North Carolina is planning controversial new laws that aim to ease gun restrictions in schools and allow teachers to carry weapons while on school grounds and even provide a financial incentive for educators to arm themselves.
The proposed laws – one in the state house and one in the state senate – were filed shortly after 2018 ended as the deadliest year for school shootings in the US since a US naval postgraduate school database began recording data. After last year’s school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people and spurred the March for Our Lives movement, public interest in creating more effective school security has grown.
Current North Carolina law prohibits firearms on school property, except when a permittee’s handgun is secured inside a compartment in a locked vehicle.
However, arming teachers remains largely unpopular. Poll data from 2018 shows that just 27% of K-12 parents have strong confidence their school could deter a school shooting. Additionally, 63% of parents say they oppose allowing teachers or other staff members to carry guns in school.
“It’s not the teachers’ jobs to protect the schools,” says Jessica Hulick, leader of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, the North Carolina chapter of Everytown for Gun Safety. “There’s enough for teachers to be doing to not have to worry about taking on another entire job description.”
But North Carolina politicians see granting teachers the ability to arm themselves as a way to better secure the school.
The house bill, named the School Self-Defense Act, would allow certain teachers or staff members to carry concealed weapons on school property in order to respond to acts of violence or imminent threats of violence. Volunteers would be required to complete 16 hours of training focused on an active shooter situation.
The senate bill, the School Security Act of 2019, is more complex. It proposes that North Carolina’s education system create a new position called the “teacher resource officer”. Teacher resource officers would carry firearms in an effort to protect the school from violent threats. There’s also a financial incentive: the bill offers a 5% salary increase to educators who participate.
Before assuming their duties, teacher resource officers would be required to complete Basic Law Enforcement Training in coordination with local police departments. Applicants for the program who have at least two years of experience in either law enforcement or the armed forces would be given priority over others, according to the bill. After completing the course, participants would be sworn in as law enforcement officers and granted the same arresting rights as the state’s municipal and county officers.
Kevin Poirier, a multi-classroom leader at West Charlotte high school, disagrees with the proposals in both bills. “I have a concealed carry permit. I own guns in my home. And as someone who has a concealed carry permit, I couldn’t think of a worse idea – to allow someone to carry on school grounds,” he said. “You know, you increase the number of guns in a school, you’re going to increase the number of accidents in a school. We need more social workers, we need more counselors.”
Senator Warren Daniel, one of the School Security Act’s sponsors, said the bill attempts to address a current twofold problem in school security: “We don’t have a school resource officer in every school, and it would be very costly to do that … This is kind of a hybrid plan to give schools the option to send people to have that certain training.”
Daniel added he believed it was important to keep in mind the bill proposes permitting just one teacher to carry a weapon per every 500 students as the bill caps the number of teacher resource officers at 3,000 statewide. In his mind, the proposal is an extension of everyday life in North Carolina. “We live in a state where if you go to Walmart, you go to the convenience store, you go to church, you’re surrounded by people who are armed, you just don’t know it because it’s concealed carry,” he said.
Andrew Patrick, media director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said armed security had not always prevented shootings in the past. “There were two armed officers at Columbine in 1999, and there was one in Parkland. So I think the solution is to focus on laws that prevent and remove guns from dangerous people before these tragedies happen, instead of creating this wild west shootout.”
Paul Valone, president and co-founder of Grass Roots North Carolina, a local gun rights non-profit organization, sees it differently. His organization strongly supports the effort to permit concealed carry on school grounds by teachers, and supports the School Security Act of 2019 with some reservations.
“We want a deterrent effect. We’re not interested in teachers shooting active shooters, we’re interested in a deterrent effect, where a violent sociopath realizes this is not a soft target. The more people we can get participating in that program, the stronger that effect,” he said.
Jean Fitzsimmons, a retired social studies teacher who taught in the state for 21 years, agrees: “If you look at most of these incidents, the people who were the first line of defense, and, in many cases, the last line of defense, were the teachers in the classroom. It’s my hope that arming teachers will deter those people.”
But other teachers see the potential for disaster if the laws pass.
Ana Cunningham, an English teacher at Charlotte’s Phillip O Berry Academy of Technology, said she worries about the reactions of armed teachers in times of stress. “Especially in situations with volatile students, it’s like, ‘OK, I’ll just flash my gun around,’ and now this is some weird classroom management tool. You know, you hope the teacher in a fit of anger doesn’t make a mistake.”