NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A bill allowing teachers to carry a gun inside of K-12 schools is advancing in the Tennessee state legislature.
Republican Senator Paul Bailey’s bill, Senate Bill 1325, would give school districts and local sheriff’s departments the ability to green light teachers' access to carry a firearm inside of schools.
The bill is making serious headway at the state capitol, but Shelby County legislators sit on both sides of it.
“The arming of teachers or a staff member - this is a very rigorous process that an individual would have to go through,” Bailey said.
Tuesday, a senate committee recommended passage of the proposal.
Allowing teachers to carry a firearm would ultimately be up to each school district and local sheriff’s department. Teachers who want to carry a handgun would have to get an enhanced handgun carry permit and go through yearly training.
Senator London Lamar, a Democrat from Memphis, is strongly opposed to the proposal.
“We already don’t need more guns in schools beyond school security officers that most schools already have,” Lamar said.
Senator Brent Taylor, a Republican from Shelby County, said the bill's target audience is schools in rural areas without school resource officers. He argues someone on those campuses needs to be armed.
“If you look at the schools where there have been school shootings, they’ve all been soft targets where the perpetrator knew they would have very little resistance in terms of deadly force,” Taylor said.
Lamar said the bill is dangerous.
“This is not safe, and it’s not going to keep our schools any safer from anybody else," she said.
The House version of the bill would have to pass for the bill to be signed into law.
State Representative Antonio Parkinson of Memphis worries the proposal could have unintended consequences.
“You think about all of the incidents that happen with law enforcement who've been trained, and they still shoot innocent people,” Parkinson said. “Imagine what would happen with a teacher or a staff member being armed with less training.”
Teachers would have to complete 40 hours of certified training in school-policing at their own expense and pass a mental health evaluation and FBI background check.
One of the more controversial aspects is that the names of armed teachers would not be known by parents, while the principal and local law enforcement would know which teachers are carrying.