California Dems Rally To Keep Teachers Defenseless

The cold hard truth is that K-12 school teachers in many states are sitting ducks in the same way that Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., described unarmed Congressmen following the Alexandria baseball field attack. Teachers and their students spend day after day without the benefit of guns for self-defense, forced to hope that the utopian bubble in which they live is not disrupted by anyone with evil intentions.

Consider the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary, in which six defenseless faculty/staff members and 20 students were killed by an attacker who knew that no one could fight back. Sure, they could throw books at him or risk their own lives by charging him—as principal Dawn Hochsprung bravely did—but they could not offer any substantive defense of themselves and the children.

Some states responded to the Sandy Hook attack by passing even more gun control laws and re-emphasizing their commitment to "gun-free" zones—the kind of zone in which the Sandy Hook attack occurred. But other states, like Ohio and Colorado, have responded by allowing armed teachers and staff to be the first line of self-defense should an attacker enter the building with bad intentions.

Way out west in California—a state better known for gun control than gun rights—five school districts responded to Sandy Hook by choosing to allow their teachers to carry for defense of themselves and their students. Those districts are North Cow Creek, Kern High School District, Kingsburg Joint Union High School District, Folsom Cordova Unified School District and Anderson Union High School District.

McCarty’s bill would revoke a school district’s ability to allow teachers with concealed-carry permits to be armed on campus for self-defense.The school districts were able to do this because the law in California bars carry permit holders from carrying on K-12 campuses, with the caveat that they can carry if given permission by the school district.

So we have five school districts that have decided that teachers with concealed carry permits can carry on campus, and there have been zero incidents or accidents by teachers or staff with guns in those districts. There have been no crimes by armed teachers and/or staff, nor have there been random shootings and/or attacks by armed teachers and/or staff.

Nevertheless, California Democrats want to put a stop to armed teachers on campus, and to do so they are rallying behind Democratic Assemblyman Kevin McCarty’s AB 424.

McCarty’s bill would revoke a school district’s ability to allow teachers with concealed-carry permits to be armed on campus for self-defense. In short, it would guarantee that they will not be able to shoot back if under attack.

Think about it and let it soak in—McCarty’s bill will guarantee that teachers cannot shoot back if under attack.

Breitbart News reported that McCarty’s bill does “not differentiate between guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens at schools versus guns in the hands of criminals who will attack regardless of gun-free policies.” Nor does the bill “list one crime committed by an armed teacher or staff member in the five California districts that allowed such personnel to be armed for defense of themselves and their students.” (As we have already noted, there have not been any such crimes committed.) Yet despite these things, McCarty’s AB 424 passed in the California Assembly on June 19 with strong Democratic support.

The bill now moves to the Senate, where it is scheduled for an Appropriations Committee hearing on Monday.

AB 424 is also sponsored by Democratic Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, who reacted to the December 2, 2015, firearm-based San Bernardino terror attack by pushing monthly gun purchase limits for law-abiding citizens. As with concealed carry for self-defense on K-12 campuses, the issue in the San Bernardino attack was not law-abiding citizens, but people who ignore any law that stands between them and the evil they intend to perpetrate. The only thing that can stop such people in the heat of the moment is a law-abiding citizen with a gun, yet California Democrats are working to make it harder and harder for law-abiding citizens to have the guns necessary to stop such attacks.