Bills to give schools technology to spot guns stalls in Senate committee
MADISON – A proposal that could help school administrators and police officers spot school shooters before much if any violence is committed appears appears dead in the state Legislature as it wraps up work for the year.
Under a pair of bills, Wisconsin school officials could apply for hundreds of thousands of dollars in state grant funding to install a new security system that identifies guns in school buildings.
School districts and their local law enforcement agencies could receive up to $325,000 through a new $4 million state-run grant program to pay for gundetecting software under the legislation. The grant money could only be used for software that detects unholstered firearms.
Those opposing the bill have raised privacy concerns and warn of overpolicing. The bill is stalled in the state Senate and likely won’t pass this legislative session.
ZeroEyes, a manufacturer of such software that has lobbied on behalf of the bill, uses a combination of artificial intelligence and trained staff to identify potential firearms and immediately alert school officials and law enforcement, according to ZeroEyes Director of Government Strategy Mia Link.
“One of the issues we had continuously was being able to control the 80 different doors coming in and out of the building,” Sen. Van Wanggaard, RRacine, told the Senate Education Committee in January. Wanggaard, a retired police officer, said he spent 29 years working with Racine schools.
“So security was an issue and having the ability to be able to use something like this piece of equipment to be able to identify potential risks of
people bringing weapons into a venue or an event, a basketball game or a football game, something such as that. I think this is really huge.”
The software gives law enforcement the location of the last camera to spot the person identified to be carrying a gun and a map of where the potential shooter has traveled through the building. ZeroEyes staff confirm what the software has detected is actually a threat before alerting local officials to prevent false alarms.
During a demonstration of the software provided to the Journal Sentinel, ZeroEyes used security camera footage of the 2023 Michigan State University shooting to identify the gunman just after he entered the building. Three students were killed in the mass shooting.
A spokesman for Rep. Shae Sortwell, R-Two Rivers, said in an email that Sortwell opposed the bill in the Assembly because of “concerns with the 4th Amendment rights of students, staff, etc. based on the technology he was shown at the hearing.”
The bill also is opposed by the American tu Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.
“While such technologies can have their place, we need to think carefully as a society about if, how, and where we want to deploy them,” the group wrote in a position paper about the bill.
The group warned of false threats, leading to armed police responses in schools when none are needed.
“Sending police into a school with weapons drawn, thinking they are facing an armed student or potential active shooter, could have devastating and even life-threatening impacts on innocent students and school staff,” the group wrote.
The bill passed through the state Assembly in February but has not been advanced through the Senate Committee on Education. Committee chairman Sen. John Jagler, R-Watertown, did not respond to a request for an interview about his position on the bill.
It is supported by organizations representing law enforcement, the City of Milwaukee, gun-detecting software companies and an organization representing gun owners, according to state lobbying records.
The bill is largely supported by Republicans. Democrats Sen. LaTonya Johnson and Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez, both of Milwaukee, also co-sponsored the bill.