Ky. lawmakers push to arm school staff
Bill comes days after 2 students died in shooting
In response to a deadly school shooting in western Kentucky this week, some state lawmakers are pushing to pass a bill that would allow school districts to appoint campus staff members to become armed guards.
On Tuesday, authorities said a 15-year-old boy shot and killed two students and wounded 18 others at Marshall County High School in Benton, about 20 miles southeast of Paducah.
The attack started at 7:57 a.m. and ended when sheriff’s deputies arrested the boy at 8:06 a.m., authorities said. For a rural school district, a police response time of nine minutes is not bad. But it was not quick enough to thwart the shooting before many students were harmed.
Shortly after the shooting, Republican state Sen. Stephen West introduced Senate Bill 103, which would allow schools to appoint “an employee in good standing of a local public school district or private or parochial school” with a concealedcarry license to become an armed “marshal” at the school.
State Sen. Ralph Alvarado, a Republican who co-sponsored the bill, said the legislation would loosen state restrictions for guns on school property.
The bill would apply to all schools, he said, but rural school districts might find it especially useful. Kentucky has 264 police officers who serve as school resource officers at schools in half of the state’s counties, “but for some of our rural counties, which are small, they can’t afford it,” Alvarado said.
Some gun control advocates draw a sharp line at proposals like those sponsored in Kentucky.
“Arming teachers and janitors and others to take on potential mass shooters — it’s absolutely ridiculous,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, a gun control advocacy group.
“We do not support any legislation that forces guns into schools and attempts to turn volunteers into sharpshooters,” Watts said.