"We aren't trusted with the books we choose, but somehow we're supposed to be trusted with a gun in school?"
– Shari Obrenski, vice president of the Ohio Federation of Teachers
School districts in the state are already permitted to allow school employees to carry guns, but the state Supreme Court ruled a year ago that all employees need the same amount of firearm training a law enforcement agent would undergo before being armed – 728 hours.
However, in the wake of the Uvalde school massacre, Republicans in the state legislature fast-tracked the bill to counter the ruling, with Ohio Governor DeWine saying that the party had removed "hundreds of hours of curriculum irrelevant to school safety," allowing teachers and other employees to more easily carry weapons. The senate voted 23-9 in favor of the bill, and the House approved it just hours later with a 56-34 vote, with nine abstentions.
Defying Justice
In June 2021, Ohio's Supreme Court ruled that school employees can't carry firearms without extensive training or decades of experience.
In a 4-to-3 decision, the state's top court struck down a 2018 Madison Local School District policy allowing employees to carry guns on campus as long as they met certain requirements – such as having a concealed carry license and active-shooter response training, as well as passing a background check and mental health exam.
The policy was put into place after a 2016 shooting in the high school cafeteria left four students injured. But five parents sued the district over the plan to arm teachers, arguing it violated Ohio law because it didn't ensure employees had the required amount of training.
The court agreed with the parents, stating that state statute "prohibits a school from employing a person who goes armed while on duty in his or her job unless the employee has satisfactorily completed an approved basic peace-officer training program or has 20 years experience as a peace officer."
(Alexandra Hutzler. “Ohio Court Knocks Down School Gun Policy, Says Armed Teachers Need Police-Level Training.” Newsweek. June 23, 2021.)
New Ohio Law
The new legislation exempts school employees from the state's training requirement.
You ask “How can this apparent ramrodding of legislation happen? The answer lies in the fact that Ohio has a Republican trifecta and a Republican triplex. The Republican Party controls the offices of governor, secretary of state, attorney general, and both chambers of the state legislature.
A state government trifecta is a term to describe when one political party holds majorities in both chambers of the state legislature and the governor's office. A state government triplex is a term to describe when one political party holds the following three positions in a state's government: governor, attorney general, and secretary of state. To learn more about trifectas and triplexes.
Republicans in Ohio recently enacted new maps that would give them a super-majority in the state legislature – completely ignoring reforms that prevent that prevent this. It’s an advantage that doesn’t reflect how politically competitive Ohio is: Donald Trump won the state in 2020 with 53% of the vote.
What’s worse is that Ohio voters have specifically enacted reforms in recent years that were supposed to prevent this kind of manipulation. Republicans have completely ignored them. It underscores how challenging it is for reformers to wrest map-making power from politicians.
Thus, in a state controlled by one party, we have ultra-conservative, fanatical representatives like Republican Jim Jordan, who accuses Democrats of using their proposed gun control package to repeal the Second Amendment.
Jordan tells this fantastic lie for maximum emotional effect, and other Republican lawmakers employ the same nonsense to garner votes and pass the propaganda onto the public … repeat and repeat again and again.
Jordan's fear-based appeal that the liberals are coming to confiscate all guns is an irrational argument known as the “divine foot” argument, and it afflicts both left and right.
In one of the best-known examples from the left, Harvard biology professor Richard Lewontin in 1997 defended the scientific teaching of evolution against religious attack by saying, “We cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”
He expressed a typical argument for those unwilling to give an inch for fear that one small concession will lead to a total defeat. On the right, gun advocates use the same argument: “We can’t allow restrictions on assault rifles because if they take away assault rifles, eventually they will take away pistols, hunting rifles, my gun collection and B.B. Guns.”
In other words, any gun-control legislation, regardless how sensible, allows the “radical liberal” foot in the door. Once they come for assault rifles, they will come for all the guns in the nation.
(Rodney Kennedy. “The three arguments used to block sensible gun control and why they’re flawed.” https://baptistnews.com/article/the-three-arguments-used-to-block-sensible-gun-control-and-why-theyre-flawed/#.YpoavuzMLrE. June 2, 2022.)
In good old down-home English, this is “bullshit.” The slippery slope is greased with dung and gun enthusiasts willingly take the slide. Jordan knows this isn't true, but he lies for political effect.
A Utah teacher is shown how to handle a handgun by instructor Clint Simon at a concealed-weapons training class. George Frey/Getty Images.
Conclusion – GOP Business As Usual
No matter how you feel about teachers carrying firearms in Ohio schools, you can surely see that the legislation allowing this to happen is political and insensitive to many real concerns. Police, teachers’ unions, civil rights groups and students all strongly oppose this legislation and the effects it would have on our children and schools.
House Minority Leader Allison Russo (D-Upper Arlington) and Rep. Jessica E. Miranda (D-Forest Park) issued a statement June 1 following the passage of House Bill (HB) 99, Republican legislation that would allow teachers and staff to be armed in schools.
The statement read …
“The Republican majority continues to show us who they really are, over and over again. When Ohioans are pleading year after year, begging the governor and the legislature to finally stand up and do something about gun violence, putting more guns near our children is the furthest thing from a logical solution.
“Ohioans are asking for more thorough background checks and firearm safety. Instead, Republicans pass shoot-first laws and bills that get rid of concealed weapon training. Enough is enough. This legislature has a responsibility to make communities safer and to ensure that our children grow up free from gun violence. Passing this bill is irresponsible, reckless, and dangerous.”
A 2018 survey found that 80% of teachers were “strongly opposed” to having armed faculty in schools. Ohio’s Fraternal Order of Police noted that the minimal training required by HB 99 is significantly less than the hundreds of hours of training required for police officers. Democrats have consistently brought these concerns up during hearings and discussions.
(Jessica E. Miranda. “Democrats oppose GOP gun bill that makes schools and communities less safe.” The Ohio House of Representatives News. June 01, 2022.)
Nearly 90% of all high-fatality gun massacres since 1966 at least partly occurred in areas where civilian guns were allowed or there was armed security or law enforcement present. The myth that arming teachers and keeping guns in classrooms will ensure the safety of students is not one supported by data.
(“Guns In School.” https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/guns-in-public/guns-in-schools/#footnote_10_5649. Giffords. From Daniel W. Webster. 2016)
I'll close with one glaring fact: Gun-control research in the United States essentially came to a standstill in 1996.
“In the area of what works to prevent shootings, we know almost nothing,” Mark Rosenberg, who, in the mid-1990s, led the CDC's gun-violence research efforts, said shortly after the San Bernardino shooting in 2015.
(Todd C. Frankel. “”Why gun violence research has been shut down for 20 years.” The Washington Post. October 04, 2017.)
In 1996, the Republican-majority Congress threatened to strip funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention unless it stopped funding research into firearm injuries and deaths. The National Rifle Association accused the CDC of promoting gun control. As a result, the CDC stopped funding gun-control research – which had a chilling effect far beyond the agency, drying up money for almost all public health studies of the issue nationwide.
Finally, in fiscal year 2020, the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations bill included $25 million for gun violence research, split evenly between the CDC and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH grants were distributed by a variety of institutes, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Among the recipients of the CDC and NIH funding are many psychologists who hope to better understand, and ultimately prevent, deaths and injuries due to firearms.
This research involves a huge study. It is time-consuming and difficult to bring all factors affecting gun violence into focus. But, it is a start. With the study being so new and so inclusive, we await results. I pray people will listen to reason as research continues.
In the meantime, Republican Ohio legislators have been successful in defying risks and putting more guns in our schools. Consider the logic – Good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns. Tell that to the parents in Uvalde. The “good guy with a gun” theory is tragically flawed. Our gun culture has birthed a gun idolatry and deemed the Second Amendment as sacred.
Pastor and author Rodney W. Kenned says …
“We never will make any progress on the gun issue until we deal with gun idolatry ...
“One of the reasons America’s gun fetish is so widely found attractive is a kind of fantasized power over what is perceived as a dangerous and violent world, where at any moment, the gun lover will need to step forward to save the rest of us from gun violence with legal gun violence.
“Support of guns, at any cost, seems to give gun lovers a freedom from truth and a freedom from any kind of restrictions or perceived control – backed by a questionable reading of the Second Amendment. The rhetoric has become reality.”
(Rodney Kennedy. “The three arguments used to block sensible gun control and why they’re flawed.” https://baptistnews.com/article/the-three-arguments-used-to-block-sensible-gun-control-and-why-theyre-flawed/#.YpoavuzMLrE. June 2, 2022.)
Consider:
The most obvious indicator of the absurdist thinking on this subject can be seen in the fact that the latest massacre happened in Texas, a state that has more than eight thousand gun dealers, and where an estimated thirty-seven per cent of the population owns firearms.
Last year, Governor Greg Abbott signed a bill that allowed most Texans to carry handguns without a license or mandatory training. This legislation did not prevent the Uvalde carnage any more than previous legislation allowing easier access to guns prevented the 2019 shooting that killed twenty-three people at an El Paso Walmart, or the 2017 attack in the town of Sutherland Springs, which took the lives of twenty-six worshippers in a rural church.
(Jelani Cobb. “The Atrocity of American Gun Culture. The New Yorker. June 06, 2022.)
However, thanks to Republican legislators …
Now in Ohio, when a crazed murderer comes onto campus with a high-powered assault rifle or two, “good guy” teachers and other school personnel are expected to draw their concealed weapons and fire in defense. The firearm advantage to the shooter is obvious. To outgun the “bad guys” perhaps schools need machine gun nests or cannons. Hey, if you want fantasy and fetish … there you go.
I beg you, if the Second Amendment fundamentalists and the politicians translate their zealotry into law, it is up to the rest of us to find the courage and the resolve to stop it.
Mothers Of the Disappeared By U2
Midnight, our sons and
daughters
Were cut down and taken from us
Hear their
heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
In the wind we hear their laughter
In the rain we see their tears
Hear their heartbeat
We hear their heartbeat
Night hangs like a prisoner
Stretched over black and blue
Hear their heartbeats
We hear their heartbeats
In the trees our sons stand naked
Through the walls our daughters cry
See their tears in the rainfall
No comments:
Post a Comment