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- A bill introduced in the Nebraska State Assembly’s Education Committee would allow teachers and school staff to carry firearms in an effort to deter school shootings.
- The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Tom Brewer, is in line with a growing trend of Republican-led state legislatures across the country advocating for expanded gun rights.
- Brewer said the bill is especially necessary in rural areas where law enforcement and resource officers often not available in urban areas are not nearby.
A bill that would allow teachers and other school staff to be armed in an effort to prevent school shootings drew dozens of stakeholders and emotional testimony Tuesday before the Nebraska House Education Committee.
State Sen. Tom Brewer’s bill is one of the latest in Republican-led state legislatures across the country to adopt legislation expanding gun rights.
The Nebraska bill consists of three parts. This has led local school boards to allow off-duty police to bring guns onto school grounds and create detailed maps of school buildings and grounds to prevent school shootings from occurring. The information can then be provided to local police and first responders in case of emergency.
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It would also allow teachers and other school staff to be armed as long as they have training in gun handling and safety.
State Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon speaks at the Legislative Chamber in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 8, 2018. The Brewer bill would authorize the arming of school teachers and other school staff to prevent school shootings, and was proposed by dozens of people at the Nebraska State House Education Committee on February 6, 2024. emotional testimony.
Brewer said the bill is needed in rural Nebraska, where schools are miles from the nearest law enforcement agency and lack access to resource officers, which is more common in cities like Omaha and Lincoln. rare.
At least 32 states have laws allowing teachers and other school employees to carry weapons during school hours, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. This includes all of Nebraska’s neighboring states, including Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
“We are an island that has decided not to protect our children,” he said.
Most witnesses in favor of the bill focused on the school map provisions. Even opponents of the bill said they support school mapping.
But the sanctions against armed school staff drew some emotional testimony, including from one of the teachers who was present at the Omaha school shooting 13 years ago.
Millard Education Association President Tim Royers told the committee that on January 5, 2011, he was supervising students in the school’s lunchroom when someone announced “Code Red” over the school loudspeaker. he said.
Mr. Royers and other teachers quickly gathered as many students as possible and looked for a room to hide.
“I’ll never forget the look on those students’ faces,” he said.
Authorities later said the 17-year-old student, the son of an Omaha police detective, was suspended from Millard South High School, but returned later that day with his father’s handgun. He shot and killed the vice principal, injured the principal, and then shot himself.
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In the years since then, Royer said he has never heard an educator express a desire to arm themselves.
“But many people told me that such a provision would drive them out of the profession,” he told the committee.
Brewer said those opposed to the bill are being unfair to local schools that “can’t fill resource officer positions, let alone law enforcement officer positions.”
Brewer has long opposed gun laws. Since his first election in 2016, a bill was passed into law last year that allows Nebraskans to carry concealed guns without a permit. Similar to so-called constitutional carry laws in other states, it allows people to carry concealed guns on their clothes or in their cars without paying a government permit fee or taking a gun safety course.
