and potentially kill their own students. This is an impossible task for them because many of them have gone into this profession seeking to teach and protect these children," Hiland said. "It only creates more danger and more stress.”
Cleveland Teachers Union president Shari Obrenski brought up other bills that would ban the teaching of certain so-called divisive issues in class.
“There’s testimony happening about how teachers aren’t trusted to do curriculum. We aren’t trusted with the books we choose, but somehow we’re supposed to be trusted with a gun in school?” said Obrenski, who's also the first vice president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers, one of the state's two teachers' unions.
Speakers were interrupted with applause several times throughout the hearing.
Three supporters offered testimony, including the Buckeye Firearms Association, which provides training to school personnel for a fee.
The group's legislative affairs director Rob Sexton said the bill allows districts to decide if they want armed personnel based on their local law enforcement response time, and that many volunteers who work with schools already have extensive training. The bill requires 24 total hours of training, including eight hours of training for a concealed carry permit, which Sexton said is enough and appropriate.
“You might as well put in the bill, ‘we don’t want anybody signing up for this program’, because that’s the reality. 150 hours’ worth of training means there will not be armed staff in the school," Sexton said. "So there’s a balance point there. Proficiency is important, but so is availability."
There was frustration and anger in some of the remarks, such as from Mandy Rothgerber, a member of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action.
“You all don’t show that you care. You ignore us. You whisper to each other. Listen to us! Listen to our children. All this room – listen to us. People are dying. Kids are dying. Do you care? Do you really care? Because arming teachers – if you really cared, you wouldn’t pass permitless carry and propose arming teachers,” Rothgerber said.
Several opponents of the bill asked the committee to instead of taking up this bill that lawmakers consider a ban on certain semi-automatic weapons and a red flag law to allow for seizure of weapons from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others – the latter has been proposed by Democrats, but hasn’t gotten a hearing.
In this bill, committee chair Sen. Frank Hoagland (R-Mingo Junction) said he wants to create a team to put together the curriculum for districts that want to allow people to be armed in school.
Sens. Cecil Thomas (D-Cincinnati) and Teresa Fedor (D-Toledo) voted against the amended bill. They said it provided too little training and the public was given too little notice of the hearing and the changes.
The Republican-dominated committee passed the bill, as opponents still in the room nearly four hours after the hearing started chanted “shame.”
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